Weather Modifications

Do they still do cloud seeding?

Cloud seeding is occasionally used by major ski resorts to induce snowfall. Eleven western states and one Canadian province (Alberta) have ongoing weather modification operational programs.

What chemical is used for cloud seeding?

silver iodide

Most cloud seeding operations, including those run by DRI, use a compound called silver iodide (AgI) to aid in the formation of ice crystals. Silver iodide exists naturally in the environment at low concentrations, and is not known to be harmful to humans or wildlife.

How long has cloud seeding been around?

The first experiments with cloud seeding were conducted in 1946 by American chemist and meteorologist Vincent J. Schaefer, and since then seeding has been performed from aircraft, rockets, cannons, and ground generators.

How expensive is cloud seeding?

In the winter of 2018-2019, water managers in Colorado said their central mountains cloud seeding program produced between 80,000 and 90,000 acre feet of water at a cost of $2.70 per acre foot—a bargain in a region where prices per acre foot can reach $30,000.Mar 4, 2020

Vincent Schaefer

Modern-day cloud seeding was launched in the lab of noted surface scientist Irving Langmuir at General Electric in 1946. His colleagues Vincent Schaefer and Bernard Vonnegut, brother of author Kurt, discovered that silver iodide could transform supercooled water vapor into ice crystals at temperatures of –10 to –5 °C.May 30, 2016

Is artificial rain expensive?

Silver is a heavy, toxic metal and it harms the health of plants, humans and animals. Cloud seeding is also a costly method. A foot of rainfall costs around USD 200.”Jul 24, 2021

Is AgI a solid liquid or gas?

Silver iodide is an inorganic compound with the formula AgI. The compound is a bright yellow solid, but samples almost always contain impurities of metallic silver that give a gray coloration. The silver contamination arises because AgI is highly photosensitive.

In Canada weather modification began in 1948 with a federal government experiment that used dry ice dispersed into clouds to stimulate rainfall. Under appropriate conditions, rainfall did result. However, as with most weather modification projects, the question of what would have happened naturally could not be properly answered. A randomly selected control population of unseeded clouds was not available for comparison with the population of seeded clouds. Nonetheless, in spite of scientific uncertainties, the 1950s saw a blossoming of rainmaking activities on the prairies for agricultural purposes, and in eastern Canada for forestry and hydroelectric power. Silver iodide was the seeding agent, dispersed variously from ground-based and airborne generators. These operations were not designed as scientific experiments, and later analyses were inconclusive.

In 1959 one of the first of a series of international statistical rainmaking experiments was mounted by the federal government in northeastern Ontario and northwestern Québec using aircraft to seed clouds with silver iodide. The outcome of this 4-year experiment on large-scale storm systems was an overall small decrease in rainfall. The decrease was not statistically significant and could have been the result of chance. However, an operational rainmaking project in the Lac Saint-Jean area, Qué, was perceived by residents as having been very successful - so successful, in fact, that "Operation Umbrella" was mounted and mothers petitioned the Québec government for vitamins for their children because of lack of sunshine. In 1965 the Québec minister of natural resources ordered all rainmaking activities in the province to cease.

In general, rainmaking declined throughout Canada during the 1960s. The exception was Alberta, where the interest in weather modification remained high and operational and research projects to suppress hail and increase rainfall continued into the 1980s.

Challenges

Weather modification projects usually have objectives that do not satisfy everyone. For example, farmers might want more rain while tourists would prefer more sunshine. In addition, although a target area is usually selected, the possibility exists the effects might be felt in nearby communities, provinces or countries. Consequently, some provinces and the federal government have legislation that enables them to monitor, and in some cases, licence, anyone attempting to modify the weather.

Randomized tests are scientifically considered the best method for evaluating weather modification. Considering the natural variability of precipitation and the generally low values of expected effects (10-20%), randomized tests would generally need to be conducted for 5-10 years before statistically significant results are obtained. This makes weather modification research costly and difficult to perform. There are also many unknowns concerning cloud microphysical processes and the generation of cloud systems. Consequently, much more work remains to be done before the weather can be modified in a controlled manner.

The cloud-seeding operations were initiated in the late 1990s in the UAE. By early 2001 these operations were being conducted in cooperation with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Colorado, USA, the Witwatersrand University in South Africa and the US Space Agency, NASA.

Russ Tanner runs what he claims is the largest "chemtrails" group on Facebook - Chemtrails Global Skywatch - which has more than 114,000 members. He calls so-called chemtrails "the largest crime against humanity in history".

In a post typical of the paranoia among conspiracy theorists, one of the memes he's posted in his group asks if chemtrails are "the modern implementation of eugenics and forced depopulation".

At his request, I contact Russ at 8am in the UK - 3am in Maine, where he lives.

"The main reason I wanted to do the interview at night is in our area we have an enormous amount of aerosol injection that takes place through the evening," he tells me.

"I can't sleep when the air is that concentrated with this fallout. It causes me physical symptoms. I taste and smell it. It burns my sinuses, causes inflammation, rises in blood pressure, stomach issues and headaches."

Both Russ and Suzanne claim to have conducted their own scientific tests. Suzanne says she even tested her dog.

"I had my soil tested. I had my hair tested," she says. "I was toxic in aluminium, barium, strontium, arsenic, manganese. And I live very healthily." She says her dog has been poisoned by a radioactive metal.

Russ claims he found six times the safe levels of aluminium in his rainwater, and both say the tests are solid proof of atmospheric spraying.

It's not known what's behind those test results - and they couldn't be independently verified. Scientists, of course, disagree that there is any large-scale plot by governments to spread chemicals around the globe.

A 2016 study by the Carnegie Institute for Science and the University of California Irvine surveyed 77 leading atmospheric scientists and geochemists. All but one, 98.7%, reported no evidence of a secret large-scale atmospheric spraying programme. The one scientist who dissented recorded unusually high levels of atmospheric barium in a remote area with low levels of barium in the soil. But to get from that one result to the idea that we're being secretly sprayed with chemicals requires a monumental leap of faith.

"Our goal is not to sway those already convinced that there is a secret, large-scale spraying programme - who often reject counter evidence as further proof of their theories - but rather to establish a source of objective science that can inform public discourse," the study's authors wrote.