Weather Modification

weather modification

Deliberate or inadvertent alteration of atmospheric conditions by human activity, sufficient to modify the weather on a local or regional scale. Deliberate alterations include covering plants to keep them warm at night, seeding clouds to induce or augment precipitation, and firing silver-iodide particles into clouds to suppress or mitigate hail and to reduce fog at airports. Inadvertent alterations are the result of industrialization and urbanization, which have added billions of tons of carbon dioxide and other gases to the atmosphere (see acid rain, global warming, greenhouse effect).

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weather modification [′weth·ər ‚mäd·ə·fə′kā·shən]

(meteorology)

The changing of natural weather phenomena by technical means; so far, only on the microscale of condensation and freezing nuclei has it been possible to exert modifying influences.

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Weather Modification 

a group of measures taken to change the climate in a way that is useful to humans (for example, to improve the living conditions of the population in a particular region or to develop particular sectors of agriculture). At the present level of science and technology, weather modification can only be carried out over comparatively small areas, involving primarily the layer of the atmosphere next to the ground.

Weather modification plans for significant areas envision either direct influence on the atmosphere by technical means or a change in the geographic factors that influence the processes of climate formation. Examples of such projects are dusting of the upper layers of the atmosphere to change the heat exchange between the earth and space, the use of atomic energy to affect the general circulation of the atmosphere, the construction of dams to change the behavior of ocean currents, and the breakup of polar ice. Some of these projects will be technically feasible in the near future. However, at the present level of development of science, all the possible consequences of the particular interventions in the processes of climate formation cannot be foreseen. Therefore, the existing climatic conditions on earth must be preserved, and the tendency of human intervention in natural processes to worsen them must be limited.

REFERENCES

Budyko, M. I. Klimat i zhizn’. Leningrad, 1971.
Budyko, M. I. Vliianie cheloveka na klimat. Leningrad, 1972.
Berliand, M. E., and K. la. Kondrat’ev. Goroda i klimatplanety. Leningrad, 1972.

S. P. KHROMOV