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UK Team to Study Rainmaking Machines

Posted by michael on from the messing-with-mother-nature dept.

RobertB-DC writes "The BBC reports that a Edinburgh University team has received a grant to research Wind-Powered Rainmaking Machines. You have to have winds blowing towards a mountainous coastline, but the article says that the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf are well-suited. For a cautionary note, though, the BBC includes a link to the story of a 1952 cloud-seeding experiment gone terribly wrong."

11 of 253 comments (clear)

  1. We shouldn't be playing with our environment... by kakos · · Score: 3, Insightful
    ...yet. We still don't know much about weather. Meteorology is not a sure science. And these kinds of experience with making rain, while noble, have the potential to cause quite a few deaths. The rain seeding experiment is an example of that.

    We should avoid these sorts of experiments until we have a good understanding about how our weather works.

    1. Re:We shouldn't be playing with our environment... by Idarubicin · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Absolutely right. We should develop a complete understanding of weather based entirely on theory and calculation, in which we can place absolute confidence because no experimental data contradicts our model.

      Of course, once we're sure we have a complete understanding, then let the weather modification begin.

      I'm afraid that the early attempts at large-scale weather modification will always be experimental, no matter how much theory we throw at the problem first. Do we start experimenting sooner, or later?

      --
      ~Idarubicin
  2. screwing with weather? by sickmtbnutcase · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "People have been trying for many years to modify the weather, from tribal rain dances through to experiments in which small crystals were dropped into clouds to attract moisture."

    I don't know if anyone has noticed, but to me the weather the past few years hasn't seemed quite normal to begin with. Floods and heavy rain where it normally doesn't rain much, tornados in odd parts of the country, lack of snow where there's usually plenty....So why would we want to modify it by adding extra moisture in the air and making it rain in places which normally receive little rain to begin with? What would be the effects a few hundred miles away? Really, what's wrong with normal irrigation? It works, and doesn't affect the weather.

    1. Re:screwing with weather? by PurpleBob · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Right on.

      It pains me to see environmentalists ranting against nuclear power. Every effective mode of power generation we have produces harmful waste; but with nuclear, we know exactly where all of it goes.

      The problem is a terrible lack of perspective. People would rather have tons of soot pumped into the air than be around any amount of (gasp) radiation, no matter how small. There was a case I heard about where workers involved in some nuclear meltdown - it might have been Three Mile Island - got taken to court, and one of them finally pointed out that everyone there was being exposed to more radioactive materials by sitting in a granite courthouse than the people living near the site of the meltdown got.

      --
      Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
    2. Re:screwing with weather? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      It's all perspective, though... An hour of exposure to nuclear waste after only a small fraction of that 150,000 years of degradation is far less harmful than an hour of exposure to the Sun's UV rays filterred by our atmosphere. I've lost the source on this, but we can always remember that nuclear physicist's offer to injest plutonium which was made to shut up the more egregious claims of nuclear power critics.

      Fission is the best answer to our energy needs.

      Hell, if we're that concerned about storing the waste here on Earth for a couple hundred thousand years (and we shouldn't be), we could always just fire it into the sun.

      -- AC who started this subthread

  3. I dunno by Reality+Master+101 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    North Devon experienced 250 times the normal August rainfall in 1952. [...] She recalls: "Mum identified her by this huge wart on her back because she hadn't got no head, or arms, or legs when they found her".

    I hate to be skeptical, but... the article seems to imply that this rain making experiment caused all this water to suddenly fall out of the sky. But what makes my "bullshit" meter go off is whether there is that much water in the air in the first place. I mean, 250 times the normal rainfall? I could see if you had some natural storm system come in that just happened to have a ton of moisture, but just to create out of "thin air" (so to speak) that much water out of normal conditions just doesn't sound plausible.

    Particularly since if it were that easy, we would never have droughts.

    Something isn't adding up here.

    --
    Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
    1. Re:I dunno by Bishop923 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I would have to agree, based on the numbers...

      Assume that the average august rainfall in North Devon is around 2 inches (5.08 cm). That would mean that 500 inches(1270 cm) of rain fell in that storm... almost 42 FEET(12.7 m) of rain fell in that single day.

      I have a feeling they meant 250% of normal, 5 inches(12.7 cm) of rain falling in a farily short amt of time(say an hour or two) can have devastating effects, especially in flood plains where local rivers are already close to flood level. Far more likely than having enough rain to submerge a 5 storey building...

  4. Stealing rain? by stefanlasiewski · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hrm...

    If you force the rain to come down, NOW, RIGHT HERE, aren't you preventing the rain from falling on your neighbors? What if there is a drought and the neighbors need the rain?

    --
    "Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
  5. READ THE ARTICLE by mike3411 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I was just going through these posts to spend some of my mod points, and I was astounded at how few people had even given a cursory glance at the article. Unlike other experiments, which involve forcing existing atmospheric moisture (clouds) to precipitate into rain, the equipment proposed would actually add and create clouds from seawater. This is very different in effect, as it won't be taking moisture away from anyone else, but will rather just add a great deal of moisture to the whole region, which of course could have serious effects, both positive & negative.

    I wonder what they're doing with all the salt.... it would build up wherever the water evaoporates, mebbe at the misting site? Seems like introducing that much salt into an area would be a problem.

    --
    Mod me down, and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
  6. please by Lord+Omlette · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Someone explain to me why every member of the British group wasn't round up and shot for gross negligence?

    Also, I read that in order to use laser guided bombs in Kosovo, they had to use cloud dispersing techniques that resulted in horrific hailstorms in other parts of the Balkans. Unfortunately I read this three years ago and can't find any references to it... anyone?

    --
    [o]_O
  7. Bad idea? by skintigh2 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Wouldn't that increase the salinity of the water, which might be bad for sea life, but could also alter currents if the denser water sank?