How it began
The Nation reports that King Bhumibol Adulyadej developed techniques for artificial rainmaking in 1955, after observing that people in northeastern Thailand were poor because of droughts and floods. The work earned him the title Father of Royal Rainmaking. He later improved the method with what the Thai royal rainmaking agency calls the Super Sandwich Technique. Voice of America reported in 2003 that the king, then 75, had been granted a patent for this more efficient technique, presented to him at his seaside residence in Hua Hin.
How it works
The method is a form of cloud seeding, in which chemicals are released into clouds from aircraft to induce rain. In the Super Sandwich technique, as Voice of America describes it, two airplanes introduce chemicals to both warm and cold clouds at different altitudes. The report says this makes rain over a wider area than earlier methods and helps determine more accurately where the rain will fall.
How it spread
According to the 2003 report, local press said that Indonesia and several Middle Eastern nations had asked for details of the technique, and officials at Thailand's Intellectual Property Department planned to register the patent abroad. In 2009 the World Intellectual Property Organization gave the king its first Global Leaders Award, recognizing him as an inventor and as a proponent of intellectual property as a tool of development.
What changed first
Voice of America reported that the technique would benefit farmers in drought areas and help build up water in reservoirs. A scholar of the Thai monarchy quoted in the report, Bruce Lockhart of the National University of Singapore, described it as an example of how strongly the king felt the monarchy needed to be useful to the country. It was the fourth patent awarded to the king.
