Weather Modification A

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Weather Modification A PROSPECTS FOR WEATHER MODIFICATION A. F. Butchbaker During the 1930’s and 1940’s, several import­ Can man willfully change the weather around ant concepts or theories were developed regarding him? This question has puzzled man for centuries. the precipitation process. In 1933, a Swedish mete­ If man could control the weather, he would be orologist, Tor Bergeron, advanced the theory that able to reduce some of the damages and conse­ rain in appreciable amounts could be released quent economic losses caused by hurricanes, light­ principally by the presence of ice crystals formed ning, hail, and fog and to benefit society by en­ in or transported through water clouds. Five years hancing precipitation at the right time and place. later, a German physicist, Walter Findeisen, re­ There is much evidence that man can intentionally confirmed this discovery. This theory formed the modify or possibly eliminate many types of weather basis of present day techniques of seeding super­ hazards or will have the capabilities to do so in the cooled clouds. near future. In 1946, two General Electric Company scien­ HISTORY OF WEATHER MODIFICATION tists, Vincent Schaefer and Irving Langmuir, dis­ The history of weather modification has gone covered that dry ice caused the formation of ice through several eras. First was the mystical era. In crystals in miniature super-cooled clouds and the beginning, man tried to influence rainfall by thereby triggered the precipitation process. Shortly hope and faith, magic and ritual. Many primitive afterward, Bernard Vonnegut, a co-worker, demon­ societies have practiced some type of religious or strated that smoke of silver iodide crystals would ritualistic rainmaking. The ceremonies and rituals accomplish the same results. have varied from dowsing holy men with water to The 1950’s brought on the rainmaker era. Dur­ burying children up to their necks in the ground ing this era there were many operations in the in hopes that God would be sympathetic and drop western United States, and a few in the Midwest tears from the heavens. Witch doctors and medi­ and East, which employed ground based silver cine men in some societies continue to perform iodide smoke generators for cloud seeding to mystical rites in hopes of increasing rainfall. attempt to increase precipitation. Unfortunately, In the 1800’s it was observed that the use of few programs were used to evaluate the effective­ explosives in some of the great battles, such as ness of the seeding operations. Meanwhile, the in the Civil War, caused significant rains. However, drouth in many areas of the country and the experiments in rainmaking based upon these theor­ claims of some of rainmakers and criticism with­ ies proved inconclusive. Another belief focused in the scientific community prompted Congress to around the possibility of increasing rainfall from create a special committee to study weather con­ convective currents caused by forest fires. An trol. In 1957, this committee reported on the state American meteorologist, James Espy, recommend­ of the art at that time. It found that precipitation ed that farmers burn brush and timber in dry was probably increased 10 to 15 per cent by seed­ weather to stimulate rainfall. Other early scientists ing storms during the winter and spring months suggested the use of extremely cold substances, in the mountainous areas, and supercooled stratus- such as liquid carbon dioxide or liquid air, which type clouds (low hanging clouds) could sometimes upon release into the atmosphere would result be dissipated by seeding with aircraft. There was in condensation and precipitation. These early at­ some theoretical basis at that time, but little exper­ tempts were on a hit-or-miss basis with virtually imental proof that lightning or hail could be sur- no knowledge of the physical principles of pre­ pressed. cipitation. In the 1960’s, the scientific community became Dr. Butchbaker was associate professor, Department interested in the possibilities of weather modifica­ of Agricultural Engineering. tion. This was prompted partially by seeing the 13 dramatic effects of artificially modifying clouds. Fog Dissipation. Also, two reports were released in 1966 which in­ There are two types of fog: cold fog, where dicated increased scientific and governmental in­ the water droplets are below 32 degrees Fahren­ terest in weather modification, one by the National heit; and warm fog, where the water droplets are Science Foundation (12), and the other by the above 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Cold fog dispersal National Academy of Science (21). These two re­ operations are based on the physical principles ports were optimistic about future weather modi­ that super-cooled water droplets cannot remain fication. liquid, but must be turned to solid crystals below During the past decade, significant changes -40 degrees Fahrenheit. Thus, dropping dry ice occurred which created an attitude making possi­ from an airplane or injecting liquid propane from ble a more rational and systematic exploration of a ground unit makes the cold fog precipitate out the potential for weather modification! These into fine crystals. changes were derived primarily from (1) formula­ Another cold fog dispersal method employs tion of more complete theories of the atmospheric helicopters to fly slowly across the top surface of processes, (2) the use of high speed digital comput­ a cloud or fog deck using the downward action of ers to solve, the complex mathematical formulas the rotors to force clear (normally drier) air from of the atmospheric processes, (3) the ability to mea­ above the cloud top down into the cloud deck. The sure and observe the atmosphere with radar tech­ air, upon descending, entrains and mixes with the niques, meteorological satellites, and airplanes, cloudy air and causes evaporation in the cloud. plus many other advances in instrumentation, and This method has been used to create clear trails in (4) significant advances and statistical procedures stratus clouds and fog over Thule Air Base, Green­ for resolving questions of cause and effect relations land (11). and field experimentation. Warm fog dispersal techniques have eluded researchers for many years. Only recently has PRESENT STATUS OF warm fog dispersal become a reality, Warm fog WEATHER MODIFICATION dispersal is based on the principle that when small To look at the present state of the art of water droplets are combined into bigger droplets, weather modification, different scales ranging the number of droplets per unit volume of air be­ from small-scale to large-scale weather phenomena come less and visibility correspondingly improves. might be considered. Moreover, when the water droplets grow to a size Micro-climate Alteration. where they cannot remain suspended in the air When one looks at the climate near the they will fall out in a fine drizzle—again improv­ ground surrounding plants and animals, one is ing visibility. Hygroscopic materials, such as salt concerned mainly with preventing frost, suppress­ (sodium chloride), are generally used as a seeding ing evaporation, or reducing the effects of wind agent for warm fog. The material has been seeded or temperature. The most important methods of by airplane and also dispensed through ground- influencing soil micro-climates are irrigation, based fog machines. A California airport has drainage, mulching, soil tillage, and windbreaks. found about 70 per cent success for this method Frost protection of plants can be performed (10). by using several different methods. A popular Precipitation Increase. method of frost protection is using a sprinkler In 1966, the views of the Panel on Weather irrigation system. Heat is released when ice forms and Climate Modification of the National Academy around the leaves. The released heat reduces the of Sciences (21) on the prospects of modifying possibility of the temperature becoming cool clouds and storm systems to stimulate precipitation enough to freeze the leaf. Other methods of frost were summarized: protection include the use of heaters or wind “There is increasing but still somewhat machines. ambiguous statistical evidence that pre­ There are many ways to control snow move­ cipitation from some types of clouds in ment due to wind. Vegetative cover, dead or alive, storm systems can be moderately increas­ is one of the most effective and most economical ed or redistributed by seeding techni­ controls of soil and snow movement. Windbreaks ques.” provide a formidable barrier to the wind. Other Results in South Dakota (16) have established barriers are crops in narrow rows, snow fences, beyond any reasonable doubt the ability to modify solid wood or stone fences, and earthen banks (20). individual cumulus clouds or portions of continu- 14 ous cloud decks. In many cases, modification treat­ ually dispensed into updraft regions from airplanes ments of the clouds were,followed by precipitation by burning the silver iodide-in-acetone solution or from the base of the cloud to the ground. The re­ by burning flares containing silver iodide. In Rus­ sults of this project indicated that cloud seeding sia, artillery shells containing silver iodide are produced significant increases in rainfall, especial­ fired directly into the hail formation zone of the ly when cloud systems moved from the southwest. storm. Reviewing projects over the past 10 years (5, 7, 16), seems to indicate an average increase of 10 to 15 per cent in the amount of rain reaching the ground. Note that this figure applies only to an in­ crease in rainfall from clouds which are already raining or late rainfall from air masses which do not contain a natural reservoir of water vapor or from clouds which are too shallow to contain the necessary liquid water content. Rainfall patterns and drouth cycles are pro­ duced by variations in the global circulation of large scale air masses. Cloud seeding is ineffective if the upper level air masses are dry. The answer to drouth problems will not come from cloud seeding, but will require means for influencing the large-scale motions of moisture- bearing air aloft.
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