Paul Chehade - History of Weather Modification Earlier History - Chapter II of VI.

Paul Chehade – History of  Weather Modification Earlier History – Chapter II 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.

Earlier History:

It is commonly stated that cloud seeding was invented in 1946 by employees of the General Electric Research Laboratory. This “fact” is wrong. There were at least three earlier scientific attempts to modify weather:

Prof. Emory Leon Chaffee at Harvard University dispensed charged sand from an airplane during 1924, to attempt to modify weather.

W. Veraart in 1930 dropped dry ice into clouds, in an attempt to modify weather. His technique and results were apparently published only in his book, which was in the Dutch language.

Prof. Henry G. Houghton of MIT sprayed hygroscopic solutions into fogs in 1938 to dissipate the fog.

None of these early scientists had adequate financial support for their research, so society was unable to benefit from their ideas. Looking back in time, it is clear that it is not enough to have a good idea or theoretical scientific insight into a problem. One must also have the financial resources to pay both salaries and expenses of scientists with ideas and insight. General Electric provided such resources to Langmuir and Vonnegut, and General Electric management was able to quickly arrange contracts with the U.S. Military.

Early History of Weather Modification at General Electric:

There was concern about legal liability from the earliest days of cloud seeding.

At the time of his discovery, Dr. Vonnegut worked in the research laboratory of Dr. Irving Langmuir at General Electric Company in Schenectady, New York. Their initial work on cloud seeding was funded by the Company, not the U.S. Government. General Electric rented an airplane and released dry ice into clouds on four days during November and December 1946. The last day of seeding coincided with the “heaviest snowfall of the winter” in the Schenectady, New York area, which made the Company management concerned about the possibility of cloud seeding experiments causing harmful weather. A history of early cloud seeding produced by General Electric Company says:

It was recognized that the possibility of liability for damage from cloud-seeding experiments was a very worrisome hazard in this new form of cloud experimentation. Since such a threat to the share owner’s money would not be balanced by any known gain to the Company’s products or business, there was a great reluctance to incur risks of uncertain but potentially great magnitude.

This was another  reason that any seeding experiments be conducted under government sponsorship. No further seeding flights were made until such sponsorship was provided.

Just two months later, the U.S. Army Signal Corps began a contract with General Electric for cloud modification experiments. Part of this contract stated:

The entire flight program shall be conducted by the government, using exclusively government personnel and equipment, and shall be under the exclusive direction and control of such government personnel.

Management at General Electric Company  immediately notified all those involved in the research “that it is essential that all of the General Electric employees who are working on this project refrain from asserting any control or direction over the flight program. The General Electric Research Laboratory responsibility is confined strictly to laboratory work and reports”.

This rigid division of contractual responsibilities was designed to isolate General Electric from any tort responsibility for harmful weather that might be caused by cloud seeding.

Seed hurricane:

On 13 Oct 1947, the U.S. Military (as part of Project Cirrus involving General Electric) dropped 80 kg of dry ice into a hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean, safely off the eastern coast of the USA. The hurricane changed direction and traveled inland, where it did extensive damage to property in Georgia. The U.S. military classified the data from the seeding of this hurricane to frustrate litigation.

Attorneys for General Electric reviewed and censored Langmuir’s scientific publications to avoid tort liability for damage by this hurricane. A biography of Langmuir says “For the first time in Langmuir’s long career [38 years] at GE, officials occasionally wanted to know in advance what he was going to say in his public reports.”

Langmuir believed that there was approximately a 99% probability that this hurricane’s change of direction was the result of the cloud seeding. Langmuir’s opinion about the effect of the cloud seeding on this hurricane is not mentioned in any of his publications in scientific journals, but is mentioned in the 1953 final report on Project Cirrus, which was classified by the U.S. Military. It is likely that attorneys for General Electric directed Langmuir not to make any public admission that cloud seeding caused the hurricane to change direction, in order to avoid litigation against General Electric by victims of the hurricane.

Subsequent analysis of the data by meteorologists showed that this hurricane had already begun to change its direction when the seeding was done. A modern assessment is: “… it seems very unlikely that the 1947 seeding could have had much affect on the hurricane except for the seeded clouds.”

Langmuir’s cloud seeding in New Mexico:

The General Electric / U.S. Military research project released AgI and dry ice in the vicinity of Albuquerque, NM during October 1948 and July 1949. Langmuir initially claimed that this release caused rain all over the state of New Mexico and possibly in Kansas.

Langmuir’s group continued to release AgI in New Mexico between November 1949 and July 1951. Langmuir claimed that the release of AgI modified the weather, not only in the state of New Mexico, but also more than 1000 kilometers downwind. Langmuir’s claim was rejected by the meteorological community, because Langmuir’s evidence was inadequate.

The release of AgI “was discontinued in July, 1951 during the great floods in Kansas and adjacent states.” This flood was no ordinary flood: the 13 July 1951 flood at Kansas City was described as “the most devastating flood in the nation’s history”; 17 people died as a direct result of that flood, despite weather forecasts and warnings. It is still unknown what effect, if any, the AgI release in New Mexico had on rain and floods in Kansas. The modern consensus of meteorologists seems to be that the release of AgI in New Mexico probably had no effect on the rainfall/floods in Kansas, but if there was an effect, the effect would be only a small enhancement of the total rainfall. As discussed below, perhaps the more interesting lesson is not one of science, but ethics: Langmuir sincerely believed that AgI release was modifying weather at long distances from the point of release, yet he continued to engage in such weather modification for two years, despite the possibility of harm from such modification, and desp
ite the lack of consent by affected people.

Other historical details:

On 27 December 1950, the General Electric Company announced that it would no longer enforce its patents on weather modification methods. By effectively putting its weather modification patents into the public domain, General Electric further isolated itself from tort liability for harm that might arise from weather modification technology that was developed by employees of General Electric.

Dr. Vonnegut, appearing in 1952 before a U.S. Senate committee that was considering legislation on weather modification, said:

Theory has predicted and experiments are confirming the fact that a few pounds of silver iodide released into the atmosphere in the form of fine particles can exercise a profound influence over the weather hundreds of miles away from the point of release. Clearly no private individual or group can be permitted to carry on operations over thousands or hundreds of thousands of square miles.

The potentialities, both for good and bad, which attend silver-iodide seeding are so large that the development and use of this technique must be placed in the hands of the Federal Government.

Despite Dr. Vonnegut’s clear insight into the nature of the problem, the U.S. Congress never passed a statute regulating weather modification.

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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