Should We Change the Weather Even If We Can?

jonerik writes "According to this article in today's Christian Science Monitor, science will be able to make significant changes in weather systems in the next few decades. More than simply seeding clouds to produce rain, the technology will be available to nudge hurricanes out of the path of population centers, for instance. The big question is 'Should we?' 'Even if we can do this, is this something we really want to do?,' says Dr. Ross Hoffman, a vice president with Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc., who adds, 'Before we can really control weather, we have to be able to observe the weather and forecast the weather much better than we do now.' On the other hand, according to the article the genie may already be out of the bottle: 'According to the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization (WMO), at least 25 countries are engaged in weather modification projects to enhance rain and snowfall, or suppress hail. In the United States, 12 states have had weather modification programs. Texas runs a program at the county level for rain enhancement, while North Dakota is focusing on hail suppression.'"

Comments

Re:Water rights

[Malcontent]

The water is not quite a closed system though. The water you flush down the toilet can not be put back into use until it has been treated so it's out of circulation for a while. Before it gets put back it also costs a ton of money to treat so the cost of the water put back into the system is much greater then before it was "used". These costs are not trivial and that's why it's better to use less water in the first place.

Also factor in a porlonged draught and the draining of the aquifers and you get a water shortage which will cause all kinds of strife and civil unrest.

For a prime example look no further then Oregon. The farmers had a bitter battle for water with the US govt until the Govt caved in and diverted water for farmland. Within two months it lead to a massive kill or salmon coming up the river to spawn which will effect salmon populations for years. The fishermen, indians, farmers, environmentalist, ranchers are now at each others throats all fighting over what little water there is left in the klamath basin. After years of mismanagement in the face of draught the people of Oregon now have to choose between farming and salmon. They can no longer have both.

Re:Do we understand enough?

[WatertonMan]

Here's a better paper related to the two above. It goes a little more in depth and gives some of the graphs I vaguely remembered.

http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/npg/8/npg8/357.pdf Quoting from the conclusion: While the effects of chaos eventually lead to loss of predictability, this may happen only over long time scales. Exponential-on-average error growth does not necessarily imply rapid error growth. In the short term it is model error which dominates, and which must be considered in any scheme of quality control.