Is Weather Modification And Cloud Seeding As Safe As They Say It Is

Here we go again! Regions around the world have been spraying things into clouds to change their behavior, and while this has been going on for decades (one of the most famous, now declassified instances is in Vietnam during the war), there is still a huge percentage of the population who either doesn't know or doesn't understand this planned, deliberate weather modification.

Either way, this begs the question: Are we playing with fire?

Let's go over a few words flying around and their definitions so you know exactly what I'm talking about here:

Contrail or seeding?Photo byRichelleg

Contrail: A line-shaped cloud that develops behind a jet engine as it soars through the sky, also known as a condensation trail. Ice crystals are created when water vapor from aircraft exhaust and ambient air freeze around exhaust particle fragments, sort of like your warm breath on a cool morning.

Chemtrail: A "chemtrail" is what some people think that governments or other organizations are working on a covert operation to inject harmful chemicals into the atmosphere using aircraft.

Cloud Brightening: Spraying clouds and the atmosphere with salt to brighten the clouds so they reflect the

Cloud Seeding: Through the introduction of ice nuclei into clouds, a weather manipulation technique known as "cloud seeding" can boost precipitation, increasing the amount of rain or snow in an area or avoiding precipitation all together.

Cloud seeding and weather modification are absolutely happening today, right now, all across the world. In the 1940's, physicist Bernard Vonnegut and General Electric researcher Vincent Schaefer discovered that spraying clouds with silver iodide mixed with acetone would cause ice crystals in clouds and literally make it rain. They also use salt today to "whiten" the clouds, making them more reflective.

Chemtrail or seeding?Photo byRichelleg

Nevada's rural areas are relying on cloud seeding to alleviate drought-related issues. New Mexico, Wyoming, Arizona's White Mountains, and Colorado are all using cloud seeding and weather modification publicly in legislation for extra rain and snow. Of course, it's not just national. They're spraying globally.

Even the new Twisters movie is based on cloud seeding and weather modification.

So why are scientists, states, and regions messing with the clouds? Cost, for one. Cloud seeding is about $50 an acre, whereas imporiting water for drought-stricken residents is about $1,000 an acre. And what about all those ski resorts with no snow? A lot of them are using ground cannons now to produce snow over resorts instead of snow machines.

To be clear, the current "cloud brightening" studies and the "cloud seeding" that states, countries, utilities, and water agencies have been doing for decades aren't the same. Again, seeding involves salt or silver iodine to form rain or snow; cloud brightening uses salt to make the clouds more solar reflective to reflect sunlight back into space and reduce the amount of heat absorbed by the earth.

Seeding diagramPhoto byEarth Org

Scale is another difference. Brightening would be intended to reduce global temperatures, whereas seeding would be intended to produce impacts that are localized and watershed-sized.

The fact that the two cloud technologies' popularity is a product of the times may be the most notable connection between them. A growing number of people are becoming interested in and sponsoring solar radiation modification techniques, such as cloud brightening, as the planet continues to undergo record-breaking heat waves.

Experts assure us that weather modification is perfectly safe. What do you think? Let me know below!

Storm clouds formingPhoto byRichelleg

Attributions:

Desert Research Institute. (2023, December 5). Current Cloud Seeding Operations - DRI. DRI. https://www.dri.edu/cloud-seeding-program/current-cloud-seeding-operations/

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/17/weather/cloud-seeding-dubai-explained/index.html

Bloomberg - Are you a robot? (2024, April 17). https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-17/how-cloud-seeding-boosts-rainfall-and-why-that-s-controversial