WMOD00278

• Title: Article - Back in Business? - The government takes another look at weather modification
• Prepared For: Public
• Prepared By: Weatherwise
• Date: 8/1/2006
• Weather Modification - Doc Type: General Information

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The government takes
another look at
vveather modification

BY ANDREW FREEDMAN

fter years oflittle interest and very little funding, Congress
is exploring steps to put the federal government back
in the weather modification business. Bills currently
pending in both the House and Senate would estab~
lish a federal coordinating committee on weather
modification research for studying the possibility of modifying weather
for human benefit, such as seeding clouds to boost water supplies.
A failure to live up to past promises and controversy over potential
legal problems have plagued this often maligned branch of meteorol~
ogy. In the 1950s and 60s, researchers were overly confident of their
ability to beneficially alter precipitation patterns, disrupt hailstorms,
and reduce fearsome hurricanes to harmless rainstorms. The belief
that man could shape the weather even led to a 1977 United Nations
Treaty, forbidding the use of weather modification as a weapon of war.
The United States is a parry to that treaty, but it doesn't apply in cases
of "benign weather modification."

24 WEATHERWISE. JULY I AUGUST 2006