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868 JOURNAL OF APPLIED METEOROLOGY r Y4 awareness THE HVOWILt4GICA! CYCLE Y FIG. 1. The hydro - illogical cycle. perpetuating the hydro - illogical cycle (see Fig. 1). This is encouraged, in part, by the quick reaction time and relatively low cost of weather modification operations in contrast to other potential drought - relief measures. This is, of course, a "no win" situation for weather modification. The use of weather modification during drought periods is generally limited by less frequent opportunities. If all of these opportunities were ex- ploited and if the most optimistic estimates of weather modification effectiveness were realized, the drought, while somewhat mitigated, would still persist and the effort would be viewed as falling short of expectations, if not a failure. The short history of weather modifica- tion contains ample evidence of the consequences of such apparent failures —a loss of public confidence in the claims and expectancies of weather modification. Precipitation management should be promoted as a water resource tool to be managed on a year -round basis as any other component of the total water management system. Weather modification should be used to recharge and augment water supplies whenever the opportunities arise and the situation warrants. It should be used in concert with modern agricultural and soil conservation practices to maximize much needed agricultural production during both adequate and rain -short years. It should be considered for ap- plication at any stage of crop or forage growth when additional water would be beneficial and also during apathp 5 VOLUME 17 vegetatively dormant. periods to increase the moisture of the soil in preparation for planting. Apathy in the hydro - illogical cycle must be replaced by constructive planning and preparation for drought to lessen its impact. Weather modification can and should play an important role in such a water man- agement system. b. Research and /or operations? The lack of credibility for weather modification is contributed to and aggravated by the diverse opinions of scientists on the state -of- the -art of weather modi- fication. The strong proponents, mainly commercial operators, believe that certain areas of weather modi- fication are fully operational technologies capable of producing considerable economic benefits and that further research is a threat to their adoption. The cautious optimists believe that promising results have been obtained in some cases but further experimenta- tion should be required before operational programs are allowed to proceed. Some of the research scientists in' this group also believe that premature adoption of operational programs is a threat to the continued research required to develop and verify weather modification techniques. Still others believe that the effects of weather modification may be so far- reaching that it is too risky to even experiment in the atmo- sphere until all of the effects are identified and evaluated.