How do you feel about several states having weather modification programs?

I’ve been aware of cloud seeding for several years.

Do you consider it a bad thing?

I can think of some wildfires where it’d be nice to get some induced rainstorms… can they do that?

@patty_melt

I do not know enough about it, which is why I’m asking.
Ive brought it up to some people and was met with “that’s BS and conspiracy theory….”

I do remember reading about it during the Olympics in China, because they were using it to knock down pollution.

I’ve known about cloud-seeding since I was a kid in the 1970s. “Weather modification” makes it sounds ominous but it works only on a small scale.

@call_me_jay

But they are still calling these “research projects.”
Doesn’t that mean they are still learning and researching this?
Is it an exact science?
The states themselves call them weather modification projects.

@SquirrelEStuff I don’t know. Feel free to read the reports you posted.

It’s an idea that’s been around for like a century. But it terms of reliability it’s about as effective as praying for rain.

It’s been going on for decades, and as @Darth Algar states is
usually a reflection of levels of desperation.

Right, it has been going on since there was flight, and even before. I think that in the 1800s they would have large bonfires that theoretically sent something up in the atmosphere. (which they didn’t understand back then)

I know that in Colorado and Utah, there is a lot of cloud seeding over the mountains for better snowfall and snowpack.

I think that @Call_Me_Jay is correct. If it works in the first place (which is open to question) it would be so localized as to be not worth worrying about.

Meh, man can fuck with nature as much as he wishes but it can never be altered entirely in his wish. There will never be anything to stop hurricanes or droughts, ever.
In the end I think we can only make things worse and there is nothing you can do to stop it. It’s probably already too late.

Irony some who do it don’t believe in climate change.

The next time the people on other sites accuse you of being a conspiracy theory nut, cite the following articles:

Wikipedia: Cloud Seeding

Wikipedia: Weather Modification

It’s twoo! it’s twoo!

You will find similar articles under the same titles in Encyclopedia Britannica, but I can’t access that because my subscription ran out and nowadays I prefer ignorance over poor nutrition. Priorities change.

Some sort of weather modification has been going on for a long time. Not mentioned in either article above is the observation by artillery officers in the Napoleon campaigns that after a day of rapid, ceaseless cannonades, there would be a downpour for a couple of days. As an example, one can easily cite the Battle of Waterloo where after the second day, the mud was so deep, Napoleon couldn’t ride from his tent headquarters to his flanks to see how his army was doing and that this contributed greatly to his defeat by Wellington. Even if he could ride, he probably wouldn’t be able to see much due to the driving rains.

Field Marshall Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Napoleon’s top artillery strategist, wrote about this in his memoirs and used his royal artillery to produce rain to combat droughts with some success after he became King of Sweden.

Cannonfire was also used in ancient China during dry times. The famous author of The Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, wrote in his History of the Boer Wars, that the Boers of South Africa were said to have successfully used cannonfire to produce rain until they decided that it screwed too much with the will of God and outlawed it.

Man has always struggled to bring nature to heel in one way or another. Right or wrong, according to some verses in the Old Testament, it is not only our right, but also our duty as stewards of all things on earth according to God. This interpretation of our responsibility to the world we live may not ring true to a lot of people nowadays, but it is evidence that man has had the intent and desire to bend natural to his own whims as far back as 5,000 years.

I would like to see what the Sanskrits have to say about this.

From what I understand results are questionable, unless it has improved, so it might be a waste of tax payer money. I really know very little about the science, or about possible bad consequences.

If it does work my gut reaction is I’m not so sure it’s a good idea to screw around with nature like that, but then again, nature does some crappy things so maybe it’s ok. I naturally have dry skin, I don’t just leave it alone and let my face crack open, I add moisturizer.

Isn’t only used as a way to enhance the amount of rain that falls on an area? It doesn’t actually create clouds and rain right? So, areas under severe drought can’t really be helped much if that’s the case I guess.

If we could disrupt tornados and hurricanes that would be nice.

If smoke from Napoleonic cannons could cause downpours, I wonder why massive wildfires causing vast areas of smoke for weeks don’t seem to be resulting in any rain at all.

@Zaku – climate. France is/was forested, Montana / Idaho / Eastern Washington /Wyoming / Colorado / Utah, etc., are all high desert.

Cloud seeding can only do so much. A conducive climate is important as well.

Thanks @elbanditoroso . Did rain stop the ones in British Columbia? Also,the Chetco Bar fire in SW Oregon is enormous (largest in the USA? Over 100k acres.) and that’s forest and the Oregon coast often gets rain and so on, but I suppose it’s just been too hot and dry?