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<br />r-- <br /> <br />-10- <br /> <br /> <br />III, NEED FOR THE PROPOSED PROGRAM <br /> <br />There are basically four types of wintertime weather <br />modification programs that could be initiated or allowed by the <br />State of Colorado, These four types of programs are shown in <br />Figure 3. The twenty-one private and public entities who have <br />supported the development of this plan believe that a comprehen- <br />sive, well-balanced wintertime research cloud seeding program <br />should be developed, The program identified as III in Figure 3 <br />is just such a program, It deals directly with today's concerns <br />of economics, social issues, water needs, energy requirements, <br />population growth and environmental concerns. <br />Although the above supporting entities recognize that <br />differing views regarding weather modification are present in <br />Colorado, they feel that weather modification holds sufficient <br />promise of providing an increase in winter snowpack, which is <br />beneficial to water users and the ski industry, and that the <br />science of weather modification should be perfected, Much <br />knowledge of the subject has been gained during the past 15 to <br />20 years; however, there remain numerous questions which are <br />still unanswered. <br />Since the work of Schaefer and vonnegut7 in the late 1940's, <br />the ability to produce precipitation from supercooled clouds <br />(a supercooled cloud is composed of liquid water droplets which <br />have temperatures colder than OOC) by seeding them with dry ice <br />or a smoke of silver iodide particles has been demonstrated many <br />times. Thus, the ability to produce a change in supercooled <br />clouds by "seeding" them has been proven and is not in question. <br />Still, there exist some uncertainties regarding cloud seeding <br />and the potential for precipitation augmentation by means of <br />operational weather modification programs. <br />In their review of the current status of wintertime cloud <br />seeding, two conclusions were reached by the Weather Modification <br />Advisory Board: "snowpack, and thus the spring runoff, can be <br />increased by seeding wintertime clouds rising over some moun'tain <br />barriers" and "there is no evidence that increases in rain or <br /> <br />~ <br />