On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 3:26 PM, Andrew Lentvorski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Robert Donovan wrote: > > > According to a recent Discovery Channel show, we tried something like > > this in the US and it looked very promising at first, but as the > > ability to measure the effect got better, it was found that a large > > majority of what was happening that was initially attributed to cloud > > seeding would have happened in the normal source of a storm. The hope > > is that as modeling gets better, they will be able to get better > > control and accuracy. It was also pointed out in the show that the > > very things you'd do to reduce the potential severity of a storm can > > sometimes backfire on you and make it more intense. So there is > > probably a chance that the Chinese will cause the very rain they're > > trying to prevent, but who knows?. > > > > Actually, about the only thing we know causes rain is pollution. > Specifically jets. > > The grounding of air traffic after 9/11 apparently reduced the rain > occurrences significantly. > > -a
That was also discussed on the show. There is apparently some plan in the works to deploy a bunch of planes to drop a few tons of carbon black high in the atmosphere, which causes cooling over a wide enough area to create a minor low-pressure area or weather front. The idea is to position the man-made front so that the winds will carry it on a trajectory that causes it to redirect another storm. Again, the consequences of a miss could be bad. To my knowledge, it's never been tried. Robert Donovan -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
