I create cloud-seeding materials by coating salt crystals — a conventional cloud-seeding material — with a nanometer-thick titanium dioxide shell.
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LA County's neighbor to the north, Santa Barbara County, has been cloud seeding with both ground-based machines and a dedicated cloud-seeding airplanes since the '80s, and there are active cloud-seeding programs in nine states west of the Mississippi.
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While cloud seeding is still regarded as relatively safe, some studies have cautioned that there is not enough long-term information on what happens to the cloud seeding chemicals once they disperse.
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So far, its cloud seeding programs have mostly been considered a success—in fact, back in March, record rainfalls soon after a series of cloud seeding missions led to flooding in the country.
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I also thought, 'What if 'cloud seeding' could do this!
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Could cloud seeding be our latest and greatest terraforming strategy?
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The concept, called cloud seeding, has been around for decades.
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He described cloud seeding as "giving mother nature a helping hand".
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Yang's website states that he's interested in cloud seeding as well.
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The cloud seeding drone just had its first test flight in Nevada.
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Zou is looking into using nanotechnology to develop novel cloud-seeding materials.
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But cloud seeding can be used for more than just curing droughts.
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The company sees cloud seeding as part of a solution for droughts.
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"This type of cloud-seeding technology is only provided by Apollon," he explains.
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In 2015, the UAE ran 186 different cloud seeding missions, which cost $558,000.
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Weather Modification describes cloud seeding as "an enhancement" of the natural precipitation process.
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Later tests revealed that cloud seeding is much less effective than it first appeared.
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The U.S., in comparison reportedly spends about $15 million on cloud seeding per year.
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That may herald a growing role for technologies such as cloud seeding, experts say.
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He also emphasized his support for geoengineering technologies like space mirrors and cloud seeding.
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A Chinese soldier prepares to fire artillery shells for cloud seeding and rainmaking in 2010.
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Proponents of cloud seeding say it will easily cool the earth back down to "normal" levels.
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Terblanche believes cloud seeding shouldn't be seen as the best way to deal with water shortages.
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In the U.A.E., cloud seeding is just one measure, but it can grow into a solution.
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Problem is, for all these decades, it's been tough to prove that cloud seeding is actually working.
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Indonesian authorities have pledged to use aircraft for water bombing and cloud seeding to fight the fires.
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While the success of cloud-seeding efforts remains in question, commercial use of the technology is growing.
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LA's current cloud-seeding operation is run by the Sandy, Utah-based North American Weather Consultants, Inc.
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The government had also prepared aircraft for cloud seeding in the hope of generating rain, Yeo said.
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The UAE has carried out at least 17 cloud seeding flights this month, according to local media.
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Cloud seeding is a multimillion-dollar industry and used in countries like the United States, China and India.
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Terblanche said in some areas where cloud seeding is used, rainfall has increased by more than 10 percent.
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"Cloud seeding" technology to make artificial clouds and produce higher rainfall that naturally possible in the Saudi desert.
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As a result of the cloud seeding program, it's seeing an 8% to 15% percent increase in snowpack.
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The government is also thinking about setting up what would be the world's largest cloud-seeding operation in Tibet.
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And China used cloud seeding during the Beijing Olympics to make sure clouds released precipitation before reaching the capital.
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Both Malaysia and Indonesia are inducing artificial rain through cloud seeding methods in a bid to aid relief efforts.
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The company uses a process called "cloud seeding," a scientific method deployed to alter natural weather patterns and increase precipitation.
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Step 1: Get an airplane Cloud seeding is performed by pilots who fly into areas of moisture in the atmosphere.
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Even localized control of regular weather, through schemes like cloud seeding, has only seen limited success despite decades of research.
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Sulfates into the stratosphere, a trillion thin mirrors in space reflecting sunlight, cloud-seeding, forests of artificial CO2 sucking trees.
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Cloud-seeding is a form of geoengineering– or manipulating of weather systems to reduce the negative effects of climate change.
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Cloud seeding didn't get much attention until 2017 when the National Science Foundation funded a study to determine its effectiveness.
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Step 5: Repeat Cloud-seeding flights can take three to four hours, during which time pilots can release dozens of flares.
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It's certainly possible in theory to prevent rain in one place by using cloud seeding to induce it in another, upwind.
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Turns out that El Niño had a little help—precipitation was increased by an estimated 15 percent thanks to cloud-seeding.
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If the full project involving tens of thousands of burners is completed, it would be the world's largest cloud-seeding operation.
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It isn't clear, however, that cloud seeding is any better at bringing rain than carving bighorns into the sides of rocks.
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In a country with a dry climate like the United Arab Emirates, cloud-seeding materials, which act like nuclei, can help.
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"Research studies have shown that cloud seeding can increase rainfall over limited areas in some conditions, but it is controversial whether or not cloud seeding on such a large scale as the Chinese are attempting can lead to a regional increase in precipitation," said Jeff Masters, a meteorologist and weather blogger at Weather Underground, in an email to Gizmodo.
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In reality, cloud seeding with AgI -- the current default option -- only really tackles the first of these processes, forming the condensation nuclei.
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Turns out the last time cloud-seeding was used in Southern California was back in 2002—but not necessarily due to cost.
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Rather, the idea of cloud seeding is to make rain form more efficiently inside clouds so more water comes down, he said.
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After a report on that, we're taking you flying for a look at how scientists try to increase precipitation through cloud seeding.
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To perform cloud seeding, aircraft and rockets penetrate clouds with catalysts such as dry ice or silver iodide, to induce or increase rainfall.
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In California's Los Angeles County, cloud seeding has been used for more than half a century, including to combat a recent long drought.
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In the nearby United Arab Emirates, officials at the National Center of Meteorology and Seismology (NCMS) say cloud seeding efforts there are working.
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Linda Zou was among the first winners, for her interest in cloud seeding, the dispersing of artificial nuclei into clouds to coax precipitation.
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Apart from environmental risks, cloud seeding could also lead to geo-political spats if over-used in one region, depriving areas downwind of rainfall.
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Omar Al-Yazidi, director of research and development at the NCMS, believes science shows cloud seeding is safe for the environment and the public.
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Authorities plans to carry out cloud seeding from this month, shooting salt flares into clouds in an attempt to trigger rainfall in dry areas.
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For example, cloud seeding tests in Wyoming — where snowpack is a primary source of water — reportedly increased snowfall in the area by 5-15%.
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But Yang has a long way to go before cloud seeding or giant space mirrors could hit the policy docket, though eh remains optimistic.
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Neom is supposed to draw on "cloud seeding" technology to make artificial clouds which will produce more rainfall than naturally possible in the desert.
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Building a mountain would be a pretty extreme step, but, at least philosophically, it's in line with the UAE's ongoing cloud seeding geoengineering program.
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Governments in the region are scrambling to find solutions, with Indonesia and Malaysia using cloud-seeding methods to try to artificially start rain. 4.
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Mountain-erecting—like its little brother, cloud-seeding—is not only an expensive temporary fix for a bigger problem, it's also not a sure thing.
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Beijing also turned to cloud seeding in the build-up to the 2008 Summer Olympics, to try to avoid rain during its spectacular opening ceremony.
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To help stop the fires and preserve crops, authorities are turning to cloud-seeding, by shooting salt flares into clouds to try and trigger rains.
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The government is considering measures such as cloud seeding to try to bring rain but in the meantime, farmers have been asked to hold off.
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The central government has sent more than 9,000 personnel to help tackle the blazes, dropped water from helicopters and used cloud seeding to encourage rain.
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In January, authorities in Bangkok deployed planes with special rainmaking capabilities -- a technique known as cloud seeding -- to relieve persistent pollution in the Thai capital.
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Some even say, quite incorrectly, that cloud seeding experiments caused floods, such as those that killed 35 people in the English village of Lynmouth in 1952.
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China, however, has the biggest cloud-seeding operation, which it utilizes not only to increase rainfall but also to avoid hailstorms that can devastate farm crops.
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Name the Persian Gulf country, comparable in size to South Carolina, where cloud seeding began 15 years ago to meet the population's growing need for water.
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Yang talked up his $5 trillion plan to reduce emissions, which includes cash for unproven and risky approaches like geo-engineering, space mirrors and cloud seeding.
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For over half a century now, scientists have been toying with the idea of cloud seeding for snow—that is, inducing clouds to spit out more moisture.
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He estimated that it would cost $40 million to construct a prototype cloud seeding system but has not been able to find any public or private takers.
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Authorities are looking into the possibility of cloud seeding to combat the hotspots by triggering rainfall in dry areas with flares of salt shot into suitable clouds.
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Salter estimated that it would cost $40 million to construct a prototype cloud seeding system but has not been able to find any public or private takers.
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For months, Indonesia has deployed thousands of personnel to fight the fires, utilizing dozens of aircraft to conduct water bombing and cloud-seeding efforts to trigger rain.
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Unlike most other candidates, Yang wants the US to take the lead in geoengineering: artificially manipulating the environment using technologies like space mirrors, carbon capture, and cloud seeding.
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While manipulating the weather as a weapon is now explicitly outlawed by the U.N.'s ENMOD treaty, there have been efforts to alter the outcome of conflict using cloud seeding.
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One of the major drawbacks of cloud seeding is a lack of proof that it works: given weather forecasting remains imperfect, how would you know what would have happened without intervention?
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DRI, which has permission from the FAA to fly up to 1,200 feet up to conduct its research, plans to keep testing unmanned cloud-seeding techniques and will estimate their effectiveness.
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JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia is preparing to carry out cloud seeding in an effort to trigger rainfall to prevent harvest failure and forest fire, the disaster mitigation agency's spokesman said on Monday.
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The drought that's paralyzed the West over the past five years hasn't delivered much promising moisture to work with, since cloud-seeding requires an existing storm in order to make more rain.
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To cope with searing global temperatures, protracted droughts and chronic water shortages, countries from the United States to China are turning to "cloud seeding", which aims to boost rainfall in dry areas.
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Idaho Power, which serves over 500,000 customers and has 17 hydroelectric power plants, invested more than $3 million dollars in a cloud seeding program to boost the snowpack in Idaho's highest mountains.
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First of all, for those people without a degree in meteorology, it's important to note "cloud-seeding" literally means creating precipitation — in this case, rain — by way of introducing small particles into clouds.
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It was in China Lake where the military crafted the rain-making technology of "cloud seeding," which was deployed during the Vietnam War in an attempt to flood the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
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Building a mountain would be a much more permanent and much more expensive step than cloud seeding, in which dry ice, silver iodide, or potassium iodide are pumped into clouds to increase rainfall.
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Indonesia will carry out cloud seeding on Friday in a bid to prevent further rainfall over the capital Jakarta, after deadly flash floods and landslides following some of the heaviest rains ever recorded.
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On Earth we already have what could be considered fledgling efforts and concepts: carbon sequestration to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide; desalination of oceans for drinking water; and even cloud seeding for rain.
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Meteorologists in the United Arab Emirates, one of the world's driest countries and top consumers of water, believe cloud seeding is increasing rainfall in the desert, though scientists are still trying to quantify precisely how much.
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Some notable geohacking proposals include cirrus cloud seeding to reduce reflectivity, stratospheric particle injection for solar radiation management, sulfur-aerosol injection to induce global dimming, and simple solutions like tropical reforestation to restore the carbon balance.
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Photo: APChina's state-owned aerospace corporation is embarking on a plan that would see tens of thousands of fuel-burning, cloud-seeding chambers dispersed across the Tibetan Plateau in an attempt to increase rainfall in the region.
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After nine years, they came up with an answer: cloud seeding is "a viable technology to augment existing water supplies," and has the potential to boost the output of a storm by 5 to 15 percent — kind of.
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According to plans obtained by The Wall Street Journal, Neom is meant to one day boast flying taxis, a fake moon, "cloud-seeding" technology to make artificial rain, and a "Jurassic Park"-style island filled with robot dinosaurs.
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The official line from the LA DWP is that cloud seeding can boost the precipitation from a storm by 15 to 20 percent, but meteorology research is almost impossible to verify by the same standards as laboratory science.
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Although the amounts of silver iodide used for most cloud seeding are too small to hurt the environment or public health, and do not present any significant risk, he said, the chemical in very large quantities can be toxic.
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Researchers have proposed sending satellites into space that would reflect solar energy, injecting sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere, cloud-seeding to make them more reflective, or whitening roofs and developing reflective crops that would not absorb as much sun.
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He has proposed a $5 trillion plan to reduce emissions, which includes funding for unconventional methods like geo-engineering, giant space mirrors, and cloud-seeding (a way of reducing precipitation that's definitely still in the it's-being-studied phase).
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According to the DPW, and the dozens of other state and county agencies across the Western US that have invested in cloud-seeding programs, the seeded clouds gave up a little more water than they would have on their own.
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Thailand Authorities in the Thai capital Bangkok are expected to deploy planes with special rainmaking capabilities -- a technique known as cloud seeding -- on Tuesday, with the aim of easing pollution in some parts of the city, according to the Bangkok Post.
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JAKARTA, Jan 3 (Reuters) - Indonesia will carry out cloud seeding on Friday in a bid to prevent further rainfall over the capital Jakarta, after deadly flash floods and landslides following some of the heaviest rains in more than 20 years.
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Whether you are a dedicated acolyte of cloud seeding and veils or a committed opponent to any tampering of earth's environment, he has developed a book that forces us to think about our actions and ultimately what the consequences of those choices are.
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In 2000, Keith published a long academic paper on the history of weather and climate modification, noting that an Institute of Rainmaking was established in Leningrad in 1932 and that American engineers began a cloud-seeding campaign in Vietnam a few decades later.
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According to the Los Angeles Times, LA's Department of Public Works and North American Weather Consultants cranked up to 10 cloud-seeding machines into action Sunday night as the storm rolled through, which ended up dumping plenty of rain and snow in the region.
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Although cloud seeding to control regional weather has been pursued for over half a century, there has never been an injection of particles into the stratosphere for the explicit purpose of testing solar engineering, which might one day be used to alter weather patterns globally.
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Two years later, scientists began a research project in Wyoming to study the effectiveness of cloud seeding by comparing precipitation from a storm system as it hit two adjacent mountain ranges — one range would be the control, the other would be outfitted with seeding machines.
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The science may not be perfect, but if cloud seeding works even 20 percent as well as DWP says it does, that's still a good bet for the thirsty taxpayers of LA. Correction: an earlier draft referred to Don Griffith of NAWC as Bob Griffith.
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Los Angeles County has run more scientific cloud-seeding operations as far back as the 2000s, soon after two researchers named Vincent Schaefer and Bernard Vonnegut (Kurt's brother) first discovered that silver iodide and dry ice could both, through different mechanisms, trigger precipitation in cooling clouds.
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But the largest study of iodine cloud-seeding so far, the Wyoming Weather Modification Pilot Programme, found in 2016 that, although the technique can increase precipitation if wind and other conditions are just right, it cannot do so reliably over a long period or on a large scale.
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It had planned to reboot the program in 220, but the massive Station Fire burned up over 160,000 acres of the San Gabriel Mountains that year, increasing the risk for mudslides and flash floods in the areas most directly affected by the cloud-seeding efforts, so the operation was called off.
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"With the caveat that there are still significant uncertainties associated with ice nucleation in cirrus clouds and its representation in climate models, cirrus seeding appears to represent a powerful [climate engineering model] with reduced side effects," concluded a team led by Trude Storelvmo, a climate scientist at Yale University, in a 2013 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society study that modeled the impact of cirrus cloud seeding.
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Photo: Amr Nabil (AP)Sounds like notorious human rights abuser Saudi Arabia's plan to build a massive new city of the future on the border with Egypt and Jordan is going just swell: According to a report this week in the Wall Street Journal, consultants hired to work on the Neom project built a list of ridiculous recommendations including "hologram faculty" in schools, "cloud seeding"-induced artificial rain, "a Jurassic Park-style island of robot reptiles," robot maids, "robo-cage fight" entertainment, and "flying taxis" that will totally replace ground-based transportation.
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