A Stormy Outlook

Bryana Malloy

ENGL 102-045

Response to Essay

4 February 2012

A Stormy Outlook

This past 2011-2012 New England winter season doesn’t really feel like a winter season at all. Usually one drives down the street and observes others plowing, shoveling, or children playing in the snow. That is the normal scene; not this year. This year has been bringing weather that makes most wonder, “where is all the snow?” or more like “why is it this warm?” Our first and only snowstorm was a bit too early to be true, planting almost 2 feet of snow on some parts of Massachusetts on October 28-29. Although we’ve gotten some snow, it nearly isn’t the amount that we should be getting. On top of that, at the end of January, we had multiple days with temperatures as high as 55°. Instead of seeing that pictured winter scene, we’ve been seeing the opposite—people walking around in shorts and T-shirts. What could be the explanation for these wacky weather patterns? Personally, I put the blame on weather modification.

Weather modification, according to Britannica Online Encyclopedia is “the deliberate or the inadvertent alternation of atmospheric conditions by human activity, sufficient to modify the weather on local or regional scales”. Weather modification first began in 1946 and was part of the Schaefer-Langmuir experiments where clouds were seeded. There are many ways to seed a cloud. One way involves flying an aircraft while spraying crushed dry ice pellets into the atmosphere. This procedure hasn’t been too efficient, so another process using silver iodine is more likely to be used. Aircrafts spray a solution into the sky that is silver iodine, dissolved in sodium iodine and acetone. This spray leaves behind a contrail, which is a streak of white in the sky. These contrails don’t disappear right away, but they can stay in the sky for up to 24 hours and eventually form into clouds, ultimately modifying the weather. This is done to control the weather so there are benefits for certain regions, and less damage for others.

Now, I’m not a scientist, but something tells me that altering the weather isn’t going to be done without causing severe side effects. I believe that today, we are just starting to see the beginning side effects caused by weather modification. The natural disasters that have occurred over the past few years around the world could be natural, or in fact, very unnatural. I’m leaning towards unnatural. If we (as in the government) have been experimenting with the weather for years, who is to say that the disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, the Japan earthquake and tsunami, and the Indonesia tsunami aren’t due to weather manipulation?

While we are having an almost snowless winter in Massachusetts, it is quite the opposite in Europe. Over the past few days, Eastern and Central Europe have been in a state of emergency. Blizzards and freezing conditions have left most towns and countries stunned. Earlier in the season, most cities experienced mild temperatures. Now, thousands of people are snowed into their homes with up to 5 meters of snow continuously falling in the past 26 days. Temperatures have reached -30 C (hundreds of towns have reached the lowest recorded temperatures since the beginning of record keeping), and over 200 people have died while up to 1,000 have been treated for frostbite and hypothermia.

Earlier this year, a winter blast hit Alaska and caused trouble just like in Europe.

In the Britannica Online Encyclopedia, it is said “A wide variety of scientific tests and operational weather modification projects have been performed in many countries. The largest programs have been in the United States, the former Soviet Union, Australia, and France”. Is it just a coincidence that the largest weather modification programs have been in the United States and Russia (the former Soviet Union), and those are the places that have been having severe and abnormal weather patterns?

The benefits of weather modification could be great for some, and not so great for others. By modifying the weather, the losses caused by natural weather conditions could be reduced. If there is a drought, rain could be produced. If there is a hurricane, it could become controlled and less severe. The reason changing the weather is so that there is more of a benefit for certain areas. The better the weather in some places, the more of a good can be grown. Let’s use corn as our main focus. Let’s say that in part of the Corn Belt, there hasn’t been enough rain for the corn to grow. By modifying the weather, more rain could be produced, satisfying the need for more rain, allowing the crops to grow sufficiently. This is a benefit for some places, but for other places, who knows what the changes in the weather could bring.

Most scientists are still very unfamiliar with modifying the weather when there are tornadoes and hurricanes. There is still plenty to be studied involving weather modification, and questions have risen on how effective cloud seeding actually is. I believe that weather modification is not acceptable. The earth was made to have certain weather patterns, and if we aren’t as knowledgeable on the subject as we could be, then we shouldn’t be messing around with the natural occurrences. For me, that is just asking for a whole lot of trouble.

Works Cited

"Serbian Villages Stranded after Heavy Snow Storms | World News | The Guardian."

Latest News, Sport and Comment from the Guardian | The Guardian. Web. 03 Feb. 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/02/serbian-villages-stranded-snowfall>.

"weather modification." Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Online

Academic Edition. Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 03 Feb. 2012. <http://www.britannica.com.libserv-prd.bridgew.edu/EBchecked/topic/638346/weather-modification>.

Didymus, JohnThomas. "11,000 Serbian Villagers Trapped by Heavy Snow and

Blizzards." Digital Journal: A Global Digital Media Network. Web. 04 Feb. 2012. <http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/318958>.

"BBC News - Europe Freeze Hits Transport Hubs." BBC - Homepage. Web. 04 Feb.

2012. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16887916>.