Page 230 - James Rodger Fleming - Fixing the sky

7.5 “High Water Experiment,” February 1962: William W. Kellogg’s “Sketch showing
how the various sizes of ice particles produced from the moving Saturn vehicle would
be expected to travel in the upper atmosphere and finally sublime as they fall to lower
altitudes,” prepared on the basis of an ad hoc NASA panel discussion. (wexler papers)

Harry Wexler and the Possibilities of Climate Control

“The subject of weather and climate control is now becoming respectable to talk
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about.” This was Harry Wexler’s opening line in his 1962 speech “on the Pos-
sibilities of Climate Control.” Wexler based his remarks on newly available tech-
nical capacities in climate modeling and satellite remote sensing, new scientific
insights into the Earth’s heat budget and stratospheric ozone layer, and new dip-
lomatic initiatives, notably President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 speech at the United
Nations proposing “cooperative efforts between all nations in weather prediction
and eventually in weather control.” Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, flush
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with the success of two space spectaculars carrying Russian cosmonauts into orbit,
had also mentioned weather control in his report to the Supreme Soviet in July
1961. Wexler noted that the subject had recently received serious attention from
the President’s Scientific Advisory Committee, the Department of State, and the
National Academy of Sciences Committee on Atmospheric Sciences. The last
had recommended increased funding for large-scale cooperative weather control
projects and made it part of the proposal that led to the creation of the National
Center for Atmospheric Research. For its part, the United Nations, with

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