WMOD00287

• Title: The National Weather Modification Plan
• Prepared For: CAO Subcommittee on Weather Modification
• Prepared By: The Working Group of the CAO Subcommittee on Weather Modification
• Date: 2/13/1981
• Weather Modification - Doc Type: Report

operational projets." A contract was negotiated wi. ththe Department of
Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University (CSU) to develop methodology
to be used in the evaluations. CSU in turn enlisted expertise from the
private, university, and government sectors to design evaluation strategies
for both the North Dakota and Utah operational projects. A preliminary design
was completed in August 1980. In the meantime provision was made for
additional rawinsonde observations and analysis during the 1979-1980 winter
field season in Utah and specialized radar data collection and analysis during
the North Dakota summer program in 1980.

6. Cumulus Dynamics and Microphysics Program (FY 1980-$0)

NOAA will initiate a new long-term program, the Cumulus Dynamics and
Microphysics Program, in 1981. CDMP is a planned 10-year coordinated research
effort bearing on convective cloud development, interaction, and
organization. This program responds to the important need to return to basics
to advance our fundamental understanding of cloud processes. This need was
emphasized in recent reports by the Weather Modification Advisory Board and
the Secretary of Commerce. The research will focus on interactions between
cloud development (microphysical and dynamical processes) and environmental
forcing, with a view toward understanding how such interactions can be
modified to influence the evolution of convective systems. The first specific
task of CDMP will be to study the nature of the mass circulation response to
"dynamic seeding" of the upper levels of convective clouds. FY 1981 CDMP
activities will include design studies, numerical simulation studies and
instrument testing in preparation for a field experiment planned for FY 1983.

B. DEPAR'n1ENT OF THE INTERIOR (n: 1980--$9.4 MILLION)

The Department of the Interior's weather modification program, called
Project Skywater, is administered by the Water and Power Resources Service
(TtlPRS), formerly the Bureau of Reclamation. The WPRS program, initiated in
1962 by a Congressional appropriation for '.research on increasing rainfall by
cloud seeding," is a comprehens ive effort to develop additional ar.d, more
dependable water supplies from renewable atmospheric sources by cloud seeding
techniques. The specific objective is to develop precipitation enhancement
techniques that can be used to satisfy increasing demands for water.

Project Skywater research programs encompass many diverse activities in
addition to efforts to develop, test, and transfer precipitation enhancement
technology. They also include economic assessments of the impacts of
addi donal precipitation, examination of legal implications or precipi tation
enhancement, field studies to assess the effects of additional precipitation
on various ecosystems, development of environmental monitoring devices and
techniques, and activities to ensure public interest and involvement.

All WPRS precipitation enhancement research programs are based on the
principle that understanding of intermediate processes in precipitation
development is the key to assessing results. Therefore, the projects attempt
to document the chain or physical events in seeded and nonseeded clouds as
reinforcement to statistical evaluations. This approach serves to establish a

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