Cloud Seeding Gone Wrong in China, US History

China claims to have modified their weather - a little too much; heavy snow after cloud seeding led to the closures of major highways in Beijing. I'll quote from a Reuters article as I did in 2006 when I talked about this subject in 2006:

"Although the science of weather seeding is controversial and some doubt its effectiveness, China often seeds clouds."

Scientists have never been sure how to measure the affect of cloud seeding. One could argue that this storm might have happened anyway, for example. A college professor told me that modification of major weather systems was abandoned in the U.S. 50 years ago when a seeded hurricane changed course to hit the coast. That may or may not be true; you can see the results of NOAA's Project Stormfury below (courtesy About.com); click on the storm names for their tracks.

IMAGE AT LEFT: Stormfury seeding diagram by NOAA. You can read more about Project Stormfury on NOAA's site, including the official reasons for it being disbanded. More information about why hurricane modification is not simple, can be read on my blog entry "Bomb 'Em or Dust 'Em".

And don't forget, the U.S. Air Force said in 1996 that they plan to "own the weather" by 2025.

MY PREVIOUS BLOGS ON WEATHER MODIFICATION:

(August 2008)

(May 2006)

(September 2005)