"Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody ever does anything about it." ~Mark Twain |
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Well it turns out, as a matter of fact, since the days of Mr. Mark Twain a few brave souls have embarked on a quest to do something about the weather. Cloud seeding is a process by which ice crystals and liquid water drops are formed artificially out of already existing clouds that are not dense enough to get the job done themselves. In theory this practice can deliver rain to parts of the world that go many months out of the year without, can deliver a much needed boon to agriculture in times of drought, can fortify struggling rivers, and provide usable water to urban centers constantly running short. "A 2005 report by the Metropolitan Water District of of Southern California estimates that cloud seeding in six areas of the Colorado River Basin could produce 1.7 million acre-feet of new water. Cloud seeding in Utah, the report claims, increased precipitation between 7 and 20 percent at a cost of less than $20 per acre-foot." Other organizations reported similar results of 5-15% increases in precipitation for as little as $5 per acre-foot. However, of all the reports filed that claimed to have increased precipitation from the clouds not one could address the major question that still loomed: Does it work? Not one organization could prove the increases in precipitation were the direct result of cloud seeding or if it was just a particularly wet year. Other controversy surrounding the practice of cloud seeding stems from the fact that the most common form of it uses a chemical called silver iodide which has known harmful side effects if people or animals are exposed to large quantities of it over a long period of time. Chronic inhalation of silver compounds has been known to cause argyria for example. Other skeptics are concerned that if we can modify the weather in this fashion, who's to say we won't make it change for the worse? Weather is an extremely complicated and dynamic process, the alteration of which could adversely affect those in its path.
http://what-if.xkcd.com/12/ < Like this |
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