Paul Chehade - History of Weather Modification Support of Basic Scientific Research Chapter VI of VI:

Paul Chehade – History  of  Weather Modification Support of Basic Scientific Research Chapter VI of VI:

Weather modification is the effort of man to change naturally occurring weather, for the benefit of someone. The best-known kind of weather modification is cloud seeding, with the goal of producing rain or snow, suppressing hail , or weakening hurricanes.

Support of Basic Scientific Research:

Many of the problems with the law of weather modification are attributable to our lack of basic scientific understanding of how clouds produce rain, and how cloud seeding modifies processes in the cloud. Specifically, the lack of basic scientific understanding has led to:

Perplexing problems with deciding where, when, and how to seed clouds.

Misleading advertising and false promises to farmers and ranchers, who are customers of weather modification.

Uncertainty about how government should regulate cloud seeding (i.e., many states have repeatedly enacted and repealed statutes regulating weather modification, in a blind struggle to make appropriate laws).

Allegedly insurmountable problems for plaintiffs in proving that cloud seeding caused the harm that they suffered, so that courts were unable to provide a remedy to possibly injured plaintiffs.

Cotton & Pielke, show that financial support from the U.S. Government for weather modification research steadily increased from 1960 until 1972, crashed in 1974-75, increased in 1976, and steadily declined during 1979-84.

Writing just ten years after the invention of AgI cloud seeding, Prof. Henry G. Houghton of MIT said:

Early overoptimistic claims of increases of rainfall of several hundred per cent have given way to much more modest figures. In spite of increased scientific knowledge and experience with many rain-making projects we still lack a definitive and generally-accepted statement on the quantitative capabilities of rain making.

Many past failures have doubtless resulted from seeding the wrong storms and from a failure of active seeding materials to reach the proper regions of the clouds. The full potential of rain making will not be realized until we acquire more complete knowledge of natural precipitation processes and refine seeding technology.

A prerequisite to the control of any phenomenon is complete knowledge of its operation. Our understanding of atmospheric processes is still too incomplete to permit us seriously to propose methods of control. Nevertheless our recent progress in meteorological research is such that it no long appears visionary to talk about weather control.

It would be unthinkable to embark on such a vast experiment before we are able to predict with some certainty what the effects would be. Without such knowledge the effects might be catastrophic or, as a lesser evil, there might be no noticeable effect after expenditure of large sums. A much more reasonable approach lies in continuation of basic research.

In his final paragraph, Prof. Houghton said:

All too often we Americans confuse technological progress with research. Basic research is the search for an understanding of nature’s mysteries with no immediate practical applications in mind. The life-blood of technological progress is the results of such basic research and we can no longer depend on other countries to supply this vital plasma. Basic research in meteorology can be justified solely on the economic importance of improved weather forecasting but the possibility of weather control makes it mandatory.

From the perspective of more than 45 years later, Prof. Houghton was exactly correct in calling for more basic scientific research. Unfortunately, politicians and government bureaucrats were oblivious to Houghton’s wisdom. Thirty five years later, the American Meteorological Society’s policy statement (AMS, 1992) echoed Houghton’s earlier statement.

As one example of the practical value of basic research, Vonnegut in 1947 was able to use published measurements of the size of the atomic lattice in various materials, to find the optimum material for nucleating ice crystals. Vonnegut (1947) cited measurements for ice published in London, England in 1929 and measurements for AgI published in Amsterdam, the Netherlands in 1928. Thus, basic research in crystallography led, twenty years later, to the discovery of the optimum material for nucleating ice in clouds, a finding of immense practical importance for weather modification. It is inherently not foreseeable what the benefits of basic scientific research will be. Again, quoting from Prof.

Houghton:

… I wish to emphasize that all aspects of basic research in meteorology should be carried forward. For all we know some other phenomenon such as atmospheric electricity may hold the key to weather control. No matter what happens we can cannot lose on this course. Even if weather control proves to be impossible, the knowledge gained from a sound research program cannot fail to result in improved weather forecasts and many other, as yet unimagined, benefits to mankind.

A famous atmospheric physicist wrote in 1958:

… we face here one more of those many instances in the history of science where far too little research support was given to investigations while they were apparently of only academic interest. When, after 1946, there seemed to exist some prospect of control over a natural phenomenon whose economic value is so high, support of cloud physics research jumped by, what I would estimate must surely have been, a factor of two to three orders of magnitude, and total numbers of workers in the field must have increased by a factor of something like two orders of magnitude. Yet so complex are the phenomena one encounters in attempting rational modification of precipitation, that even after a decade of investigations at these unprecedented levels of support, meteorologists still face many very fundamental questions not yet answered. Had fundamental meteorological research been sustained during earlier decades at a level in keeping with the importance of meteorological phenomena in all man’s affairs, this embarrassing dearth of basic observational and theoretical background would not have so limited rapid progress toward evaluation of, and improvement upon, the discovery in 1946 of means of modifying cloud processes.

It is particularly disappointing, but not really surprising (in view of the following paragraphs in this essay), that financial support for work in atmospheric physics began a rapid decline in 1979.

Government has short-term view:

Both legislators and government executives in the USA work on time scales between two and six years, which are the lengths of election cycles. Cotton & Pielke  noted, these legislators and executives demand “significant progress” within this short duration.

Their unrealistic demands cause several problems:

preventing consistent long-term (i.e., tens of years) financial support for scientific research. The government’s short-attention span disrupts scientists’ careers, as scientists are forced to chase the latest fad in government funding. Scientific research is difficult enough without politicians and government bureaucrats disrupting long-term financial support for research.

Overemphasizing achieving practical goals (i.e., developing useful technology), without first understanding the basic scientific principles. Such a policy puts the cart before the horse. There are two bad effects of this policy. First, solving practical problems is made unreasonably difficult, since workers have inadequate knowledge and must guess instead of design. Second, when a solution to a practical problem is found, adverse side effects of that solution are unknown, because of the lack of basic scientific knowledge.

Leading scientists to make false promises of quick benefits from research, in exchange for financial support for that research. Cotton & Pielke remark on “overselling” the promise or benefits of cloud seeding:

The claims that only a few more years of research and development will lead to a scientifically-proven technology that will contribute substantially to water management and severe weather abatement, were either great exaggerations, or just false.

The hyperbole of scientists doing research, and also of commercial cloud seeders, is unprofessional and may diminish the trust that laymen have in scientists.

This is not the place to discuss the complex subject of how the government in the USA has failed to properly support basic scientific research since the mid-1970s. However, it is important to understand that the resulting lack of basic scientific understanding underlies the failure of law (i.e., both statutes, regulations, and common law) to adapt to the new technologies offered by weather modification.

Worse, meager financial support for scientific research means that the benefits of science and technology are long delayed to society who wants to avoid to avoid harm from natural weather (e.g., drought, floods, hail, hurricanes, etc.).

Suggestions:

Basic scientific research should occur first. Only after the applicable scientific principles are understood can we have a rational application of law to weather modification, such as determining in tort litigation if a cloud seeder caused a flood or drought, or determining if a cloud seeder was negligent.

Good laws and good regulations cannot be based on possibilities and conjectures.

Two-step process:

Until there is scientific proof that a weather modification technique is both safe and effective, every attempt to use that technique should be part of a scientific research program that is carefully designed, conducted, and analyzed. It is essential that every such program be reported in archival professional journals and books, to share knowledge and to prevent repetition of past mistakes, as well as to provide a basis for public recognition of a technique as safe and effective.

After there is scientific proof that a weather modification technique is both safe and effective, then that technique may be used in operational programs. However, it would still be a good policy to have a government agency review and approve each operational plan, before granting a permit for operational weather modification.

Above, I mentioned the fact that commercial cloud seeders have generally been reluctant to publish new knowledge that they create, as companies are loath to help their competitors. Further, small companies cannot afford to pay the entire cost of basic scientific research projects. To solve the conflicting goals between (1) the need of society for unbiased scientific information and (2) the desire of commercial cloud seeders to be profitable, the federal government should give generous financial support for basic scientific research in a broad range of atmospheric sciences, including scientific evaluations of unproven weather modification techniques.

I suggest that society ought to insist that basic scientific research be published in exchange for the government financially supporting that research, and also in exchange for society tolerating the risk of harm from weather modification experiments.

History of Weather Modification Basic Technology – Chapter I
History of Weather Modification Earlier History – Chapter II
History of Weather Modification Problems with Experiments – Chapter III
History of Weather Modification American Meteorology Society’s – Chapter IV
History of Weather Modification Ethical Issues – Chapter V
History of Weather Modification Support of Basic Scientific Research Chapter VI

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