SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Storms Brew Over Cloud Seeding


Despite popularity in West, skeptics question effectiveness, safety. ::


BY VAN CHARLES S


everal states are considering banning cloud seeding and solar geoengineering amid lingering


questions about how safe they are. Cloud seeding is used widely in


Western states to induce rainfall, and solar geoengineering is being touted as a way to slow climate change. New Hampshire, Rhode Island,


Pennsylvania, and Kentucky have all recently debated legislation that would limit or halt seeding clouds for rain and snow, including programs implemented by the federal government. In Tennessee, legislators in April


enacted a law that states: “The intentional injection, release, or dispersion, by any means, of chemicals, chemical compounds, substances, or apparatus within the borders of this state into the atmosphere with the express purpose of affecting temperature, weather, or the intensity of the sunlight is prohibited.” It will take effect in July. One of the legislation’s sponsors,


state Rep. Monty Fritts, warned: “Everything that goes up must come down, and those chemicals that we knowingly and willingly inject into the atmosphere simply to control the weather or the climate are affecting our health and have the potential to.” Cloud seeding began in the mid-


Dubai Downpour ‘Was Climate Change’


C


loud seeding was not to blame for the 10-


inch downpour in April that drenched the United Arab Emirates and Dubai, meteorologists said. The record-breaking storm, which turned roads into


76 NEWSMAX MAXLIFE | JUNE 2024


rivers, forced the closure of the Dubai airport, and left 20 people dead across the region, dumped a year’s worth of rain in just over 24 hours. Initial reports blamed the


UAE’s 30-year-old cloud- seeding program for the


1940s when scientists at the General Electric Research Laboratory discovered they could use silver iodide and dry ice to create ice crystals in the clouds, a method still used today. After booming for several decades,


cloud seeding declined sharply by the early 1980s, a combination of questionable results, a huge reduction in government funding, and ethical concerns that primarily arose from military cloud-seeding operations during the Vietnam War. Interest in cloud seeding was


rekindled in the late 1990s by states dealing with reduced rainfall, shrinking reservoirs, and reduced snowpack on mountains. Cloud seeding works by introducing


tiny ice nuclei into certain types of subfreezing clouds. These nuclei provide a base for snowflakes to form. After cloud seeding takes place,


the newly formed snowflakes quickly grow and fall from the clouds back to the surface of the Earth, increasing snowpack and streamflow. Proponents point to there being


“no known harmful effects” related to injecting silver iodide into the atmosphere, including statements released by the Desert Research Institute, which oversees numerous cloud-seeding operations. Not everyone agrees. In its research paper titled “Dodging Silver Bullets:


How Cloud Seeding Could Go Wrong,” the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists says it’s understandable that during times of extreme drought, states would look for “silver bullets” — promising overly simplistic technological solutions to complex problems “despite there being no simple solutions for water shortages or climate change.” Along with managing droughts, the


agency says cloud seeding is also used to clear fog at airports, fight wildfires, suppress hail, and even divert rainfall, for example, during the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Solar geoengineering is still in its


research stage, but some experts believe it could combat global warming. “The idea is that dispersing


aerosols — tiny particles — at high altitude would reflect a small fraction of incoming sunlight back to space and cool the planet, offsetting some global warming,” Joshua Horton, a geoengineering research director at Harvard University, told USA Today. Solar geoengineering also has its


skeptics, who are concerned about the unintended consequences of “adding small reflective particles to the upper atmosphere” as a means of “cooling the Earth.” “While such strategies have


the potential to reduce global temperatures, they could also introduce an array of unknown or negative consequences,” the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine said in a statement.


rain. But meteorologists and climate scientists pointed out the storm had been predicted six days in advance and said it was likely the result of global warming. Atmospheric science


researcher Tomer Burg said computer models had forecast several inches of rain. Three low-pressure


systems formed a train of slow-moving storms, said University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann.


The National Center for


Meteorology, which oversees cloud seeding in the UAE, said no cloud-seeding operations had taken place before or during the storm.


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