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Weather control is the act of manipulating or altering certain aspects of the environment to produce desirable changes in weather. FEASIBILITY Most weather phenomena are fed by massive amounts of solar energy (collected by the earth's surface and atmosphere) and take place in very large volumes of air. Direct manipulation of the weather by humans is in most cases not feasible, simply due to the huge amount of energy that would be required. It is generally quite feasible to control "weather" on much smaller scales. Indoor systems that modify temperature, humidity, and particulate counts are known as Climate Control . Some human activities ''are'' known to have an effect on the weather outdoors, because they cause physical changes to wide areas, changing the shape of natural flows of energy and material. Large-scale, long time-period effects are generally known as Climate Change . For example, global economic activity producing Carbon Dioxide and other gases has been found to contribute to Global Warming , while the emission of particulate matter tends to have a cooling effect (and for example lead to historical concerns about Global Cooling ). Unsustainable farming techniques contribute to Desertification in many areas around the world, and historical events such as the Dust Bowl in the United States. Deforestation can also affect the local water cycle. The release of large amounts of soot or dust particles into the atmosphere causes cooler surface temperatures. Locally, this is believed to have occurred near oil fires in Kuwait after the Gulf War , and that a catastrophic global cooling would occur due to atmospheric pollution after a major Nuclear War - see Nuclear Winter . It is also sometimes possible to influence weather-related events where only a slight change is needed to change the outcome. For example, citrus farmers often try to prevent Frost damage to their crops by packing them in insulating plant material, by spraying them with water, or by using a Selective Inverted Sink . Only a small difference in surface temperature is needed to prevent frost, if the feared cold snap is relatively mild. HISTORY OF WEATHER CONTROL es concoct a Brew to summon a Hail storm.]] Some American Indians had rituals which they believed could induce rain. The Finnish People , on the other hand, were believed by others to be able to control weather. As a result, Viking s refused to take Finns on their oceangoing raids. Remnants of this superstition lasted into the twentieth century, with some ship crews being reluctant to accept Finnish sailors. The early modern era saw people observe that during battles the firing of Cannon s and other firearms often initiated precipitation. '' was a sacred stone kept outside the Walls Of Rome in a temple of Mars . When Rome suffered from Drought , the stone was dragged into the city.Sir James Frazer , '' The Golden Bough '', ch. 5 (abridged edition), "The Magical Control of Rain" The Berwick Witches of Scotland were found guilty of using Black Magic to summon storms to murder King James VI Of Scotland by seeking to sink the ship upon which he travelled.Smout, T. C. ''A History of the Scottish People 1560-1830'', pp 184 - 192 Scandinavian witches allegedly claimed to sell the Wind in bags or magically confined into wooden staves; they sold the bags to seamen who could release them when becalmed. Adam Of Bremen and Ole Worm are quoted as maintaining this in Grillot de Givry's ''Witchcraft, Magic and Alchemy'' (Frederick Publications, 1954). In various towns of Navarre , Prayer s petitioned Saint Peter to grant rain in time of drought. If the rain was not forthcoming, the statue of St Peter was removed from the church and tossed into a river.Frazer, ''supra''. Perhaps the first example of practical weather control is the Lightning Rod . In the 1950s, computer scientist John Von Neumann , an early theorizer on weather control, surmised that if Earth were to enter another Ice Age , a preventative solution would be to dump dirt (or spray soot from cropdusting planes) on the surface of the planet's glaciers. He noted that this would significantly change their reflectivity ( Albedo ), and thus increase the solar energy retained by the planet. Such a strategy would require repeated applications, as storms would cover some portion of the soot with new snow until their frequency and range abated. The theoretical efficacy of von Neumann's proposal remains to be examined. Wilhelm Reich performed Cloudbusting experiments in the 1950s to 1960s, the results of which are controversial. CLOUD SEEDING FOR RAIN Cloud Seeding is a common technique intended to trigger rain, but evidence on its effectiveness is mixed. Critics generally contend that claimed successes occur in conditions which were going to rain anyway. It is used in several different countries, including the United States , the People's Republic Of China , and Russia . In the People's Republic of China there is actually a perceived dependency upon it in dry regions, which believe they are actually increasing annual rainfall by firing silver iodide rockets into the sky where rain is desired. In the United States, Dry Ice or silver iodide may be injected into a cloud by aircraft, or even from the ground, in an attempt to increase rainfall; there are even companies dedicated to this form of weather modification. STORM PREVENTION Project Stormfury was an attempt to weaken Tropical Cyclone s by flying Aircraft into Storm s and Seeding the Eyewall with Silver Iodide . The project was run by the United States Government from 1962 to 1983 . A similar project using soot was run in 1958, with inconclusive results. Various methods have been proposed to reduce the harmful effects of hurricanes. Moshe Alamaro of the Massachusetts Institute Of Technology http://alamaro.home.comcast.net/Alamaro-bio.htm proposed using barges with upward-pointing jet engines to trigger smaller storms to disrupt the progress of an incoming hurricane; critics doubt the jets would be powerful enough to make any noticeable difference.http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn7995.html - Alamaro proposal and energy critique Alexandre Chorin of the s are used by some farmers in an attempt to ward off Hail , but there is no reliable scientific evidence to confirm or deny their effectiveness. Another new anti-hurricane technology {Link without Title} is a method for the reduction of tropical cyclones’ destructive force - pumping sea water and diffused in the wind at the bottom of such tropical cyclone in its eyewall. IONOSPHERIC EXPERIMENTS and Very Low Frequency ) electromagnetic (EM) generation by the absorption of Radio Frequency (rf) power in the arctic Ionosphere including ion Cyclotron excitation; a 100 kW rf Plasma Torch used in research on the destruction of Hazardous Waste ; a 2.7 m Liquid Mirror Telescope used with one of several Laser s for ionospheric stimulation and measurement; an Incoherent Scatter Radar (a new project using 88 ft. diameter antenna at NOAA Gilmore Creek site 34 km SW of HIPAS as the receiving antenna with the transmitter at HIPAS). HIPAS is in the process of adding a very high power (terawatt) laser (recently obtained from LLNL ) to perform laser breakdown experiments in the ionosphere. Two Diesel Electric Generators (1500 HP 4160 V, 3-phase, 1.2 MVA each) are used to power the experiments. There are a number of computers (PC's ) on site, and a high-speed data line to UAF is available. While these experiments are useful in measuring the properties of the ionosphere, they produce insufficient amounts of energy to modify it in any significant way. WEATHER CONTROL AND LAW Weather control, as well as "weather tampering", are expressly forbidden dating from at least December 10, 1976, when the "United Nations General Assembly Resolution 31/72, TIAS 9614 Conventionhttp://www.fas.org/nuke/control/enmod/text/environ2.htm on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques" was adopted. The Convention was: Signed in Geneva May 18, 1977; Entered into force October 5, 1978; Ratification by U.S. President December 13, 1979; U.S. ratification deposited at New York January 17, 1980. U.S. Senate Bill 517http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109-517 and U.S. House Bill 2995http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-2995 were two laws proposed in 2005 that would have allowed experimental weather modification by artificial methods, established a Weather Modification Operations And Research Board , and implemented a national weather modification policy. Neither ever became law. FUTURE ASPIRATIONS Climatologist has discussed the potential for weather control via space-based solar power networks. One proposal involves the gentle heating via microwave of portions of large hurricanes. Such chaotic systems may be susceptible to "side steering" with a few degrees of increased temperature/pressure at critical points. A sufficient network might keep the largest and most potentially damaging hurricanes from landfall, at the request of host nations. Blizzards, monsoons, and other extreme weather are also potential candidates for space-based amelioration. If large-scale weather control were to become feasible, potential risks include:
WEATHER CONTROL IN POPULAR CULTURE See Also: Weather control in popular culture In popular culture, weather control technology can be encountered in the realms of public speculation, Science Fiction , and Fantasy . The concept of weather control is often portrayed as a part of Terraforming . Conspiracy theories Conspiracy Theorists have suggested that certain governments use or seek to use weather control as a weapon (eg via HAARP and/or Chemtrails ), but such allegations have not been proven. At a counterterrorism conference in 1997, United States Secretary Of Defense William Cohen referred to the writings of Futurist Alvin Toffler , specifically regarding concerns about "eco-terrorism" and intentionally caused natural disasters.http://www.fas.org/news/usa/1997/04/bmd970429d.htm SEE ALSO
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