Can We Control the Weather?

On August 5, 2007, a Discover Channel Program, “CAN WE CONTROL THE WEATHER?” was aired for the first time. It was an interesting program about hurricanes, scientific interest in controlling them, and also scientific interest in local and global control of the weather.

However, the underlying theme of the presentation was about ethics, politics, technology, scientific uncertainty, and morality. Part of the program was based upon a paper written in February 2002, by Dr. Ross N. Hoffman, “Controlling the Global Weather.”

What are the risks and ethical considerations if scientists “play god” and try to control the weather? Who has oversight over their actions? Does the public have a right to know about these experiments and their environmental and human health implications?

Weather Modification may adversely impact agricultural crops and water supplies. If the weather is changed in one state or region of our country it may have severe consequences for other regions of our country. And who is going to decide the type of weather modification experimentation and who it will benefit or adversely affect? There are many ethical questions to be raised with regard to weather modification programs.

The Discovery Channel Program did not address:

1) The synergistic effects of current ongoing combined weather modification programs being undertaken in the United States by different entities (private, public and university). There are over 50 listed by NOAA that are currently ongoing at this time.

2) The program did not address studies that show hurricanes improve coral reef health or other benefits of the mixing of ocean waters produced by hurricanes.

3) This program did not comment on Dyn-O-Mat’s plans for hurricane control, or the results of these efforts, between 2005 and 2007. Popular Science (2005) also had written about a private company, Dyn-O-Mat, who planned to purchase jets to drop thousands of pounds of a water absorbing chemical powder ( Dyn-O-Gel which is alleged to be highly toxic), into hurricanes to absorb moisture to try dissipate hurricanes. (There are no agriculture oversight or public hearings to determine the consequences of this and other actions, or to monitor or prevent adverse impacts from this chemical once it falls from the air and lands on our soil, in drinking water supplies, and our oceans.)

4) This program did not address the known health effects that could arise if carbon black dust were released into the atmosphere.

5) The December 2005 Popular Science Magazine discussed a geoengineering plan to use an oil slick to stop hurricanes without noting the adverse environmental impacts of the oil used to cover the ocean and what would happen to marine life in the area.

6) The weather modification and climate change (NASA Studies), caused by persistent jet contrails that turn into man-made clouds and affect natural resources.

Below you will find a partial transcription from one important segment of the Discovery program with regard to controlling or steering hurricanes through the use of a fleet of jets leaving highly toxic, carbon black dust contrails: DISCOVERY CHANNEL PROGRAM - AUGUST 5, 2007

“CAN WE CONTROL THE WEATHER?” PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT

MIT PROFESSOR KERRY EMANUEL: “…The evolution of the weather is terribly sensitive to small disturbances."

Narrator: “Chaos Theory says that tiny disturbances in the atmosphere can trigger a chain of events that cause large scale changes somewhere else…Professor Emanuel thinks that introducing the right disturbance, or perturbation, could artificially create a weather system capable of deflecting a hurricane. It is something that he knows can happen quite naturally…"

Professor Emanuel: “So we actually know what kind of perturbations the atmosphere is most sensitive to right now. Then the next step, if you actually wanted to modify the weather, is to deliberately go out and manufacture such perturbations. It doesn’t have to be very big. One of the ideas that has been floated is to lay a contrail, with a bunch of jets, that’s deliberately black carbon to absorb sunlight."

Narrator: “In Emanuel’s scenario, as a hurricane heads for the East Coast of the U.S., a fleet of planes drops a huge swath of black carbon dust on the West Coast. The idea, to absorb the sun’s warmth, and in the process create a small, but significant, temperature change in the atmosphere.”

Professor Emanuel: “The atmosphere would naturally amplify this temperature perturbation and, as it moves toward the east over the U.S., the system would cause a normal kind of weather system; a low pressure area. And three days later it begins to interact with our hurricane and steers the hurricane offshore so that it never hits land.” (Was there an experiment conducted in 2005 to test this hurricane theory?)

Professor Emanuel: “And all you are doing is exactly the same thing that happens anyway. You are just affecting the timing of it. You are not doing anything unnatural to the natural world.”

Narrator: “Emanuel’s carbon trail (based on the paper written by Dr. Ross N. Hoffman in 2002), could have the potential to turn science fiction into scientific reality.”

Narrator: “But manipulating the weather may come at a price. The ability to decide the path of a hurricane raises serious moral dilemmas…”

END OF PARTIAL TRANSCRIPTION – DISCCOVERY CHANNEL PROGRAM

Many black contrails have been seen over the United States since the early 1990s. Are these black contrails composed of black carbon dust that is being used for weather modification experiments? Have scientists been conducting atmospheric perturbation experiments using highly toxic, carbon black dust particulates, other chemicals, experimental weather modification programs or atmospheric heating and testing programs?

It was revealed during the Discovery Channel program that NOAA and other agencies can’t pinpoint exactly where a hurricane will make landfall? A fleet of jets leaving contrails, across the United States, composed of Black Carbon Dust, could modify the weather across the U.S., causing unusual flooding or drought and disrupt agriculture micro-climates needed for crop production. No references were made to these problems during the Discovery program.

These black carbon dust particles are toxic atmospheric pollutants and could exacerbate asthma in children, increase respiratory health problems, and exacerbate global warming. And yet these problems and the toxicity of black carbon dust was never raised during this Discovery program. (Note the tape shown in the Discovery segment of the two jets that were leaving carbon black dust contrails. Each jet had four engines and yet only two black contrails were being left behind each jet. Jet fuel emissions also contain soot which is an air pollutant that causes human health degradation.)

Dr. Ross N. Hoffman, states in his paper, “Controlling The Global Weather:” “…Our goal is not to change the climate, but to control the precise timing and paths of weather systems…because of the intensive coupling of the weather over different regions of the globe, nothing short of control of the global weather should be considered. The nation that controls its own weather will necessarily control the weather of other nations…”

What are the legal and ethical questions presented by controlling the weather or changing the weather in certain areas across the United States?

Dr. Hoffman envisions a “Global Weather Control System” (GWC), be put into place: “…governing the atmosphere…” and this end may be gained through examining many possibilities. Two of his examples are listed below:

1) “…Aircraft produce contrails. Contrails are essentially cirrus clouds that influence both the solar and thermal radiation (Peollot el al.1999). Slight variations in the timing, levels, and routes of aircraft would produce perturbations (Murcray 1970)."

2) “…Solar Powered Generators in geostationary orbit has been suggested as a low cost energy source…” (Microwaves) to initiate weather modification.

Dr. Hoffman suggests that the first order of priority for the GWC would be to control the path of hurricanes. He also states: “The concept of global weather control raises a host of sociological, ecological, and political issues…a thorough discussion of whether or not, and if so, to what extent and under what circumstances we actually do wish to control the weather?”

Our military is also interested in global control of the weather. In 2004, The Science Channel, for a special television program titled, “Owing the Weather,” conducted an interview with J. Gregory Glenn, a Research Scientist at Elgin Air Force Base in Florida, where “…Air Force weapons researchers and nano particles specialists are conducting weather control experiments…”

Also discussed: “Project Popeye:” “…Though they had denied it for more than seven years (until Seymour Hersh of the New York Times broke the story), the U.S. Military had been using weather modification as a weapon in Vietnam and Laos. Starting in 1966, the United States Air Force had made over 2,600 top-secret cloud seeding flights. Codenamed 'Project Popeye,' this clandestine operation attempted to turn key enemy transport roads to mud, rendering them impassable…As a result of the uproar over Project Popeye, on the 10th of December 1976, the United Nations passed General Assembly Resolution 3172. It explicitly banned the use of weather modification in warfare…” until now?

Other U.S. hurricane cloud seeding projects have also been classified, until years later, due to the devastating results of these experiments in the United States and other countries. And what are the foreign policy implications, legal issues, liability for crop losses, local political ramifications, liability for inducing droughts, floods, and other disasters, or increasing the intensity of normal weather patterns with regard to inducing man-made climate change in certain areas?

Discovery Channel Best Evidence Program (February 2007) Narrator: “…If chemicals like silver iodide dispensed from aircraft can make it snow in California (Wyoming, Texas, Colorado+), and rain on the wheat fields of Indiana, what is to stop atmospheric scientists from engineering the climate on a global scale?..” (Also note that weather modification companies have a financial investment in lobbying our elected representatives to promote experimental weather modification programs, and scuttle to all attempts at government or public oversight.)

The Discovery program also raised ethical and moral questions. Now it is time for public debate before we engage in more weather geoengineering schemes which have the potential to negatively affect human health, pollute our air and water, and disrupt the micro-climates needed for regional crop production and tree health. Technology is available to modify our weather now and is now being implemented in many states. The question remains: Who is protecting the public interest, our trees, agriculture crop production, and our air and water supplies from being polluted by the chemicals and particulates used in these programs?

California Sky Watch

ADDITIONAL PUBLIC INFORMATION:

1, Professor Emanuel notes (August 7, 2007), that some of the ideas expressed above in the narration were attributed to him in the Discovery Program by mistake. The ideas were expressed in a paper written by: Dr. Ross Hoffman, Atmospheric and Environmental Research in Lexington, MA. Titled: “Controlling the Weather” February 2002
2, New York Times July 17, 2007 Studies Show Hurricanes Improve Coral Reef Health.
3, United States Air Force
4, "Weather As A Force Multiplier"
5, The New York Times July 17, 2007 - Studies show hurricanes can improve coral reef health.
6, NASA October 2005 Newsletter, Page 8 states: "…Clouds are the largest variable controlling Earth's atmospheric temperature and climate. Any change in global cloud cover may contribute to long-term changes in Earth's climate. Contrails, especially persistent contrails, represent a human-caused increase in the Earth's cloudiness, and are likely to be affecting climate and ultimately our natural resources…" NASA October 2005 [Read] and [Read]
7, NOAA Project StormFury 20-Year History:
8, Popular Science Magazine, November 2005, Can We Stop Storms?
9, Summary of one Section of the Discover August 5, 2007, Program Presentation regarding Russian Cloud Seeding and a nuclear plant meltdown which shows the dangers of building more nuclear power plants (also note the earthquake in Japan that damaged their nuclear power plants and caused the release of radioactive air and water in):

A Russian Weather Control Operation in 1986, from the past is described in this Discovery program. When the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl suffered a meltdown it created radioactive rain clouds that were seeded by the Russians in order to prevent the radioactive rain from falling in highly populated areas in the Soviet Union. This event is described in some detail along with the health effects suffered by those exposed to the radioactive rain from this cloud seeding operation.

10, Websites for more information: [Read] and [Read]
11, U.S. Codes
12, NASA - 2007 Search Carbon Black Dust
13, EPA - 2007 Search Carbon Black Dust Health Effects of Particulate Matter and Associated Air Pollutants
14, EPA Effect of Ammonium Bisulfate and Carbon Black Particles Inhaled Alone and in Combination on Airway Reactivity
15, EPA Search - 2007 - Carbon Black Dust Human Health Implications
16, International Carbon Black Association 2007 Information [Read] and [Read] and [Read]