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Swiss Researchers Try to Make it Rain With Lasers
formaggio writes "Last year a team of researchers at Switzerland's University of Geneva had come up with an interesting way of making it rain– by shooting lasers high up into the sky. At the time it seemed like science fiction, but now they are one step closer after the team successfully finished tests around Lake Geneva. From the article: 'Records from 133 hours of firings revealed that intense pulses of laser light created nitric acid particles in the air that behaved like atmospheric glue, binding water molecules together into droplets and preventing them from re-evaporating. Within seconds, these grew into stable drops a few thousandths of a millimeter in diameter: too small to fall as rain, but large enough to encourage the scientists to press on with the work.'"
While they weren't able to make rain fall they did make 34 pigeons, 12 sparrows, 334 bees and 1 hanglider fall from the sky...
If only there were a way to divert all the clouds from the places that get too much rainfall and flooding, and have them all over the Sahara, as well as the Arabian peninsula. Would make that entire continent more agriculture rich, and solve food distribution issues in the region. While at the same time, giving the heavily rained on regions some respite!
Stupid swiss should better stick to making chocolate !!
As long as you aren't doing it in any flight paths, you are probably not going to cause any immediate damage...
The real giggles, with the eventual success of any of these cloud-seeding projects, will be political(probably with a side of Aral-sea style ecological fuck-uppery in places where people don't care very much):
As with rivers that flow across political boundaries(a source of endless contention over water rights, complaints by team downstream that team upstream is taking too much water out and/or dumping too much shit in, etc.), air currents carrying enough water vapor to be even theoretically 'seed-able' are a finite resource. Rain that falls in one location won't be available to fall in another one. Historically, there hasn't been all that much fighting(either the legal flavor, or the literal flavor) about it, because rainfall was pretty much just a function of geography, climate, and luck.
Should it become possible to 'pump' a cloud with some comparatively inexpensive apparatus(whether it be this laser widget or some other thing), reliable air currents flowing from regions of evaporation will become a new flavor of 'river', suddenly subject to rivalrous use, and the rivalries that stem from it. Happy times!
Surely we can build a device to target individual raindrops and evaporate them with a laser? They can already do it with mortars, afaik. Perhaps I should petition the government for funding - think of the boost to Scottish tourism if the weather here was predictable more than 5 minutes in advance!
And they will call this the Laser Age!
... with their head mounted lasers. The horror.
Nitric acid raining from the sky sounds no good at all to me.
But maybe I'm not so good at science to understand the pros of such a rain.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
We won't like it when it's going to rain sharks all of a sudden!
You can't handle the truth.
Presumably they were testing the equipment in Europe this year, thus summer failed to happen.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Doctor Frankenstein was from Geneva. Nothing like his descendants firing lasers into thunderclouds. Now witness the firepower of this FULLY ARMED and OPERATIONAL battlestation!
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
but I hear they have made a nice CH engraved in the moon.
Right. Given that HAARP has nothing to do with weather control, nobody has made that comparison.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Pacman Jones makes it rain.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Stupid swiss should better stick to making chocolate!!
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Wrong.
Your version of the story is not getting much press because it's not true.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
oops....
I think that I saw this already, in the land of Malaria, an Evil Scientist (Why are they always Evil?) creates a rain machine (Fires pink beams into the sky) and causes it to rain ALL the time.......causing a situation where Evil science projects are the country's only source of income........and the Igor saves the day/country/his lot in life/, in the end by destroying it.
We would get arrested if we were shooting lasers into the sky, and one happened to shine into an airplane cockpit.
You might want to read the quotes from the actual research cited there. And I won't hear a thing said against Philip Plait.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I'm not sure how the strippers are going to feel about this...
Interesting. After some searching.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/24/breaking-news-cern-experiment-confirms-cosmic-rays-influence-climate-change/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/25/some-reactions-to-the-cloud-experiment/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD
I hadn't heard about this.
No, his version of the story is not getting much press because there's no money in it. Truth and falsehood make no difference to the press.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Should it become possible to 'pump' a cloud with some comparatively inexpensive apparatus(whether it be this laser widget or some other thing), reliable air currents flowing from regions of evaporation will become a new flavor of 'river', suddenly subject to rivalrous use, and the rivalries that stem from it. Happy times!
I believe it already is possible, at least partially (seems the jury is still out on effectiveness). Using lasers is just another way to do it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_seeding
Old argument -->http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970105.html ...
Didn't the ozone layer used to protect the planet from cosmic rays?
... and the following famines and potential warfare.
We already see this with dams on rivers which are vital to the down streams countries and people. If it became realistically possible to control the rain, we would start to see countries affecting each others rain fall, especially due to fairly predictable overall wind patterns.
I'm not saying there aren't positive possibilities, but there is massive scope for negative consequences and if this became viable technology it is something the UN would have to be fully on top of.
Still, I welcome our rain-making overlords.
On se Internetz nobody noes your German.
Fascinating story but, my question is, what sensory apparatus are they using to measure "stable drops a few thousandths of a millimeter in diameter" in the resulting atmosphere?
They seem to have neglected to mention their prior discovery, The Star Trek Duotronic Sensor Array...
If the total energy/financial cost of causing rain is more than the cost of transporting water via conventional means, then it's not really practical.
So let's say we're in drought-stricken West Texas and you zap the clouds and make it rain. But that rain would have originally fallen on central or east Texas. To whom does the rain water belong?
Indeed, let's stifle progress based on what COULD go wrong.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
I don't understand how cloud seeding can possibly be effective. It seems hard to believe that the air above dry places becomes supersaturated because it doesn't have enough dust in the air to act as condensation nuclei. Besides, a cloud is already a bunch of droplets that have formed around condensation nuclei. These droplets then sink to an altitude below the dew point and then simply evaporate again (forming the base of the cloud). So how can cloud seeding overcome the altitude of the dew point?
Yes, I realise that vertical winds and the size of ice crystals complicates things but I still can't see artificial cloud seeding as having a significant effect on rainfall.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
http://xkcd.com/401/
I am an ACCA student. Got a query on Accountancy/Finance? Maybe I can help!
Instead of reading a blog, you should read the actual article. Much more informative, and much less wrong. See above for various links with far more informational content than Watt's blog.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I think the research should continue... In Texas!
My wife doesn't listen to me either...
Here. Read this who describes the original paper and it's conclusions. Not some random blogger. One of the better posts on the thread.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
It will never work. They need to have prayer meetings like we do here in Texas. That always works.
Oh wait.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
stable drops a few thousandths of a millimeter in d
How many Olympic-sized swimming pools is that?
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
It gets the droplets large enough and heavy enough to start falling and reach the ground before evaporating.
But that doesn't solve the fundamental atmospherics of these latitudes.
Problem with these dry areas isn't that they don't get enough rain during the day, it's the fact the cold dry air falling from high altitudes night desiccates the moisture and dust from the surface.
Places like the Sahara desert are right on the boundary of two Hadley cells where the night-time temperatures go below zero.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
I don't understand how cloud seeding can possibly be effective.
Ah, if only you had stopped there. But no, you had to give us your own take on something you just said you don't understand, and which lots of people who spend their lives studying it seem to think has some merit.
I'm sure you are right, this is just a bunch of idiots firing lasers up in the sky. If only they had asked you first.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Yeah, and you're a mind reader who knows what I'm thinking, fuck off troll.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Um... cosmic rays do not come from the Sun, in fact when the Sun is at the top of its 11 year cycle cosmic rays are suppressed by the Sun's magnetosphere and vice versa.
No one is suppressing the story about this research unless you think pointing out that doesn't mean as much as WattsUpWithThat and others want it to mean with regards to global warming is suppressing it.
Would those be flying sharks?