Page 191 - James Rodger Fleming - Fixing the sky

to modify thunderstorms by bombing cold clouds in the Midwest with dry
ice and bombing warm clouds in the Caribbean with liquid water to test
Langmuir’s chain reaction theory. For what purpose? The navy seeded mid-
latitude storm systems in an attempt to evaluate Langmuir’s claim that large-scale
weather systems could be controlled. Again, for what purpose? The army tried
to cut holes in cold stratus clouds using dry ice seeding. These tests were done in
strategically sensitive areas of West Germany, Greenland, and Ellesmere Island.
An air force project, however, determined that the most likely cause of ice fogs at
air bases in the Arctic regions was pollution from the military’s own motor vehi-
cles and aircraft. The army contracted with the consulting firm Arthur D. Little
to try to modify warm stratus and fog using electrical and chemical agents, but
with little success. other ACN-sponsored experiments involved documenting the
meteorological effects of nuclear explosions, trying to suppress jet contrails, and,
in accordance with Schaefer’s vision, developing small tactical seeding rockets. 25
This series of experiments, run by the air force, the navy, and the army, was
every bit as military-oriented as Project Cirrus, with better scientific advice
and much better statistical controls (Petterssen claimed the “meteorological
lambs” could no longer be thrown to the “statistical wolves”). The experiments
ended in 1954, but because of security requirements, the final report was not
published until 1957, when it appeared in a limited-circulation monograph
published by the American Meteorological Society. The report claimed that
the experiments were inconclusive and did not produce any significant results
and that more basic research in cloud physics was needed before attempts at
weather modification could be justified. But did the military reveal all that it
26
had learned? Could it?

Public Perceptions

The ongoing debate over private, public, and military cloud seeding prompted
Congress to pass a law establishing the Advisory Committee on Weather Con-
trol (ACWC) in 1953. Chaired by a presidential appointee, retired navy cap-
tain Howard T. orville, the committee conducted no new experiments of its
27
own but made site visits and collected testimony. orville placed the military
theme squarely before the public in a 1954 cover article in Collier’s that included
scenarios for using weather as a weapon of war (figure 6.2). In one scenario, air-
planes would drop hundreds of balloons containing seeding crystals into the
jet stream and then return to their air bases. Downstream, when fuses on the
balloons exploded, the seeding agents would fall into the clouds, initiating

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