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<br />fundamental means to achieve that goal. This is what the NOAA FederaVState Cooperative <br />Program in Atmospheric Modification Research (hereafter the NOAA Atmospheric <br />Modification Program, AMP) is all about. <br /> <br />The mission of the NOAA AMP is to support, conduct, and coordinate basic and <br />applied research to understand cloud and precipitation processes and their role in the <br />hydrologic cycle, under natural influences and with purposeful and inadvertent modifications. <br />A recent change of the name of the program from "weather" to "atmospheric" modification <br />better reflects the broad intent of the program. <br /> <br />In 1978, a national Weather Modification Advisory Board ("the Cleveland <br />Committee") carried forward to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce, and then <br />to the President of the United States, a report defining priorities for national weather <br />modification policies and programs (Cleveland, 1978; Secretary of Commerce, 1979). Among <br />its many findings, the Board resolved that "locally controlled operational projects. . . offer <br />an excellent opportunity for increasing scientific knowledge and technology development . . . <br />Proper design, well-conducted operations, and careful data collection will permit useful <br />evaluation of the effectiveness of selected multi-year operational projects. The resulting <br />scientific gains will be sizable, and most local users, sooner or later, will appreciate federally <br />sponsored scientific evaluation of the operational projects locally supported." This resolution <br />served as a charter for the NOAA AMP. With funding for research administered by NOAA, <br />atmospheric and water resources agencies in North Dakota and Utah joined to establish the <br />program in FY 1979. Nevada joined in FY 1983, followed by lllinois in FY 1984, Arizona in <br />FY 1990, and Texas in FY 1993. Each of these states finances operational cloud seeding and <br />corresponding applied research (in some cases jointly with its counties), has passed laws that <br />require investigation of alternative sources of water induding precipitation enhancement, <br />and/or has a demonstrated need to know the potentials and effects of changes in rain or hail <br />on crops and related economics. Each has an atmospheric or water resources research <br />institute or agency where it is recognized that investigation of cloud seeding or unintentional <br />weather and climate modification offers potential benefits to the state, the region, and the <br />nation. <br /> <br />In the same era as the "Cleveland report," purely statistical evaluations of cloud <br />seeding effects with often disappointingly unclear results were gradually abandoned in favor <br />of "back to basics" research to better understand the multi scale meteorology and physics of <br />cloud and precipitation processes with and without the influence of seeding. Research in the <br />area of agricultural and economic impacts of changes in precipitation also began to achieve <br />greater depth and broader significance. The research in the NOAA AMP reflecteo this shift. <br /> <br />In the last decade, weather science has witnessed massive advances in computing <br />power, remote sensing and airborne technologies for atmospheric measurement, multi scale <br />numerical atmospheric and cloud models, air motion tracer technologies, chemical means to <br />evaluate cloud processes and seeding effects, techniques to determine directly the influence of <br />precipitation changes on soil moisture and crop growth, and complex agroeconometric <br /> <br />3 <br />