My WebLink
|
Help
|
About
|
Sign Out
Home
Browse
Search
WMOD00270
CWCB
>
Weather Modification
>
DayForward
>
WMOD00270
Metadata
Thumbnails
Annotations
Entry Properties
Last modified
7/28/2009 2:32:01 PM
Creation date
10/22/2007 11:55:45 AM
Metadata
Fields
Template:
Weather Modification
Title
The Southern Plains Experiment in Cloud Seeding of Thunderstorms for Rainfall Augmentation Phase II (SPECTRA)
Prepared For
The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation
Prepared By
Woodley Weather Consultants
Date
12/28/2005
State
TX
Weather Modification - Doc Type
Report
There are no annotations on this page.
Document management portal powered by Laserfiche WebLink 9 © 1998-2015
Laserfiche.
All rights reserved.
/
157
PDF
Print
Pages to print
Enter page numbers and/or page ranges separated by commas. For example, 1,3,5-12.
After downloading, print the document using a PDF reader (e.g. Adobe Reader).
Show annotations
View images
View plain text
1.0 OVERVIEW <br /> In 2003 the Texas Department of Licensing & Regulation (TDLR) was awarded a grant from the U. S. <br />Bureau of Reclamation to participate in a collaborative effort known as the Weather Damage Modification <br />SP <br />Program (WDMP). The research, which was to be supported by the grant and known as the outhern lains <br />ECTRASPECTRA <br />xperiment in loud-seeding of hunderstorms for ainugmentation (), was to evaluate the <br />physical mechanisms in the atmosphere, particularly within convective cloud towers, to identify and administer <br />appropriate cloud seeding materials that would lead to the reduction of damage, and loss, due to drought and <br />hail. <br /> The original plan called for the research to be conducted in two phases in the Texas-Oklahoma portion <br />of the southern U. S. Great Plains region during the spring and summer of 2004. Unforeseen delays in the bid <br />solicitation process allowed only the initial phase of the research to be accomplished during the late summer of <br />2004. This effort was called SPECTRA I. SPECTRA II was completed during May and June 2005 and is the <br />focus of this Final Report. <br />2.0A RECENT HISTORY OF CLOUD SEEDING RESEARCH IN TEXAS <br />Since 1997 the State of Texas, through the TDLR and other predecessor state agencies (The Texas <br />Natural Resource Conservation Commission and the Texas Department of Agriculture), has assisted local <br />political subdivisions (such as water conservation districts, aquifer authorities, and county commissions) with <br />the design, implementation, and maintenance of cloud-seeding programs for rainfall enhancement. The State, <br />through grant agreements with these political entities, has covered up to 50 percent of the cost to conduct cloud <br />seeding operations. In all, over the past eight years, the State has dispensed nearly $14 million to weather <br />modification projects in West and South Texas. At least an equivalent amount of ad valorem tax monies, <br />raised by the water districts and counties involved in the operations, has been expended to pay for the projects. <br />Rain enhancement operations are now conducted, at least during the growing season (April-October), <br />over roughly 37 million acres of Texas. These projects were established as a consequence of research in <br />weather modification technologies, much of it conducted in Texas over the past three decades, sponsored <br />initially by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, then by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration <br />(NOAA) and most recently by the Bureau of Reclamation. Until recently, the bulk of this research focused on <br />the use of glaciogenic materials (flares consisting of the ice-producing compound, silver iodide, AgI) to <br />promote cloud growth, and the resulting additional rain volume released by the cloud tower in its mature stage. <br />Thus, it is not surprising that, heretofore, cloud seeding in Texas has targeted those cloud towers having <br />0 <br />< <br />an abundance of supercooled water in that portion of the tower where the temperature is -4C. But what <br />about those cloud conditions, often prevalent in semi-arid regions of the state in which there is a paucity of <br />supercooled water? Interest in using hygroscopicmaterials has flourished in Texas as evidence has accrued in <br />other parts of the world that seeding with salt particles has promoted cloud growth and rainfall in instances in <br />which glaciogenic seeding would have been counterproductive. <br />2.1Completion of SPECTRA I Research Work <br />Among the principal objectives of SPECTRA has been the identification of types, and frequency of <br />occurrence, of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) within and in the vicinity of growing convective cloud towers. <br />12 <br />
The URL can be used to link to this page
Your browser does not support the video tag.