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Weather Mod Critical Issues Report
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Last modified
10/28/2011 10:18:23 AM
Creation date
9/30/2006 9:03:51 PM
Metadata
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Template:
Water Conservation
Project Type
General OWC
Project Name
Weather Modification
Title
Critical Issues in Weather Modification Research
Date
1/1/2004
Water Conservation - Doc Type
Final Report
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<br /> <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br /> <br />analysis facilities in Nevada. The research results obtained from these financial <br />expenditures are described in a substantial number of publications listed at the end of the <br />sections of this critique describing the research activities on snowpack augmentation <br />orographic programs in Utah, Nevada and California. <br /> <br />The breadth of the various research efforts and list of all resulting publications is <br />far too lengthy to include here. All of the programs utilizing these new tools were <br />studying operations or processes directly related to operations, so the NRC report <br />assertion that little research has been done on operational programs in recent years is less <br />than accurate, except perhaps for the period since the AMP was terminated in the later <br />1990s, It is worth noting that papers from AMP era field efforts are still being published; <br />e.g., Farley et al. (2004a, b), <br /> <br />Funding for the AMP was terminated along with many other programs in the <br />NOAA budget after changes in congressional leadership following the 1994 elections. <br />Some federal funding has been re-established in 2003 and is being administered by the <br />USSR. <br /> <br />4.2 Other items <br /> <br />The NRC panel provided an excellent summary of existing technology that can be <br />applied to the measurements of clouds. They described several in situ measuring devices <br />for cloud particles, updraft velocities, water contents and other devices, but then failed to <br />note that the observations normally require in-flight penetrations of the clouds and <br />storms. The discussion and references above show the valuable observations acquired by <br />the armored T-28 aircraft. Certainly, that type of capability should be maintained in the <br />future to make the critical measurements needed in both seeded and natural cloud <br />environments. <br /> <br />The NRC panel missed an opportunity to support an example of innovative <br />evaluation of an operational project. The Woodley/Rosenfeld radar evaluation of a Texas <br />program is being published soon (Woodley and Rosenfeld, 2004), but was available <br />earlier to the panel. The technique uses radar estimates of rainfall (checked against rain <br />gauges) in both target and surrounding area to estimate the cloud seeding effect in the <br />target areas. Selection of control cases is done entirely objectively. The apparent effect <br />of seeding was very large. The most conservative and credible estimates of seeding <br />effects were obtained from control matches drawn from outside the operational target <br />within two hours of the time that each unit was seeded initially. Under those <br />circumstances, the percentage increase exceeded 50% and the volumetric increment was <br />greater than 3000 acre-feet (3700 kilotons) per target unit. It is regrettable that several <br />lay persons and two meteorologists (neither with any cloud seeding experience) were able <br />to convince the public that the drought conditions they had been experiencing were due to <br />negative cloud seeding effects and to close that project for the remainder of the 2002 <br />season and in 2003. <br /> <br />32 <br />
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