Weather Modification Essay, Research Paper

Weather Modification

History

Weather Modification was founding 1946 by Vincent Schaefer who was attempting to find a way to induce artificial clouds to produce precipitation in a cold cloud chamber ( modified freezer). The experiment done with a block of dry ice in the freezer was a success when his colleague Bernard Vonnegut found a chemical, silver iodide, that is almost like ice in its molecular structure, but can be carried and applied more easily. As a result, research about weather modification to artificially increase rainfall and to suppress hail was founded. However, by the late 1970 s fewer people believed that this could come true because of four main reasons. 1. It is difficult to predict how much rain would of fallen in an area if cloud seeding had not been done. 2. This led to less funding for the study and less people going into the field. 3. Many still feel that man should not interfere with mother nature. 4. Many feel that increasing rain fall in one area is decreasing it in others. As a result, weather modification is still done, but with less support from others.

The Science of Cloud Seeding and Its future

Today researcher still attempt to find a way to see if this really works by using Silver Iodide.