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<br />ABOUT THE PROGRAM <br /> <br />Purposeful weather modification, in its very broad sense, has many facets that are so <br />common they are often overlooked. In small ways that become large and influential in the <br />collective sense, for comfort and productivity, we have created ideal indoor weather in which <br />to live, work, travel, and entertain ourselves-from that in our homes, shopping malls, <br />automobiles, and domes that cover athletic fields to that in our greenhouses, computer <br />facilities, and space shuttles. Beyond this, we have created improved weather regimes in <br />frost-protected orchards and in irrigated, shaded, and wind-sheltered gardens and farmland; <br />we have created man-made snow for early season skiing (now a major industry) and cool <br />oases with reservoirs and golf courses in the desert, and we power our industry and light our <br />cities with the hydroelectricity developed from runoff. We place a high value on the optimal <br />environment; we always have and always will demand to modify it accordingly. In this <br />context, given many potential benefits, it is as natural for us to want to enhance precipitation <br />or suppress hail by cloud seeding as it is to want to enhance plant growth by fertilizing the <br />soil in our otherwise optimized greenhouses or farmland. Such cloud seeding, and the science <br />behind it, defines purposeful weather modification (or more explicitly, cloud or precipitation <br />modification) in the narrow sense. <br /> <br />Desires and demands to predict and "do something about" the weather in general, and <br />precipitation in particular, have probably existed as long as humanity. Currently, among <br />potential beneficiaries, who are ge.nerally quite apart from the scientists who would develop <br />appropriate technologies, an unrelenting demand persists to apply purposeful precipitation <br />modification with whatever knowledge is available. The numerous operational cloud seeding <br />programs around the world attest to this demand. It is driven primarily by our ever-present, <br />ever-growing need for fresh water and only a few alternative means to provide it, and further <br />by a desire to alleviate hail damage to crops in many susceptible, agriculturally significant <br />regions around the globe. The parallel to this is that precipitation is influenced <br />unintentionally by many other anthropogenic activities, with unclear and uncontrolled <br />consequences to our water resources. <br /> <br />To resolve quantitatively the real potential for purposeful precipitation modification <br />and the effects of unintentional modifications to the hydrologic cycle is to offer one <br />meaningful alternative for formulating better plans and means to supply and allocate water <br />resources (i) during persistent shortages caused by population growth in water-limited <br />climates, (ii) during extreme events, or (iii) for stabilization as for optimal crop production <br />where precipitation is normally sufficient but highly variable. We know that cloud seeding <br />acts according to basic scientific principles in simple cloud systems. Understanding when and <br />how cloud seeding works in complex cloud systems, and how well, is important to the <br />policy makers, practitioners, the users and beneficiaries, and those affected indirectly. <br />Understanding the agricultural, economic, societal, and environmental aspects of precipitation <br />changed by any means is important to all concerned with water resources. Precipitation <br />management is the goal. Scientific investigation followed by technology transfer is the <br /> <br />:2 <br /> <br />_1 <br />