The Science of Rain-making is Still Patchy

The New York Times ^ | October 19, 2003 | Henry Fountain

[inPhase]

In 1950, .. Dr. Howell, who participated in early scientific research into cloud seeding set up shop at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn using a police airplane to sprinkle silver iodide crystals into clouds over the Catskill watershed.

Rains came and the reservoirs began to rise. ...

Just last week, the National research Council issued a report on a two-year $1.1 million cloud seeding effort in Colorado.

[inPhase]

Interesting article by Mr. Fountain

[billorites]

Another early pioneer of cloud seeding was Bernard Vonnegut of General Electric, brother of the writer, who was a colleague of Vince Shaefer in the late 40's.

[Reeses]

The Soviets routinely caused rain outside Moscow so their parades wouldn't get rained on. I'm sure they originally developed this skill for military purposes, which is the origin of most technologies.

We already control most of the world’s fresh water, to the point of making the planet wobble differently because of huge amounts of water held high in reservoirs. Without this technology Earth could not sustain 6 billion people. Controlling the weather will become necessary in the future as the world population grows. All the money spent controlling CO2 production and trying to detect global warming should instead be spent on determining what temperature and weather do we want and what technologies can we use to get there.

[inPhase]

http://rams.atmos.colostate.edu/gkss_node12.html#SECTION00071000000000000000

Should Society Wait for Hard Scientific Evidence?

Overall there is little hard scientific evidence that anthropogenic activity, either advertently or inadvertently, is causing significant changes in weather and
climate, particularly on the global scale. This is certainly true with respect to cloud seeding where there are only a few limited examples of where cloud
seeding has been scientifically shown to be effective in enhancing rainfall. Nonetheless, there are many nations which are currently running operational
cloud seeding projects. Apparently, the decision has been made in those nations and states that the benefits outweigh the risks of applying the
scientifically unproven technology of weather modification by cloud seeding.

[Uncle Jaque]

You know, it's funny you should post this now -

Just yesterday I was thinking about how after nearly every major Civil War Battle it rained, and some early "Rainmakers" used to fire off cannon and pyrotechnics in hopes of cashing in on whatever the connection might be.

Then this idea hit me quite spontaniously and unexpectedly (as they sometimes do) for a solar powered thermal induction "stack" system that could inject superheated humidified air or steam into the atmosphere about 1,200 ft. above ground level, (thermal effect should carry it even higher than that) where it could then condense, precipitate, and fall as rain on crops or watersheds downwind of the unit.

Nucleation materials such as silver iodine (or whatever that stuff is) could be injected directly into the stream prior to exhaust.

Grabbing the nearest piece of paper and a pencil, I sketched it up, and it looks like something we'd see in a "Popular Mechanics" magazine. A little weird, but intriguing.

Set up near an ocean, it would function as a desalinization still as well, and fresh water could be condensed out prior to exhaust for human or livestock consumption, or direct crop irrigation. Salts and other dissolved solids might be seperated with an electrostatic precipitator and stockpiled for recycling.

It should work particularly well in climates where they get a lot of sun and fairly consistant prevailing winds - like Iraq or Kuwait, perhaps?

If (and that's a big "if", folks!) it works as intended, turbines could be inserted in the collumn of superheated rising air / steam in order to generate sufficient electricy to maintain control and operating systems - at least.

I can imagine auxilliary wind-driven cup-type systems running on gimbals around the exterior of the structure driving generators for when the sun was not shining - as in a sandstorm, for instance.

A tramway would run up and down one of the guy cables to transport personel and materials for routine inspection and maintenance.

The lower web of guys would be covered with a transparent material covering the concave parabolic mirror array (computer directed to focus solar rays onto the thermally absorbant base) providing an additional "Greenhouse" effect.

Air intakes would draw preheated air from under this thermal "tipi" as the superheated air inside the "stack" draws it up, and as it passes through a venturi, water (seawater if that's what's handy) is pumped into the vacuum area like a giant carburator and transformed into vapor.

As the water vapor mixes with superheated air (I'm guesing at around 800* F. - (My Daddy was an Engineer, but I'm just a Yankee Tinkerer) it flashes into steam, exponentially increasing the velocity of hot gasses rising up the flue.

Once past the solar-thermally inducted base, the stack transforms from a surface-area enhanced design (to maximize solar exposure / thermal absorbtion on the outside, conduction to the inside, and induction to the interior gasses) to a smooth, insulated flue conducting the gasses upward through precipitation scrubbers, power generating turbines (not sure about that yet) and/or condensate retreival baffles before exausting into the significantly cooler than ground-level air at the vent.

A couple of friends who are Engineers have been approached to see if they'd care to evaluate my prelimianary design as to feasability / novelty (for all I know someone else has already invented this system) - none have gotten back to me, and I suspect they have better things to do.

As you probably do as well... so I'll spare you any more details, as entertaining as they might be to any of you who really know what you are about with this stuff.

I just don't know where this stuff comes from sometimes.
My Wife opines that I'm crazy, and I'm steadilly towing her in the same direction.

None of my other inventions, including the personal flatulation muffler, filter, and air freshener (Whoopie whistle optional) or recumbantly pedalled water-jet Kayak have ever gotten off the ground...

But you know; I sure do wonder if any of 'em would have actually worked!

[inPhase]

There will be many changes in our future on planet earth including in our understanding of the weather and I am sure you can contibute if you want to Uncle Jacque.

[inPhase]

Am glad this is a play and not a Bot Tiggs!

[Doctor Stochastic]

Building a big smokey fire and beating a large drum is out of favor now?

How about dropping a virgin into a cenote to get Tlaloc's attention?

And not to forget, ritually shooting the Prince in the head with an arrow.

All of the above do have some historical basis.