Let It Rain, But Not On The Olympics

We have been trying to alter the weather for years! American Indians tried to produce rain in times of need, and for many centuries it was believed that the people of Finland were able to control the weather. The Vikings refused to take Finnish sailors on their raids for fear that they would whip up an ocean storm. And Finns were often refused passage on ships into the 20th Century for these same superstitious reasons.

Probably the earliest and most widely used method of weather control is the lightning conductor (or lightning rod for my American friends). These conductors are usually made of copper or aluminium and are placed strategically on the high points of trees, buildings and other structures in a network to channel possible lightning strikes safely to the earth. And very successful they have been too.

In the 1950's Wilhelm Reich attempted to influence streams of cosmic rays with a device known as a 'Cloudbuster' which, he felt, would cause rain and thus dissipate the clouds. And any fans of Kate Bush out there will know that this inspired her hit 'Cloudbusting'

A common technique for inducing rain is 'Cloud Seeding'. This involves releasing silver iodide or dry ice into clouds, by plane or by small rockets or from a ground generator, and increasing cloud condensation on these particles to increase the overall precipitation. And while there are some companies dedicated solely to the practise of cloud seeding, the quantifiable results are somewhat limited. There have been experiments that show that cloud seeding does indeed alter a clouds structure and size, however there is limited evidence that this actually converts to greater precipitation at ground level. The use of alternative substances, such as salt, are being tested as they are providing more promising results.

Between 1962 and 1983 the United States government ran Project Stormfury. This was an attempt to lessen the devastating impact of tropical cyclones and hurricanes by flying aircraft into them and releasing silver iodide. The idea was that this would disrupt the inner structure of the storm and thereby lessen its impact. However over the 20 years of experimentation no conclusive proof was found that the hurricanes that did dissipate, would not have dissipated of their own accord. Although the final Project Stormfury flight was flown in 1971 it wasn't until 1983 that the project was officially closed.

There are already plans for the future control of our weather systems. For instance an idea has been proposed to gently heat portions of a hurricane with microwaves from space to help steer it away from a possible damaging land fall. The implications are huge. How would this effect the natural ecosystem? Does one country have the right to reduce or alter the precipitation of another? And the idea of microwaves being fired deep into a hurricane from space fills me with a certain amount of trepidation.

Whatever will happen remains to be seen, but in the here and now, the Chinese authorities have 30 aircraft, 4,000 rocket launchers and 7,000 anti-aircraft guns ready and waiting to shoot various chemicals into the clouds to reduce rainfall for the 2008 Olympics. And good luck with that!

Mark Boardman BSc dip.hyp is a leading author and expert on world weather. For more information about cloud seeding and the weather, go and look at these sites.

Mark's Hypnotherapy Site.