Scientists mull controversial plan to steer hurricanes

[IDELB2006]

The suggestion is that we can use current cloud seeding practices to steer weather patterns. 

"The growing impact of weather extremes on society highlights that traditional approaches such as dams, levees, and insurance alone may not be sufficient to address the widespread consequences of these hazards,” the authors say. 
 
Their proposed solution: Use existing technology (often used to extract rain from clouds), and supercharge it with high-tech data and analysis. Done correctly, humans might be able to disrupt huge weather systems and protect densely populated areas. In the study, scientists suggested that small, carefully-timed cloud seeding operations applied days before the peak of an extreme weather event could have shifted the track of Superstorm Sandy in 2012 by about
300 miles to miss New York City, raised the low temperature of the 2021 Texas freeze s Fahrenheit and reduced the amount of precipitation carried by a 2022 atmospheric river that caused flooding in California by about 5%.
 
Critics say it’s a far-fetched idea with little proof.

I thought we were already using this to tinker with other countries weather. They must have finally figured a way to monetize it.

[BeyondKnowledge]

The suggestion is that we can use current cloud seeding practices to steer weather patterns. 

I thought we were already using this to tinker with other countries weather. They must have finally figured a way to monetize it.

They can make it rain harder. They cannot make it rain, change temperature or control the course of storms. 

Conditions have to be ready to rain or already raining before they can make it rain harder. The winds control the storm paths. There is no way to make it sunny in the day and cloudy at night, that is what makes it warmer other than the amount and angle of the sunlight. 

This is a money grab to do already known about research. It can have unforseen outcomes, such as saving a city from a flood but destroying an entire crop in another area.

[Byrd]

The suggestion is that we can use current cloud seeding practices to steer weather patterns. 

I thought we were already using this to tinker with other countries weather. They must have finally figured a way to monetize it.

Cloud seeding is actually fairly difficult.  There's several different seeds to use (depending on what the clouds are and other conditions) and it has to be the right type of cloud -- basically a cloud that's ready to rain.  The average cloud that you see overhead is not usually a candidate for seeding.  And once the seeding is done, it's hard to tell whether or not the seeding actually caused the rain.

I think it's a reasonable idea and worthy of a test at this point -- at least on some of the smaller storms that are still out at sea.  The problem is that Earth's weather is a chaotic event -- you won't really be able to predict where the storm will go after seeding.

We're not doing this with other countries' weather (for one thing it would require clearance from their air space controllers to allow a plane to fly in that country) -- it's too unpredictable and the results really aren't 100%.

[andy06shake]

The suggestion is that we can use current cloud seeding practices to steer weather patterns. 

I thought we were already using this to tinker with other countries weather. They must have finally figured a way to monetize it.

I mean, it could be worse.

Some lunatic could have proposed steering/disrupting them with nuclear weapons...

[IDELB2006]

I think it's a reasonable idea and worthy of a test at this point -- at least on some of the smaller storms that are still out at sea.  The problem is that Earth's weather is a chaotic event -- you won't really be able to predict where the storm will go after seeding.

It looks like America is still funding experiments. The real trouble is knowing if it worked, or if storms may have just taken a favorable path after the cloud seeding. 

What GAO Found Cloud seeding is a decades-old approach to modifying weather that uses a range of supporting technologies for research and operations. According to NOAA, the most common uses of cloud seeding are to increase precipitation or suppress hail, usually by adding tiny particles of silver iodide. Nine U.S. states are currently using it, while ten have banned or have considered banning cloud seeding or weather modification in general. Federal cloud seeding involvement and support is minimal.
Cloud seeding may increase water availability and result in economic, environmental, and human health benefits. In the studies GAO reviewed, estimates of the additional precipitation ranged from 0 to 20 percent. However, it is difficult to evaluate the effects of cloud seeding due to limitations of effectiveness research.
GAO identified challenges to the use and development of cloud seeding, including:

• Reliable information is lacking on the conduct of optimal, effective cloud seeding and its benefits and effects. Without such information, operations will be less effective and the return on funding investments is unclear.
  
• Cloud seeding operations can only enhance precipitation when the right kind of clouds are present, which limits opportunities for success.
  
• Existing research we reviewed, while limited to a handful of recent studies, suggests silver iodide does not pose an environmental or health concern at current levels. However, it is not known whether more widespread use of silver iodide would have an effect on public health or the environment.
  
• Federal reporting requirements may not include all information necessary to adequately monitor cloud seeding. As a result, opportunities to better evaluate the benefits and potential effects of cloud seeding may be missed.
  
• The public may not fully understand cloud seeding, including how it differs from geoengineering, which affects the climate on longer time scales.
  

US GAO

We're not doing this with other countries' weather (for one thing it would require clearance from their air space controllers to allow a plane to fly in that country) -- it's too unpredictable and the results really aren't 100%.

Various countries have accused America in the past, and then there is this:

274. Memorandum From the Deputy Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (Kohler) to Secretary of State Rusk1
Washington, January 13, 1967.
SUBJECT
Weather Modification in North Vietnam and Laos (Project Popeye)
Proposal

1. The Department of Defense has requested our approval to initiate the operational phase of Project Popeye in selected areas (map at clip)2 along the infiltration routes in North Vietnam and southern Laos. The objective of the program is to produce sufficient rainfall along these lines of communication to interdict or at least interfere with truck traffic between North and South Vietnam. Recently improved cloud seeding techniques would be applied on a sustained basis, in a non-publicized effort to induce continued rainfall through the months of the normal dry season.

Background

2. A test phase of Project Popeye was approved by State and Defense and conducted during October 1966 in a strip of the Lao Panhandle generally east of the Bolovens Plateau in the valley of the Se Kong River. The test was conducted without consultation with Lao authorities (but with Ambassador Sullivan’s knowledge and concurrence) and, to the best of our knowledge, remains unknown to other than a severely limited number of U.S. officials.

3. During the test phase, more than 50 cloud seeding experiments were conducted. The results are viewed by DOD as outstandingly successful.

(a)
82% of the clouds seeded produced rain within a brief period after seeding—a percentage appreciably higher than normal expectation in the absence of seeding.
(b)
The amount of rainfall induced by seeding is believed to have been sufficient to have contributed substantially to rendering vehicular routes in this area inoperable. Since the end of the rainy season, the communists have failed to undertake route repairs and there has been no vehicular traffic.
©
In one instance, the rainfall continued as the cloud moved eastward across the Vietnam border and inundated a U.S. Special Forces camp with nine inches of rain in four hours.
(d)
DOD scientists consider that the experiment demonstrated a capacity to raise and maintain rainfall under controlled conditions to the level at which the land is saturated over a sustained period, slowing movement on foot and rendering the operation of vehicles impracticable.
4. In our view, the experiments were undeniably successful, indicating that, at least under weather and terrain conditions such as those involved, the U.S. Government has realized a capability of significant weather modification. If anything, the tests were “too successful”—neither the volume of induced rainfall nor the extent of area affected can be precisely predicted. The only absolute control, therefore, is after the fact, i.e., to halt cloud-seeding missions.

history.state.gov