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Last modified
7/28/2009 2:37:27 PM
Creation date
4/16/2008 10:37:05 AM
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Template:
Weather Modification
Title
Weather Modification Glossary
Prepared By
A. S. Dennis
Date
1/1/1987
Weather Modification - Doc Type
Report
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<br />616 WEATHER MODIFICATION <br /> <br />fect hurricane intensities and paths by cloud <br />seeding. <br />After a series of devastating hurricanes in the <br />1950s, the U.S. Government undertook an in- <br />vestigation of Langmuir's optimistic predic- <br />tions. Following some preliminary seeding trials <br />in 1961, which gave promising indications, the <br />U.S. Navy and the Department of Commerce <br />jointly established Project Stormfury in 1962. <br />The objective of Stormfury was to investigate <br />methods to reduce the intensity of hurricanes by <br />cloud seeding. Various suggestions were offered <br />on ways to do this. All shared one common <br />thread, namely, that the desired changes would <br />be brought about by seeding to produce dynamic <br />effects in convective clouds within the hurricane <br />itself. The final Stormfury hypothesis, devel- <br />oped around 1968, held that seeding of clouds in <br />the hurricane rain bands spiraling inward toward <br />the eyewall cloud could lead to their intensifica- <br />tion and growth upward toward the tropopause. <br />The increased inflow to the rain band clouds <br />would lead to a collapse of the eyewall clouds <br />and the reformation of the hurricane eye with a <br />larger radius. Because it was observed that hur- <br />ricane winds are strongest when the eye is small, <br />it was reasoned that moving the region of most <br />rapidly rotating air outward from the center <br />would diminish the peak winds. <br />Equipment deployed to test the Stormfury hy- <br />pothesis included a fleet 00 to 15 aircraft, many <br />of them equipped with Doppler radars for mea- <br />suring the hurricane winds and other advanced <br />instrumentation, and new AgI pyrotechnics. It <br />was assumed that it would be necessary to <br />freeze cloud water rapidly, and thus huge pyro- <br />technic devices were manufactured containing <br />as much as 30 kg of AgI each. As is now well <br />known, such devices are grossly inefficient in <br />terms of ice nuclei produced per gram of AgI <br />consumed. By the time Stormfury ended, atten- <br />tion had turned to the use of small pyrotechnics <br />250 mm long and containing about 17 g each of <br />AgI. <br />Project Stormfury was based in Florida <br />and the West Indies and dealt with hurricanes <br />over the Atlantic Ocean. Restrictions were built <br />into the project to avoid seeding a hurricane that <br />might reach land soon after seeding. Two seed- <br />ing experiments were conducted on Hurricane <br />Debbie in August 1969, and each was followed <br />by a decrease in wind speed. However, the num- <br />ber of hurricanes occurring in the Atlantic be- <br />yond reach of land but within aircraft range <br />proved disappointingly small. Some years went <br /> <br />by with no seeding experiments at all. In the <br />1970s the U.S. Government explored with the <br />governments of Mexico, Australia, and other <br />countries bordering the Pacific Ocean the possi- <br />bility of moving Stormfury to the western or <br />southwestern Pacific. These negotiations did not <br />lead to any final agreements. <br />Meanwhile, experimental evidence was accu- <br />mulating that the Stormfury hypothesis was seri- <br />ously flawed. Flights through the convective <br />clouds constituting hurricane rainbands showed <br />much lower concentrations of supercooled wa- <br />ter than had been assumed, which indicated that <br />dynamic effects would be less than anticipated. <br />It was also found that some of the eyewall and <br />rain band clouds contained high ice crystal con- <br />centrations in the - 5 to -100C level, about 50 to <br />100/liter. Because these concentrations were <br />equivalent to those expected from seeding, it be- <br />came difficult to understand how any pro- <br />nounced dynamic effects could be produced. A <br />second line of investigation weakening the <br />Stormfury hypothesis was the finding that hurri- <br />cane eyes can reform naturally with attendant <br />temporary decreases in wind speed. It became <br />obvious that the encouraging results observed <br />following seeding in 1961 and 1969 could have <br />been the result of such a natural reformation of <br />the hurricane eye. <br />In view of the evidence that the microphysical <br />conditions in hurricanes were often unsuitable <br />for seeding for dynamic effects and that the ef- <br />fects expected from seeding would be hard to <br />distinguish from natural hurricane variations, <br />Project Stormfury was officially abandoned in <br />1983. At this time there are no active hurricane <br />modification projects anywhere in the world. <br /> <br />V. Inadvertent Weather <br />Modification <br /> <br />A. EFFECTS OF URBAN AREAS <br /> <br />It has been recognized for over a century that <br />the climates of large cities differ from those of <br />their surrounding countrysides. Apart from the <br />reduced visibility due to urban pollution, there is <br />a heat island associated with each large city in <br />which temperatures, and especially minimum <br />temperatures, tend to be higher than over sur- <br />rounding regions. <br />The effects of a large city on climate are not <br />limited to the heat island. A comprehensive in- <br />vestigation of such effects was undertaken in the <br />
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