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<br />2. Environmental. Legal, Economic, and Social Research <br /> <br />Intentional weather modification is intended to benefit society. <br />However, deliberately changing the weather to benefit one segment of society <br />may have an adverse impact, directly or indirectly, on another. All <br />environmental, social, and legal consequences of weather modification <br />technology must be identified and carefully assessed, and these consequences <br />must be weighed along with the economic benefits when policy decisions <br />relating to weather mdification are made. <br /> <br />All large-scale research or operational weather modification projects <br />should include a strong societal and environmental component--most projects do <br />now. New methods for assessing the societal implications of a wide range of <br />weather modification activities will be developed and implemented. These will <br />include interdisciplinary studies that involve specialists in agric~ture, <br />hydrology, ecology and biology. economics, sociology ,and law and <br />government. Such studies will address the impacts of summer cumulus seeding <br />for rain, winter orographic snowpack augmentation, and hurricane <br />amelioration. They will also examine the total area of effects or seeding and <br />the factors that determine the extent of such effects. A technology <br />assessment for winter orographic snowpack enhancement will receive special <br />attention, and technology assessments for summer rain augmentation and <br />hurricane amelioration will follow during the five years covered by this plan. <br /> <br />3. Precipitation Enhancement <br /> <br />Precipitation enhancement has been the principal objective of most <br />weather modification activities for over three decades, and cloud seeding with <br />either sil~er iodide or dry ice has been the most commonly used technique. <br />Two seeding strategies have been developed. One strategy. seeding ror <br />microphysical effects, seeks to improve an inefficient precipitation situation <br />by altering ice nucleation processes and the subsequent growth of <br />precipitation particles. The second seeding strategy, seeding for dynamic <br />effects, attempts to increase a cloud's potential for precipitation QY causing <br />it to grow larger or last longer and thereby process more ~ter. <br /> <br />This plan calls for a strong program of multiyear precipitation <br />enhancement experiments and describes and recommends four specific field <br />projects. Each project includes five components--background studies, total <br />area of effect, suspension criteria, societal and environmental factors, and <br />physical and statistical evaluation. <br /> <br />Three of the projects are presently authorized for funding during the FY <br />1982-86 period. They are the Colorado River Basin Program and the Sierra <br />Cooperative Pilot Project--which are directed toward the development or ~~ter <br />orographic snowpack enhancement techniques in the Rocky Mountains and Sierra <br />Nevada Mountains. respectively--and the High Plains Cooperative Program <br />(HIPLEX)--<Nhich is directed toward the development or techniques for <br />augmenting growing-season rainfall from summer convective clouds over the iii6h <br />? lains states. The fourth project is the :1idwest Cumulus Experiment. designed <br /> <br />'Iii <br />