Weather modification

Weather modification is the deliberate attempt to reduce weather effects or change the weather, usually to improve a situation. For example, cloud seeding with silver iodide can increase precipitation and snowfall. Weather modification is more common in developing nations due to its economic costs.

If you've ever watched an apocalyptic film and panicked about the ice-cube-like rain pouring down around you, you're not alone. Weather modification is still relatively new in terms of technology but it's becoming increasingly prevalent as people look for ways to improve natural disasters or combat global warming on a personal level.

Here are the most common weather modification technologies:

1. Cloud Seeding:  This is one that's used a lot. Silver iodide can be sprinkled on clouds to create rain or snow artificially. Cloud seeding can be useful for agriculture but it's also used in some instances to fight flooding. For example, the US Army funded tests that helped save the city of Fort Collins, Colorado from flooding each year for 18 years —all thanks to cloud seeding technology! The idea here is to help with precipitation and flooding but deny rainfall over large areas by releasing silver iodine into a cloud so that it will break into smaller droplets and fall instead of rain or snow. The military also uses it to boost precipitation and break up the jet-stream.

2. Fog Seeding:  Just as cloud seeding increases precipitation, fog seeding can do the same but on fog. This is useful in situations where you need a more immediate effect or for shorter amounts of time. For example, farmers can use this technology to reduce the amount of fertilizer needed on their fields or trees during extremely dry seasons.

3. Glace Ice Seeding:  Rapid ice melt is a problem that's hurting the environment and one that we (humans) are largely causing with global warming, particularly in arctic regions. Ice seeding is a way to combat rapid ice melt and it's done by spreading dispersal agents on surfaces so that the water will freeze more quickly. Similar to the ice-cube-like rain mentioned at the beginning, it can be used to keep roads from icing over (adding traction) or keep bodies of water from freezing over completely.

4. Rain Enhancement:  This is similar to cloud seeding but involves raising the temperature of air masses in order for clouds to form better (instead of silver iodide). This reduces the amount of time it takes for precipitation to form and can be especially useful in killing outbreaks of West Nile Virus, malaria, and other mosquito-borne illnesses. In Florida, for example, a single rain enhancement test in 2003 killed more than 19 million mosquitoes instantly!

5. Snow Seeding:  This technology has been around for a long time but it's become especially popular recently in regions like the Pacific Northwest due to climate change and the current lack of snowfall.

You may be thinking: Wait a minute? If we're already causing so much damage with climate change, why would we need to mess around with the weather? And that's a fair question. While we know there will be some instances where people will get hurt or even killed, the worst-case scenario is that we're inadvertently messing with the weather. This goes for cloud seeding at best and more like a small part of climate change at worst. Let's think back to that study I mentioned earlier, which showed that we could increase precipitation in certain regions by as much as 200%. Well, if we did that there, we'd probably be decreasing rain in another area by the same amount.

The thing to remember is that you can't really play God with natural systems. The effects are hard to predict and they're likely to be much more complex than we realize. No matter what, we're going to end up hurting someone and perhaps even ourselves. Even if the technology is used perfectly, it's still a short-term fix for a long-term problem, much like many things we do in modern society. But it will likely prove useful in places with erratic rainfall and hopefully will lead to a better understanding of our planet as a whole.