Did you
know we can control the weather?
Weather
modification has been going on since the 1940’s in the United States! Water is needed by every living thing, so
this is an important topic that could drastically change our water resources. This modification is used to control
precipitation amount in areas that have depleted water resources due to growing
population, urbanization, climate change, changes in land, and pollution in
rivers. One way of increasing (or decreasing
in certain circumstances) precipitation is through cloud seeding. The southwest United States and Mexico
especially have looked into this new technology.
What is
cloud seeding?
Cloud
seeding is a type of weather modification that started in 1946 in
Massachusetts. It has been used throughout
the world but especially in semiarid regions such as Indonesia, Malaysia,
India, and Thailand. California and
Idaho within the United States have used cloud seeding for some time. Possible uses include increasing
precipitation amounts (drought relief), preventing hail damage, clearing fog,
and reducing storm intensity in such things as thunderstorms, tornadoes, and
tropical cyclones.
How
does it work?
Researchers
already know a small amount of the available moisture in clouds is made into
precipitation. Cloud seeding can help
increase this amount by dispersing special aerosols or very cold materials into
specific areas of clouds. These
chemicals once in a cloud, form ice crystals that create either snow or
rain. The most commonly used chemicals are
dry ice and silver iodide due to their great ability to increase the formation
of ice crystals. Studies have found
shallow, winter mountain clouds are the best for seeding and show 10-50%
increases in precipitation over several hundred square miles.
How is
cloud seeding measured?
The process of creating precipitation is
complex and can take many paths. This leads to research difficulties in
success, quantification, etc. Studies
show conflicting results with increases, decreases, or no effect in regions. It is hard to obtain accurate measurements
due to the lack of understanding within this system and the difference in each
trial.
What
are the advantages cloud seeding?
As you may
have noticed, this type of weather modification has tons of pros!
First you
have the obvious one: WE CAN MAKE IT RAIN. In various places, rain is
considered a very crucial source of water. In cases of areas with extreme
drought we can fight back and give people what they need to survive. In
addition to getting people water, there are other positive externalities.
Think
about this, long periods without rainfall can cause drought, drought damages
land and kills crops, without crops for food, the area may suffer from a food
famine.
If we can
use cloud seeding to prevent drought, then we can also use it to nourish the
land and produce crops. Cloud seeding would be very beneficial to developing
areas where they can improve their land and produce more crops. Furthermore, if
more crops are produced then they would be able to improve their economic
situation as well.
In
general, successful cloud seeding would improve the living conditions of
originally inhospitable areas.
In
addition, there is the fact that cloud seeding can actually be used to
influence large storms such as tornadoes. Obviously, this would be a he asset
because natural disasters can be prevented and damage caused by these storms
can be reduced.
So why
is it that there is so much controversy over this type of weather modification????
The main drawbacks of cloud seeding center around the
fact that the process is not widely understood, and all of the possible
consequences have not been fully studied.
Since the process of cloud seeding involves introducing chemicals into
the air, society’s main concern is if and how plants and animals will be
affected.
In the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Water
Act, silver iodide is classified as a hazardous material (Federal Water
Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, 1972). According to the report, if
the chemical enters the ground or a body of water in a particularly high
amount, it can damage the environment and affect the health of humans.
Even if cloud seeding does not use a high quantity of
chemicals, studies still need to be done on what long term exposure might cause
in areas that use cloud seeding frequently. One use may be okay, but constant
use in areas that do not receive much rainfall may cause a buildup of chemicals
that will have currently unforeseen consequences.
Yet another source of contention in the study of cloud
seeding is the more basic question of whether cloud seeding even works. The
answer is: Maybe?
It has yielded
results in some areas, but failed in others. This inconsistency is
uncomfortable for many people, and makes the process seem like a waste to many
to those who could fund it.
After all the doubt, why is it practiced?
Well,
first things first, people love to use technology to solve problems. Not that
it's a bad thing, after all there is plenty of technology that has benefited
man kind. But you can't argue that we often depend far too much on it. People
who believe in what is known as the technological critique believe that
technology will solve our problems. But what about the problems that result
from that? Can we keep simply using technology to fix everything, including the
weather?
Second,
we as people have a tendency to focus solely on the benefits with no regard for
the environment whatsoever. Like a 'growth machine', we are so concerned with expanding more,
controlling more, improving more, that we tend to forget what resources we are
destroying.
Another
point of controversy has to do with freedom. Since cloud seeding is hard to
calculate we can not pin point exactly where the rain will fall. What if when
we treat one area with cloud seeding, it rains on another? And what if they
don't want cloud seeding treatment? We would be taking away the freedom of one
area for another places benefit. Is that even fair?
Cloud seeding has been widely debated since its
creation, and the main issue stems from the fact that nobody actually knows
what the long-term effects of cloud seeding could be. Funding and support for
the process is low, because people do not know what could happen, and because
people don't know what could happen, funding is low. It is a vicious cycle,
that does not seem to be coming to an end.
So how do we put a stop to this? How can finally make a decision about cloud
seeding?
Well, it seems like the only logical option is to
actually test it. But then new problems arise, where do we test? How long? Who
should fund it? Obviously we can NOT just pour rain over a populated
area and watch what happens. Instead, we have to fully understand the problems
and dynamics of cloud seeding. After understanding the problem then we can work
on a solutions that are solid and beneficial.
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Source:
Battan, Louis. 1962. "Cloud Physics and Cloud Seeding.". Garden City, New York. Anchor Books
Bruintjes, Roelof T. 1999. "A Review of Cloud Seeding Experiments to Enhance Precipitation and Some New Prospects." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 80 (5): 805-820.
Daniel Rosenfeld and William L. Woodley, 1993: Effects of Cloud Seeding in West Texas: Additional Results and New Insights. J. Appl. Meteor., 32, 1848–1866.
Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, 33 U.S.C. (1972).
MacCracken, J. G., and J. O'Laughlin. 1996. "California Cloud Seeding and Idaho Precipitation." Journal of Weather Modification 28: 39-49.
2010. "Planned Weather Modification Through Cloud Seeding: An Information Statemment of the American Meteorological Society.".Boston, Massachusetts. American Meteorologist Society
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