Weather-Modification

Ever wished for different kind of weather, I don’t think your are the only one. Lots of sun on your birthday, no rain on your sisters wedding, perfect snow during your ski-vacation, no fog on your way to school or a higher temperature during summer. What if we can modify the weather ourself? It almost seems too perfect. However, with the advanced technologies that we have nowadays, it’s not a dream anymore. It is reality!

How does weather-modification work?

Thus, is it possible to modify the weather in whatever you like? No, it is more complicated than that. The last few decades, scientists tried a lot with the new method of weather-modification. Even though we have a lot of knowledge and advanced technologies, it is not possible to modify the weather in whatever you want. At this moment, we are only able to suppress, prevent, increase or decrease some kind of weather phenomena. Nevertheless, can we even talk about that ‘we are only able to’, because how crazy is it that we now have an impact in a big nature phenomena, such as weather.

However, lets talk a little bit more about how weather-modification works. There is a variety of different methods of modifying weather/atmospheric phenomena. I will tell you more about 2 of those methods.

Cloud-seeding

Clouds are bunch of water droplets or ice crystals floating in the sky. The water droplets are too small to fall as precipitation but they are large enough to form the clouds we see. When the water drops collide together, they become bigger and heavier and therefore fall down in the form of rain, snow or hail, depending on the temperature. Cloud-seeding can produce what we want more or less of. For example, more snow, more rain or smaller hail pellets. Cloud-seeding entails spraying particles in clouds, to which the water droplets will stick and therefore eventually fall as precipitation. Most of the time silver iodide is used as the sprayed particles. There two ways of spraying the particles in the clouds, namely ground-based machines and dedicated cloud-seeding airplanes.

Storm Prevention (Tropical Cyclones)

All around the world a lot of powerful storm appear, also known as tropical cyclones, and destroy everything that is in their way. Nonetheless, what if there is way to just make those tropical cyclones… go away? Or, at least make them weaker.

Cyclones form above the ocean water that is warmer than 26.5 Celsius degrees. Because of the high temperature of the ocean water, the warm surface can heat up the air above it. This is the key of the formation of a cyclone. So, how do we stop this? Well, to stop an engine, you remove its fuel. So, to stop a cyclone, you take away its warm water. ‘Marine cloud brightening’ is one of the ways of storm prevention. How does marine cloud brightening works.

  1. Airplanes spray out a mist of seawater behind it.
  2. Those droplets form nuclei for the condensation of new cloud particles that can bulk up lighter and fluffier clouds.
  3. The lighter and fluffier clouds reflect more sunlight back towards space, and therefore there will be less light hitting the ocean surface. This results in a smaller chance that the water reaches the critical 26.5-degree temperature needed for cyclone formation.

For what do we use weather-modification?

Weather-modification is not only used for just changing the weather. There are bigger and more important reasons behind it. The most common reasons are to increase the local water supply, you can use the cloud-seeding method for that, and preventing damaging weather, as I have explained in the storm prevention method. However, weather-modification is also used as a tactic of military or economic warefare, to use it against the enemy. However, weather-modification in warfare has been banned by the United Nations under the Environmental Modification Convention.

Who tried weather-modification?

All around the world, scientists are performing tests and operational projects for the research of weather-modification. The countries/continents with the largest programs are North America, Russia, Australia and France

North-America

Most weather modification programs in North America have dealt with hail, storms and rain. For example, the Alberta Hail Project in Canada in which they tried to suppresse hail, Project Stormfury was used to weaken tropical cyclones and last a project in South California. They tested weather-modification in the form of cloud-seeding. They have been cloud seeding with ground-based machines and dedicated cloud-seeding airplanes.

Russia

In 2016 Russia spent millions in cloud-seeding, to prevent rain during a public holiday. They use the method ‘Cloud-seeding’, because the rain can be forced out in certain places at a certain time. Therefore, it should be dry in the places where you wanted it to be dry.

Australia

In Sydney, eight months of rain came down in just four days during the summer of 2022. That was the third un-explainable major flood of the year. Experts say no single factor can explain this kind of weather, and therefore they just say that the warmer oceans are the reason behind it. However, a lot of people aren’t buying it and they think it is something bigger, such as cloud-seeding (weather-modification).

France

In France there is a hail prevention project. A scientist discovered that it is possible to increase the number of ice crystals and decrease the size of the precipitating elements in clouds. This results of this is fog dispersion, rain stimulation and hail suppression.

Now that you know more about weather modification, you may also have noticed that, it is unfortunately not possible to change the weather for your own use. At least not yet, but you never know what the future holds. However, keep in mind that warm weather and lot of sun is not always the best. Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness, has never danced in the rain.

9 November 2022

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