Hurricane Cloud Seeding

Other Unique Engineering Ideas
The major types of weather modification that are currently in use or under study include cloud seeding, frost prevention, fog and cloud dispersal, hurricane modification, hail suppression, and lighting suppression. This article we briefly look in to phenomenon of clouds seeding and its effects.

 1. Description

2. Who needs Cloud Seeding & Why

3. How to Implement

4. Previous Attempts

5. Analysis of Possibility

6. Future Trends

7. Keywords

8. Related Links

Useful Links: hurricane research, Cloud Seeding, Hurricane Modification

Description

Cloud seeding is the process of spreading either dry ice (or more commonly, silver iodide aerosols) into the upper part of clouds to try to stimulate the precipitation process and form rain. The history of cloud seeding has seen uncertain results because even if a cloud rains after seeding, it is not known whether the cloud would have rained anyway. We will look in to different scenarios where cloud seeding was performed and analyze the results.

Who needs Cloud Seeding & Why

A half century later, the science of weather modification is still in its infancy with many questions surrounding the most effective way of bringing about the changes desired in any particular setting.

  • To induce rain about 50 kilometers outside the city. To empty all clouds of rain before they hit the city borders.

  • Some defense experts have suggested the use of weather modification techniques as a military weapon. The claim has been made, for example, that the United States used cloud seeding during the Vietnam War. The hope was that increased rainfall would make the movement of personnel and material along the Ho Chi Minh trail more difficult.

  • Owner of a private ski resort wants to have clouds seeded in order to increase snowfall over his or her property. If that effort is successful, the ski area benefits, economically.

The field of "weather modification" has come a long way since then, but experts still aren't sure humans can affect something as massive as a hurricane, which can release energy equivalent to a 10-megaton nuclear bomb every 20 minutes, according to the U.S. Hurricane Research Division.

Previous Attempts

  • The ability of dry ice to trigger the condensation of supercooled water droplets was discovered accidentally in 1946 by Schaefer

  • In 1947 the U.S. government used an airplane to "seed" a hurricane 500 kilometers off the coast of North Carolina.

  • The U.S. Department of Defense promptly classified details of the experiment to avoid litigation.

  • In the early 1960's, the National Hurricane Center began a series of experiments in seeding of hurricanes to reduce their intensity.

How to Implement

  • Shortly after Schaefer's research, the ability of silver iodide to produce similar results was also discovered.
  • Any technique of cloud seeding depends on the release of millions of tiny particles of dry ice or silver iodide into a cloud.
  • One way of accomplishing that goal is to ignite solid silver iodide in burners on the ground.
  • The smoke thus formed consists of many tiny particles of the compound which are then carried upward into a cloud.

Since most rainfall starts through the growth of ice crystals from super-cooled cloud droplets (droplets colder than the freezing point, 32 deg. F) in the upper parts of clouds, the silver iodide particles are meant to encourage the growth of new ice particles. The most destructive hurricane winds are produced from hurricanes with the smallest diameter eyes, STORMFURY seeding flights tried to stimulate the growth of a new eye-wall of convection outside the inner, more destructive eye-wall..The amount of energy in one hurricane is approximately equal to 100 atomic bombs.   A bomb creates heat when exploded and you would be adding heat and not chill which would actually cause the hurricane to intensify.   

Analysis of Possibility

A more efficient way of seeding a cloud is to drop the seeding agent from an airplane onto the top of the cloud. If silver iodide is used, it can be released from flares attached to the wing tips of the aircraft. If dry ice is used, it is first pulverized into a fine powder and then sprayed onto the cloud.

  • In the 1950's through the 1970's research was conducted during the project known as "Storm Fury".  They only seeded half dozen hurricanes with dry ice and silver iodide and only seeded one hurricane successfully.  

  • A later analysis of the 1947 Georgia hurricane suggested the seeding experiment actually had nothing to do with its sudden change of direction.

Many people thought the seeding caused the hurricane to change course. However, researchers discovered the seeding did nothing. What they concluded was that it would take several air craft perhaps dozens of planes to seed the eye of a hurricane all at the same time without crashing into each other.  That would be an impossible task.  

Future Trends

What needs to be developed is some kind of compound that expands 10-20 times and significantly cools at the same time. It has since been determined that there are already an abundance of ice crystals in hurricane rain systems, so the production of new ice particles through cloud seeding probably has little if any effect.The most planes flown into hurricanes now a days at once is 3 and they are spaced out several miles apart.   In order to seed the eye of a hurricane you would have to have these planes go into the eye about the same time and within a couple of miles of each other and that would be extemely dangerous.It would not be surprising if some kind of seeding attempt were to be made within the next few years if funded by the government and conducted by the airforce using awips planes to manuver the planes.  Only a certain kind of plane can withstand the turbulance.  The C130's used have re-inforced wings.  We would have to develop a fleet of these planes to conduct the project.  

Keywords

Frost prevention, Hurricane modification, Hail and lighting suppression, Fog and cloud dispersal, Effectiveness of cloud seeding,Cloud seeding,Methods of cloud seeding ,How to make artificial rain, Effects of cloud seeding , Can u create rain, Hurricane research,Storm Fury, Control rain, Control Hurricane, Weather question, Human research development, Climate variation,What is cloud seeding.

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