Jakarta. Claims circulating on social media that Indonesia’s weather modification operations pose dangers and fuel extreme weather are unfounded and contradict established science, the Indonesian Agency for Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics (BMKG) said on Tuesday.

BMKG said the narrative alleging that weather modification operations, known locally as OMC, cause unstable weather, cold pool phenomena, or future disasters is misleading.

Instead, BMKG stressed that weather modification is carried out as a disaster mitigation tool aimed at reducing risks from increasingly frequent extreme weather events.

“Weather modification is conducted because two conditions are occurring simultaneously. First, the environment’s capacity to absorb water is becoming more limited. Second, extreme rainfall is happening more frequently due to climate change,” BMKG said in a statement.

“In this situation, weather modification is used as a supporting tool to reduce disaster risk, not as a cause of weather disturbances,” it added.

BMKG also addressed widespread misunderstandings surrounding the cold pool phenomenon, which has been linked by some online posts to weather modification activities. The agency explained that cold pools are a natural meteorological process that occurs during heavy rainfall.

Cold air forms when rainwater evaporates beneath storm clouds, cooling the surrounding air mass. This denser air then sinks to the surface and spreads outward, a process that can occur during intense rainfall regardless of human intervention.

The agency further rejected claims that weather modification merely shifts rainfall to other regions. In practice, cloud seeding is conducted before clouds reach land so that precipitation falls over water bodies. Clouds that develop over land, meanwhile, are seeded earlier to help reduce rainfall intensity.

BMKG emphasized that environmental management remains the most critical factor in reducing hydrometeorological disaster risks. The shrinking number of retention ponds and water catchment areas across Greater Jakarta has weakened the region’s ability to absorb rainfall, increasing flood vulnerability.

For that reason, BMKG said weather modification should be viewed strictly as a complementary measure rather than a primary solution.

“Weather modification operations are not intended to create bad weather,” the agency said. “They are designed to help minimize disaster risks as the impacts of climate change become increasingly evident.”