Chemtrails 911 - A Silver Lining

A silver-iodide lining
Cloud seeding has experts seeking one
By Jerd Smith,
Rocky Mountain News November 25, 2004

Two years after Front Range cities launched a $1.2 million cloud-seeding program to fight the drought, independent federally funded research has failed to show whether
this offering to the snow gods paid off.

"When I started this project, I thought we had it," said professor Bill Cotton, a nationally recognized cloud-seeding expert and climate researcher at Colorado State University, who led the federal project. "But that was naive. Now, I think the answer is still out there in front of us."

In 2002, when the drought struck hard, 14 Front Range cities, led by Denver, raced to get a state permit to begin what would become the largest weather-modification program ever undertaken in Colorado. State water officials, researchers and water utilities hoped the program would generate enough scientific evidence to answer a question that has beguiled the West for decades: Can seeding the clouds force them to produce more snowflakes than they would normally?

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation provided $100,000 to Colorado State University researchers to analyze the new data the cloud-seeding program generated. But once again, Mother Nature held onto her weather secrets.

Now, federal funds for the independent research have run out, and few expect new money to be made available. "We would probably need 10 years of data to find the answer," Cotton said. "And there is no agency that will support a program for 10 years. That, historically, has always been the problem."

'Some impact on runoff'
Small cloud-seeding projects have been used by Colorado ski areas and farmers to generate moisture since the 1950s. The most recent program used more than 40 cloud-seeding machines during a two-year period to disperse tiny silver particles into the clouds in hope of generating more snow in critical mountain watersheds, from Winter Park to Vail and beyond.

Denver Water then spent more than $30,000 to evaluate the cloud work and believes there was enough increase in snowpack - about 10 percent to 15 percent - to justify the $1.2 million expenditure. It reached that conclusion after its consultants compared snowpack in seeded and nonseeded areas and determined, among other things, that the seeded areas received more snow. Whether that was a result of the artificial cloud seeding or Mother Nature is the answer researchers haven't been able to answer.
"We are comfortable that we made some impact on runoff," said Jon Diebel, Denver Water's director of engineering. "Obviously, the more scientific studies, the better, but absent anything definitive, I would do it again." In fact, the utility may relaunch the seeding program later this year or early next spring if winter snows prove scarce, as they have in each of the past seven years.

In the meantime, states such as California have opted to allow utilities and ski companies to seed clouds at will, with no permits required. More than a dozen separate programs operate there annually, according to Maurice Roos, who tracks seeding programs for the California Division of Water Resources.

One of the reasons is the cost-benefit ratio. Producing an acre-foot of water using a desalination plant costs about $700, according to Steve Hunter, a research meteorologist for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation who oversaw the CSU research.

Producing the same amount of water through cloud seeding - if the anecdotal evidence is true - costs about $10. An acre-foot of water equals 326,000 gallons, enough to serve up to two families for one year.

Academy issues warning

As the fast-growing American West wrestles with a lingering drought and water shortages, policy-makers believe there will be more pressure to seed the clouds. But they want proof that it works and that there won't be harmful results, such as floods or less rain.
"What we really need is a lot more research so that we don't have unjustifiable programs out there," Hunter said.
Tracking the snow gods, Hunter says, "requires great foresight and doing cloud seeding year in and year out. Unfortunately, the field thrives on disaster. The only time there is the political will to do the research is during a drought, and that's the worst time to do it (because there are fewer clouds to seed)."
Last year, the National Academy of Sciences issued a report warning that widespread cloud-seeding efforts shouldn't be given blanket endorsements until the science behind them could be established.

"The nation is spending millions on cloud seeding, but we're spending almost no money on research," said Robert Sarafin, co-author of the National Academy of Sciences report and director emeritus of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.

Sarafin said many believe cloud seeding could become a viable tool for helping enhance snowpack in Western states but that without more money for research, it will always be "a matter of faith."

Researchers and water experts, however, worry that the lack of scientific proof makes widespread cloud seeding a dicey proposition.

"What if, at the end of the day, cloud seeding results in less snow?" Sarafin asked. "That's when the logic of what they're doing breaks down."

He and others also wonder if the money couldn't be spent more wisely on such things as reducing water waste.

"If they can only produce 10 percent more water, I have to think we could reduce our use by at least that much," Sarafin said.

Cloud mysteries
The main stumbling block Colorado researchers encountered is that their new weather models couldn't distinguish between naturally occurring precipitation and any new snow that may have fallen as a result of the seeding.

Right now these tools can't measure to a fine enough level to distinguish between Mother Nature's work and that of a seed generator. "The signal just wasn't large enough," Cotton said.

Part of the problem, he said, is that the utilities' operational program wasn't structured as a science experiment, something that would have cost substantially more money than the $1.2 million the cities spent to run the seeding generators.

But the larger problem lies in the variability of weather patterns and mountain geography, said Larry Hjermstad, president of Western Weather Consultants, which ran the Front Range seeding programs.

"There are enough variables in the atmosphere and with the rough terrain that it's difficult for the computers to model what's occurring naturally," Hjermstad said.

That issue could be resolved with more time and money, several researchers said, because advances in weather-tracking technologies are occurring all over the world.

Colorado researchers aren't giving up hope. This year, one piece of federal legislation proposes a 10-year, $100-million program to finally establish whether such efforts as cloud seeding really work.

LET'S MAKE SANTA CRUZ A CHEMTRAIL FREE ZONE!!