Hail—pieces of ice that form and fall from clouds instead of snow or rain—has always been a problem for farmers in some areas of the United States. Hail pellets can fall with great force and destroy crops in the field. Over the last few decades, a method of reducing hail, called "cloud seeding," has been tried. In cloud seeding, the chemical silver iodide is sprayed on storm clouds from an airplane. This makes the clouds produce harmless rain or snow instead of hail. Several pieces of evidence suggest that cloud seeding has been effective in protecting crops from hail.
Laboratory experiments
Experiments in the laboratory support the idea that cloud seeding is effective. Hail usually forms water vapor that is close to the freezing point However, when experimenters added silver iodide to cold water vapor in the laboratory, they often observed light snow forming instead of hail pellets.
Evidence from Asia
There is evidence about the effectiveness of cloud seeding from several countries around the world. In some Asian countries, for example, cloud seeding has been successfully used to control precipitation in urban areas. These positive results suggest that cloud seeding should also be effective in protecting fields and farms in the United States.
Local studies
A few local studies also support the value of cloud seeding. One study conducted in a farming region in the central United States, for example, directly monitored crop damage due to hail. The study found that in an area where cloud seeding was used there was reduced hail damage compared to previous years.
The reading and lecture discuss "Cloud Seeding". The article states that the method of spraying silver iodide on to storm clouds prevent the formation of disastrous hail storms instead they produce harmless rain that has been effective according to lab experiments, Researches from Asian countries, and local studies. However, the lecture refutes all arguments made by the reading passage and presenting a counter-argument for each of the assertions.
First of all, the lecturer argues that the in-vitro experiments may be true because it can produce snow instead of hail. She elaborates this point by telling that Cloud Seeding may completely reduce the precipitation in the seeding area and as a result, either snow, rain, or hail may not form which is highly destructive to the crops. So, the wide destruction of crops can occur not due to hail storms but drought- lack of water. This point contrasts with the key point in the reading. The reading suggests silver iodide when treated with cold water vapor can produce light snow instead of hail pellets.
Secondly, according to the professor, the skies of Asian countries have high pollution and the pollutants can interact with the cloud seeding producing favorable effects, whereas the unpolluted skies of the USA may not interact the same for cloud seeding. Thereby the tutor precisely disproves the key point in the reading.
Third, the passage posits in a local study, the area where cloud seeding implemented showed less hail damage in contrast to other areas. Nevertheless, the professor claims that this theory is not convincing either because not the specific area showed less damage but the whole region showed fewer hail storms. Hence, it may be due to natural variations not due to cloud seeding.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, hence, however, if, may, nevertheless, second, secondly, so, third, whereas, in contrast, as a result, first of all, in contrast to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 5.0 10.4613686534 48% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 5.04856512141 178% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 7.30242825607 110% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 12.0772626932 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 12.0 22.412803532 54% => OK
Preposition: 31.0 30.3222958057 102% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 5.01324503311 100% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1496.0 1373.03311258 109% => OK
No of words: 287.0 270.72406181 106% => OK
Chars per words: 5.21254355401 5.08290768461 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.11595363751 4.04702891845 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.67606707096 2.5805825403 104% => OK
Unique words: 160.0 145.348785872 110% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.557491289199 0.540411800872 103% => OK
syllable_count: 436.5 419.366225166 104% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 3.25607064018 92% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.23620309051 121% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.51434878587 132% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 2.5761589404 39% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 13.0 13.0662251656 99% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 21.2450331126 104% => OK
Sentence length SD: 69.8244629145 49.2860985944 142% => OK
Chars per sentence: 115.076923077 110.228320801 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.0769230769 21.698381199 102% => OK
Discourse Markers: 11.0 7.06452816374 156% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 4.33554083885 115% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 4.45695364238 112% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.27373068433 70% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.221036575802 0.272083759551 81% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0736944385952 0.0996497079465 74% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0487299121211 0.0662205650399 74% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.123573563255 0.162205337803 76% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0525155579041 0.0443174109184 118% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.1 13.3589403974 106% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 53.8541721854 107% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 11.0289183223 97% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.94 12.2367328918 106% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.35 8.42419426049 111% => OK
difficult_words: 84.0 63.6247240618 132% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 10.7273730684 103% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 10.498013245 103% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.2008830022 98% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 80.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 24.0 Out of 30
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.