Mitigation of smog with the aid of weather modification can yet be regarded as an effective attempt. In this paper, the methods, principles and applications of weather modification carried out to mitigate smog are introduced. And their advantages, disadvantages and key problems are analyzed. Presently, there are three main ways of modifying the weather to mitigate smog, namely artificial precipitation, artificial fog dispersal and physical or chemical methods to eliminate dry haze. Artificial precipitation enhancement and super-cooled fog dissipation technology is relatively mature, but the artificial precipitation operation heavily depends on the geographical background and natural conditions. On the other hand, artificial warm mist elimination is not quite ready yet, and needs to develop more effective warm cloud catalyst. And water spray geo-engineering requires more in-depth theoretical analysis, and needs to combine with experiments to find efficient scavenging of PM_2.5. The urban air passage method does not apply to all cities, which is restricted by geographical environment and meteorological conditions. It is necessary, therefore, to speed up the development mode transformation and make more energy-saving emission reduction efforts in order to deal with the problem at its source.

smog  /  weather modification  /  artificial precipitation  /  mitigation of smog