Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Major Study Concludes That Cloud Seeding Is Effective

Posted by timothy on from the not-so-sure-about-the-dancing dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A 45-year Australian trial is the best evidence yet that cloud seeding — the practice of artificially inducing clouds to make rain — really works."

7 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. Now if only California can use this... by Praedon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...Wildfires are pretty tough out there, so why not use this method?

    Correct link by the way: http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/2514/major-study-proves-cloud-seeding-effective

    --
    Just me
    1. Re:Now if only California can use this... by CarpetShark · · Score: 1, Interesting

      ...Wildfires are pretty tough out there, so why not use this method?

      Because screwing with the environment is not the answer to damage being done by screwing with the environment?

    2. Re:Now if only California can use this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      The British Ministry of Defence were experimenting in the early 50s. Unfortunately, they were a bit too successful and killed 34 people when the village of Lynmouth was washed away.

  2. Re:Weather Warfare... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Actually, weather warfare was used in Vietnam. My father worked on it, documented it, and everyone knew it worked back in the late 1960's. Planes would seed clouds to wash out trails the North Vietnamese used to try and hinder their movements.

  3. Rain Wars? by Dripdry · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Does this mean that countries could begin to wage "weather war"? If we stop rain from falling on a country, it would be just sieging a castle.

    --
    -
  4. Bernard Vonnegut figured this out in 1946 by mschuyler · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Kurt Vonnegut's older brother, Bernard Vonnegut, 1914-1997 was a meteorologist who figured this out while working for General Electric. Why is this news now?

    --
    How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
  5. Re:"Chemtrails?" by Valdrax · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does cloud seeding explain all of the paranoid "chemtrail" chatter found in the seedy underbelly of the internets?

    No. Crazy doesn't need an explanation. Witness "Morgellons Syndrome," people who think the moon landing was faked, and alien abductees. Some delusions just go viral on their own.

    That said, sometimes I wonder if there *is* an explanation. Is there a way to predict what kinds of delusions will go mass delusion and which will stay localized to a few crazies (like Time Cube)? I mean, we know that trans-cranial magnetic stimulation can recreate the paralysis, terror, and hallucinations of an "alien abduction," so there's an underlying biological explanation for this. "Morgellons" (and delusional parasitosis in general) is more common among women over 40. Does that indicate a biological root? On the other hand, I feel skeptical about suggesting a strong biological link behind "the moon landing was faked" crazies; that's probably more the result of cultural influences, but is there any biological reason why that one resonates with some people still in a way that "9/11 was faked" no longer really does for nearly as many people after only 8 years?

    Is "chemtrail" chatter the work of one inventive crazy whose explanations got popular among the crowd of paranoids who are easily influenced in that direction, or is there some deeper reason why that pattern of delusion resonates with some people. Is it biological? The result of deep-seated assumptions of our culture and way of life? Just the shallow zeitgeist of the day?

    I dunno, but I like to think about this sort of thing. People are just the funniest creatures in creation some days.

    --
    If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").