domingo, 25 de março de 2012
sexta-feira, 23 de março de 2012
"Vão vir "charters...
Os riscos de a china 'semear' nuvens de neve.
Para combater a seca no Norte do país, os meteorologistas chineses lançaram químicos para a atmosfera para obrigar a neve a cair. Uma experiência do género já tinha sido feita nos Jogos Olímpicos, para limpar o céu de nuvens. Uma acção que ressuscitou problemas da geoengenharia.
O nevão fora de época que caiu há uma semana em Pequim, durante 11 horas, foi um dos que ocorreram mais cedo e mais intensamente desde há muitos anos. A novidade é que os cientistas chineses dizem que foram eles próprios a provocá--lo. No fim do mês passado, a zona agrícola do Norte da China estava a sofrer bastante com a seca. Por isso, há uma semana, os meteorologistas chineses dispararam 186 foguetes carregados de químicos com a missão de "semear" as nuvens e encorajar a neve a cair.
"É uma questão localizada. Se fosse algo mais global seria algo a recear, neste caso não", disse ao DN o físico Filipe Duarte Santos, que alerta para o facto de terem sido enviados para a atmosfera substâncias químicas: "É preciso ter cuidado, pois esses produtos químicos podem ter impacto ambiental."
Esta técnica, criada pelos norte--americanos nos anos 50, consiste em enviar para as nuvens gelo seco ou iodeto de prata (usado em fotografia e como anti-séptico na medicina). Estes químicos criam uma superfície para o vapor de água se transformar em líquido.
FONTE: BRUNO ABREU in DN
Geoengineering for dummies.
Cloud seeding, a form of intentional weather modification, is the attempt to change the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds, by dispersing substances into the air that serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei, which alter the microphysical processes within the cloud. The usual intent is to increase precipitation (rain or snow), but hail and fog suppression are also widely practiced in airports.
This image explaining cloud seeding shows the chemical either silver iodine or dry ice being dumped onto the cloud which then becomes a rain shower. The process shown in the upper right is what is happening in the cloud and the process of condensation to the introduced chemicals.
The most common chemicals used for cloud seeding include silver iodide and dry ice (solid carbon dioxide) rather than salt. Liquid propane, which expands into a gas, has also been used. This can produce ice crystals at higher temperatures than silver iodide. The use of hygroscopic materials, such as salt, is becoming more popular[citation needed] after promising research.
Seeding of clouds requires that they contain supercooled liquid water—that is, liquid water colder than zero degrees Celsius. Introduction of a substance such as silver iodide, which has a crystalline structure similar to that of ice, will induce freezing nucleation. Dry ice or propane expansion cools the air to such an extent that ice crystals can nucleate spontaneously from the vapor phase. Unlike seeding with silver iodide, this spontaneous nucleation does not require any existing droplets or particles because it produces extremely high vapor supersaturations near the seeding substance. However, the existing droplets are needed for the ice crystals to grow into large enough particles to precipitate out.
In mid-latitude clouds, the usual seeding strategy has been based on the fact that the equilibrium vapor pressure is lower over ice than over water. The formation of ice particles in supercooled clouds allows those particles to grow at the expense of liquid droplets. If sufficient growth takes place, the particles become heavy enough to fall as precipitation from clouds that otherwise would produce no precipitation. This process is known as "static" seeding.
Seeding of warm-season or tropical cumulonimbus (convective) clouds seeks to exploit the latent heat released by freezing. This strategy of "dynamic" seeding assumes that the additional latent heat adds buoyancy, strengthens updrafts, ensures more low-level convergence, and ultimately causes rapid growth of properly selected clouds.
Cloud seeding chemicals may be dispersed by aircraft or by dispersion devices located on the ground (generators, as in first figure, or canisters fired from anti-aircraft guns or rockets). For release by aircraft, silver iodide flares are ignited and dispersed as an aircraft flies through the inflow of a cloud. When released by devices on the ground, the fine particles are carried downwind and upwards by air currents after release.
An electronic mechanism was tested in 2010, when infrared laser pulses were directed to the air above Berlin by researchers from the University of Geneva. The experimenters posited that the pulses would encourage atmospheric sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide to form particles that would then act as seeds.
Referring to the 1903, 1915, 1919 and 1944 and 1947 weather modification experiments, the Australian Federation of Meteorology discounted "rain making." By the 1950s the CSIRO Division of Radiophysics switched to investigating the physics of clouds and had hoped by 1957 to better understand these processes. By the 1960s the dreams of weather making had faded only to be re-ignited post-corporatisation of the Snowy Mountains Scheme in order to achieve "above target" water. This would provide enhanced energy generation and profits to the public agencies who are the principal owners. Cloud seeding has been shown to be effective in altering cloud structure and size and in converting supercooled liquid water to ice particles. The amount of precipitation due to seeding is difficult to quantify. Cloud seeding may also suppress precipitation.
A key challenge is in discerning how much precipitation would have occurred had clouds not been seeded. Overall, there is general expectation that winter cloud seeding over mountains will produce snow, expressed by professional organizations. There is statistical evidence for seasonal precipitation increases of about 10% with winter seeding.
The US government through its National Center for Atmospheric Research has analyzed seeded and unseeded clouds to understand the differences between them, and has conducted seeding research in other countries.[citation needed]
Clouds were seeded during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing using rockets, so that there would be no rain during the opening and closing ceremonies although others dispute their claims of success.
Impact on environment and health :
With an NFPA 704 rating of Blue 2, silver iodide can cause temporary incapacitation or possible residual injury to humans and mammals with intense or continued but not chronic exposure. However, there have been several detailed ecological studies that showed negligible environmental and health impacts. The toxicity of silver and silver compounds (from silver iodide) was shown to be of low order in some studies. These findings likely result from the minute amounts of silver generated by cloud seeding, which are 100 times less than industry emissions into the atmosphere in many parts of the world, or individual exposure from tooth fillings.
Accumulations in the soil, vegetation, and surface runoff have not been large enough to measure above natural background. A 1995 environmental assessment in the Sierra Nevada of California and a 2004 independent panel of experts (an overview only is presented in the executive summary of the research) in Australia confirmed these earlier findings.
Cloud seeding over Kosciuszko National Park - a Biosphere Reserve - is problematic in that several rapid changes of environmental legislation were made to enable the "trial." Environmentalists are concerned about the uptake of elemental silver in a highly sensitive environment affecting the pygmy possum amongst other species as well as recent high level algal blooms in once pristine glacial lakes. The ABC program Earthbeat on July 14, 2004 heard that not every cloud has a silver lining where concerns for the health of the pygmy possums was raised. Research 50 years ago and analysis by the former Snowy Mountains Authority led to the cessation of the cloud seeding program in the 1950s with non-definitive results. Formerly, cloud seeding was rejected in Australia on environmental grounds because of concerns about the protected species, the pygmy possum. Since silver iodide and not elemental silver is the cloud seeding material, the claims of negative environmental impact are disputed by peer-reviewed research as summarized by the international weather modification association.
At General Electric, Irving Langmuir and Bernard Vonnegut watch as Vincent Schaefer tries to turn his breath into crystals.
Credit: Schenectady Museum; Hall of Electrical History Foundation/Corbis
Vincent Schaefer (1906–1993) discovered the principle of cloud seeding in July 1946 through a series of serendipitous events. Following ideas generated between himself and Nobel laureate Irving Langmuir while climbing Mt. Washington in New Hampshire, Schaefer, Langmuir's research associate, created a way of experimenting with supercooled clouds using a deep freeze unit of potential agents to stimulate ice crystal growth, i.e., salt, talcum powder, soils, dust and various chemical agents with minor effect. Then one hot and humid July 14, 1946, he wanted to try a few experiments at General Electric's Schenectady Research Lab. He was dismayed to find that the deep freezer was not cold enough to produce a "cloud" using breath air. He decided to move the process along by adding a chunk of dry ice just to lower the temperature of his experimental chamber. To his astonishment, as soon as he breathed into the deep freezer, a bluish haze was noted, followed by an eye-popping display of millions of microscopic ice crystals, reflecting the strong light rays from the lamp illuminating a cross-section of the chamber. He instantly realized that he had discovered a way to change supercooled water into ice crystals. The experiment was easily replicated and he explored the temperature gradient to establish the −40˚C limit for liquid water.
Within the month, Schaefer's colleague, the noted atmospheric scientist Dr. Bernard Vonnegut (brother of novelist Kurt Vonnegut) is credited with discovering another method for "seeding" supercooled cloud water. Vonnegut accomplished his discovery at the desk, looking up information in a basic chemistry text and then tinkering with silver and iodide chemicals to produce silver iodide. Together with Dr. Vonnegut and Professor Henry Chessin, SUNY Albany, a crystallographer, co-authored a publication in Science Magazine and received a patent in 1975.Both methods were adopted for use in cloud seeding during 1946 while working for the General Electric Corporation in the state of New York. Schaefer's altered a cloud's heat budget, Vonnegut's altered formative crystal structure – an ingenious property related to a good match in lattice constant between the two types of crystal. (The crystallography of ice later played a role in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle.) The first attempt to modify natural clouds in the field through "cloud seeding" began during a flight that began in upstate New York on 13 November 1946. Schaefer was able to cause snow to fall near Mount Greylock in western Massachusetts, after he dumped six pounds of dry ice into the target cloud from a plane after a 60-mile easterly chase from the Schenectady County Airport.
Dry ice and silver iodide agents are effective in changing the physical chemistry of supercooled clouds, thus useful in augmentation of winter snowfall over mountains and under certain conditions, and lightning and hail suppression. While not a new technique, hygroscopic seeding for enhancement of rainfall in warm clouds is enjoying a revival, based on some positive indications from research in South Africa, Mexico, and elsewhere. The hygroscopic material most commonly used is salt. It is postulated that hygroscopic seeding causes the droplet size spectrum in clouds to become more maritime (bigger drops) and less continental, stimulating rainfall through coalescence. From March 1967 until July 1972, the U.S. military's Operation Popeye cloud-seeded silver iodide to extend the monsoon season over North Vietnam, specifically the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The operation resulted in the targeted areas seeing an extension of the monsoon period an average of 30 to 45 days. The 54th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron carried out the operation to "make mud, not war".
One private organization which offered, during the 1970s, to conduct weather modification (cloud seeding from the ground using silver iodide flares) was Irving P. Krick and Associates of Palm Springs, California. They were contracted by the Oklahoma State University in 1972 to conduct such a seeding project to increase warm cloud rainfall in the Lake Carl Blackwell watershed. That lake was, at that time (1972–73), the primary water supply for Stillwater, Oklahoma and was dangerously low. The project did not operate for a long enough time to show statistically any change from natural variations. However, at the same time, seeding operations have been ongoing in California since 1948.
An attempt by the United States military to modify hurricanes in the Atlantic basin using cloud seeding in the 1960s was called Project Stormfury. Only a few hurricanes were tested with cloud seeding because of the strict rules that were set by the scientists of the project. It was unclear whether the project was successful; hurricanes appeared to change in structure slightly, but only temporarily. The fear that cloud seeding could potentially change the course or power of hurricanes and negatively affect people in the storm's path stopped the project.
Two federal agencies have supported various weather modification research projects, which began in the early 1960s: The United States Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation; Department of the Interior) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA; Department of Commerce). Reclamation sponsored several cloud seeding research projects under the umbrella of Project Skywater from 1964 to 1988, and NOAA conducted the Atmospheric Modification Program from 1979 to 1993. The sponsored projects were carried out in several states and two countries (Thailand and Morocco), studying both winter and summer cloud seeding. More recently, Reclamation sponsored a small cooperative research program with six Western states called the Weather Damage Modification Program, from 2002–2006.
Funding for research in the United States has declined in the last two decades. The Bureau of Reclamation sponsored a six-state research program from 2002–2006, however, called the "Weather Damage Modification Program". A 2003 study by the United States National Academy of Sciences urges a national research program to clear up remaining questions about weather modification's efficacy and practice.
Dr. Vincent Schaefer prepares for a Project Cirrus flight in 1948.
In Australia, CSIRO conducted major trials between 1947 and the early 1960s:
1947 – 1952: CSIRO scientists dropped dry ice into the tops of cumulus clouds. The method worked reliably with clouds that were very cold, producing rain that would not have otherwise fallen.
1953 – 1956: CSIRO carried out similar trials South Australia, Queensland and other States. Experiments used both ground-based and airborne silver iodide generators.
Late 1950s and early 1960s: Cloud seeding in the Snowy Mountains, on the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, in the New England district of New South Wales, and in the Warragamba catchment area west of Sydney.
Only the trial conducted in the Snowy Mountains produced statistically significant rainfall increases over the entire experiment.
An Austrian study to use silver iodine seeding for hail prevention ran during 1981–2000, and the technique is still actively deployed there.
Asia
The largest cloud seeding system in the world is that of the People's Republic of China, which believes that it increases the amount of rain over several increasingly arid regions, including its capital city, Beijing, by firing silver iodide rockets into the sky where rain is desired. There is even political strife caused by neighboring regions which accuse each other of "stealing rain" using cloud seeding. About 24 countries currently practice weather modification operationally[citation needed]. China used cloud seeding in Beijing just before the 2008 Olympic Games in order to clear the air of pollution, but there are disputes regarding the Chinese claims. In February 2009, China also blasted iodide sticks over Beijing to artificially induce snowfall after four months of drought, and blasted iodide sticks over other areas of northern China to increase snowfall. The snowfall in Beijing lasted for approximately three days and led to the closure of 12 main roads around Beijing..At the end of October 2009 Beijing claimed it had its earliest snowfall since 1987 due to cloud seeding.
In Southeast Asia, open burning produces haze that pollutes the regional environment. Cloud-seeding has been used to improve the air quality by encouraging rainfall. In India, cloud seeding operations were conducted during the years 2003 and 2004 through U.S. based Weather Modification Inc. in the state of Maharashtra. In 2008, there are plans for 12 districts of state of Andhra Pradesh.
North America
In the United States, cloud seeding is used to increase precipitation in areas experiencing drought, to reduce the size of hailstones that form in thunderstorms, and to reduce the amount of fog in and around airports. Cloud seeding is also occasionally used by major ski resorts to induce snowfall. Eleven western states and one Canadian province (Alberta) have ongoing weather modification operational programs . In January 2006, an $8.8 million cloud seeding project began in Wyoming to examine the effects of cloud seeding on snowfall over Wyoming's Medicine Bow, Sierra Madre, and Wind River mountain ranges.
A number of commercial companies, such as Aero Systems Incorporated , Atmospherics Incorporated , North American Weather Consultants , Weather Modification Incorporated , Weather Enhancement Technologies International , Seeding Operations and Atmospheric Research (SOAR) , offer weather modification services centered on cloud seeding. The U.S. signed an international treaty in 1978 banning the use of weather modification for hostile purposes.
During the sixties, Irving P. Krick & Associates operated a successful cloud seeding operation in the area around Calgary, Alberta. This utilized both aircraft and ground-based generators that pumped silver iodide into the atmosphere in an attempt to reduce the threat of hail damage. Ralph Langeman, Lynn Garrison, and Stan McLeod, all ex-members of the RCAF's 403 Squadron, attending the University of Alberta, spent their summers flying hail suppression. A number of surplus Harvard aircraft were fitted with racks under each wing containing 32 railroad fuzees that were impregnated with silver iodide. These could be ignited individually or all at once, depending upon the threat. In coordination with ground units, the aircraft would lay a plume of silver iodide in front of approaching cumulo-nimbus clouds with noticeable effect. Large, active CBs were reduced to nothing. Heavy hail storms were reduced in intensity. This effective program was funded by farmer contributions and government grants.
Europe
Cloud seeding begun in France during the 1950s with the intent of reducing hail damage to crops. The ANELFA project consists of local agencies acting within a non-profit organization. A similar project in Spain is managed by the Consorcio por la Lucha Antigranizo de Aragon. The success of the French program was supported by insurance data; that of the Spanish program in studies conducted by the Spanish Agricultural Ministry.
Soviet military pilots seeded clouds over the Byelorussian SSR after the Chernobyl disaster to remove radioactive particles from clouds heading toward Moscow. At the July 2006 G8 Summit, President Putin commented that air force jets had been deployed to seed incoming clouds so they rained over Finland. Rain drenched the summit anyway. In Moscow, the Russian Airforce tried seeding clouds with bags of cement on June 17, 2008. One of the bags did not pulverize and went through the roof of a house. In October 2009, the Mayor of Moscow promised a "winter without snow" for the city after revealing efforts by the Russian Air Force to seed the clouds upwind from Moscow throughout the winter.
Australia
In Australia, CSIRO’s activities in Tasmania in the 1960s were successful. Seeding over the Hydro-Electricity Commission catchment area on the Central Plateau achieved rainfall increases as high as 30% in autumn. The Tasmanian experiments were so successful that the Commission has regularly undertaken seeding ever since in mountainous parts of the State.
In 2004, Snowy Hydro Limited began a trial of cloud seeding to assess the feasibility of increasing snow precipitation in the Snowy Mountains in Australia. The test period, originally scheduled to end in 2009, was later extended to 2014. The New South Wales (NSW) Natural Resources Commission, responsible for supervising the cloud seeding operations, believes that the trial may have difficulty establishing statistically whether cloud seeding operations are increasing snowfall. This project was discussed at a summit in Narrabri, NSW on 1 December 2006. The summit met with the intention of outlining a proposal for a 5 year trial, focussing on Northern NSW.
The various implications of such a widespread trial were discussed, drawing on the combined knowledge of several worldwide experts, including representatives from the Tasmanian Hydro Cloud Seeding Project however does not make reference to former cloud seeding experiments by the then Snowy Mountains Authority which rejected weather modification. The trial required changes to NSW environmental legislation in order to facilitate placement of the cloud seeding apparatus. The modern experiment is not supported for the Australian Alps.
In December 2006, the Queensland government of Australia announced A$7.6 million in funding for "warm cloud" seeding research to be conducted jointly by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and the United States National Center for Atmospheric Research. Outcomes of the study are hoped to ease continuing drought conditions in the states South East region.
Africa
In Mali and Niger, cloud seeding is also being used on a national scale.
Fonte: Wikipedia
This image explaining cloud seeding shows the chemical either silver iodine or dry ice being dumped onto the cloud which then becomes a rain shower. The process shown in the upper right is what is happening in the cloud and the process of condensation to the introduced chemicals.
The most common chemicals used for cloud seeding include silver iodide and dry ice (solid carbon dioxide) rather than salt. Liquid propane, which expands into a gas, has also been used. This can produce ice crystals at higher temperatures than silver iodide. The use of hygroscopic materials, such as salt, is becoming more popular[citation needed] after promising research.
Seeding of clouds requires that they contain supercooled liquid water—that is, liquid water colder than zero degrees Celsius. Introduction of a substance such as silver iodide, which has a crystalline structure similar to that of ice, will induce freezing nucleation. Dry ice or propane expansion cools the air to such an extent that ice crystals can nucleate spontaneously from the vapor phase. Unlike seeding with silver iodide, this spontaneous nucleation does not require any existing droplets or particles because it produces extremely high vapor supersaturations near the seeding substance. However, the existing droplets are needed for the ice crystals to grow into large enough particles to precipitate out.
In mid-latitude clouds, the usual seeding strategy has been based on the fact that the equilibrium vapor pressure is lower over ice than over water. The formation of ice particles in supercooled clouds allows those particles to grow at the expense of liquid droplets. If sufficient growth takes place, the particles become heavy enough to fall as precipitation from clouds that otherwise would produce no precipitation. This process is known as "static" seeding.
Seeding of warm-season or tropical cumulonimbus (convective) clouds seeks to exploit the latent heat released by freezing. This strategy of "dynamic" seeding assumes that the additional latent heat adds buoyancy, strengthens updrafts, ensures more low-level convergence, and ultimately causes rapid growth of properly selected clouds.
Cloud seeding chemicals may be dispersed by aircraft or by dispersion devices located on the ground (generators, as in first figure, or canisters fired from anti-aircraft guns or rockets). For release by aircraft, silver iodide flares are ignited and dispersed as an aircraft flies through the inflow of a cloud. When released by devices on the ground, the fine particles are carried downwind and upwards by air currents after release.
An electronic mechanism was tested in 2010, when infrared laser pulses were directed to the air above Berlin by researchers from the University of Geneva. The experimenters posited that the pulses would encourage atmospheric sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide to form particles that would then act as seeds.
Referring to the 1903, 1915, 1919 and 1944 and 1947 weather modification experiments, the Australian Federation of Meteorology discounted "rain making." By the 1950s the CSIRO Division of Radiophysics switched to investigating the physics of clouds and had hoped by 1957 to better understand these processes. By the 1960s the dreams of weather making had faded only to be re-ignited post-corporatisation of the Snowy Mountains Scheme in order to achieve "above target" water. This would provide enhanced energy generation and profits to the public agencies who are the principal owners. Cloud seeding has been shown to be effective in altering cloud structure and size and in converting supercooled liquid water to ice particles. The amount of precipitation due to seeding is difficult to quantify. Cloud seeding may also suppress precipitation.
A key challenge is in discerning how much precipitation would have occurred had clouds not been seeded. Overall, there is general expectation that winter cloud seeding over mountains will produce snow, expressed by professional organizations. There is statistical evidence for seasonal precipitation increases of about 10% with winter seeding.
The US government through its National Center for Atmospheric Research has analyzed seeded and unseeded clouds to understand the differences between them, and has conducted seeding research in other countries.[citation needed]
Clouds were seeded during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing using rockets, so that there would be no rain during the opening and closing ceremonies although others dispute their claims of success.
Impact on environment and health :
With an NFPA 704 rating of Blue 2, silver iodide can cause temporary incapacitation or possible residual injury to humans and mammals with intense or continued but not chronic exposure. However, there have been several detailed ecological studies that showed negligible environmental and health impacts. The toxicity of silver and silver compounds (from silver iodide) was shown to be of low order in some studies. These findings likely result from the minute amounts of silver generated by cloud seeding, which are 100 times less than industry emissions into the atmosphere in many parts of the world, or individual exposure from tooth fillings.
Accumulations in the soil, vegetation, and surface runoff have not been large enough to measure above natural background. A 1995 environmental assessment in the Sierra Nevada of California and a 2004 independent panel of experts (an overview only is presented in the executive summary of the research) in Australia confirmed these earlier findings.
Cloud seeding over Kosciuszko National Park - a Biosphere Reserve - is problematic in that several rapid changes of environmental legislation were made to enable the "trial." Environmentalists are concerned about the uptake of elemental silver in a highly sensitive environment affecting the pygmy possum amongst other species as well as recent high level algal blooms in once pristine glacial lakes. The ABC program Earthbeat on July 14, 2004 heard that not every cloud has a silver lining where concerns for the health of the pygmy possums was raised. Research 50 years ago and analysis by the former Snowy Mountains Authority led to the cessation of the cloud seeding program in the 1950s with non-definitive results. Formerly, cloud seeding was rejected in Australia on environmental grounds because of concerns about the protected species, the pygmy possum. Since silver iodide and not elemental silver is the cloud seeding material, the claims of negative environmental impact are disputed by peer-reviewed research as summarized by the international weather modification association.
At General Electric, Irving Langmuir and Bernard Vonnegut watch as Vincent Schaefer tries to turn his breath into crystals. Credit: Schenectady Museum; Hall of Electrical History Foundation/Corbis
Vincent Schaefer (1906–1993) discovered the principle of cloud seeding in July 1946 through a series of serendipitous events. Following ideas generated between himself and Nobel laureate Irving Langmuir while climbing Mt. Washington in New Hampshire, Schaefer, Langmuir's research associate, created a way of experimenting with supercooled clouds using a deep freeze unit of potential agents to stimulate ice crystal growth, i.e., salt, talcum powder, soils, dust and various chemical agents with minor effect. Then one hot and humid July 14, 1946, he wanted to try a few experiments at General Electric's Schenectady Research Lab. He was dismayed to find that the deep freezer was not cold enough to produce a "cloud" using breath air. He decided to move the process along by adding a chunk of dry ice just to lower the temperature of his experimental chamber. To his astonishment, as soon as he breathed into the deep freezer, a bluish haze was noted, followed by an eye-popping display of millions of microscopic ice crystals, reflecting the strong light rays from the lamp illuminating a cross-section of the chamber. He instantly realized that he had discovered a way to change supercooled water into ice crystals. The experiment was easily replicated and he explored the temperature gradient to establish the −40˚C limit for liquid water.
Within the month, Schaefer's colleague, the noted atmospheric scientist Dr. Bernard Vonnegut (brother of novelist Kurt Vonnegut) is credited with discovering another method for "seeding" supercooled cloud water. Vonnegut accomplished his discovery at the desk, looking up information in a basic chemistry text and then tinkering with silver and iodide chemicals to produce silver iodide. Together with Dr. Vonnegut and Professor Henry Chessin, SUNY Albany, a crystallographer, co-authored a publication in Science Magazine and received a patent in 1975.Both methods were adopted for use in cloud seeding during 1946 while working for the General Electric Corporation in the state of New York. Schaefer's altered a cloud's heat budget, Vonnegut's altered formative crystal structure – an ingenious property related to a good match in lattice constant between the two types of crystal. (The crystallography of ice later played a role in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle.) The first attempt to modify natural clouds in the field through "cloud seeding" began during a flight that began in upstate New York on 13 November 1946. Schaefer was able to cause snow to fall near Mount Greylock in western Massachusetts, after he dumped six pounds of dry ice into the target cloud from a plane after a 60-mile easterly chase from the Schenectady County Airport.
Dry ice and silver iodide agents are effective in changing the physical chemistry of supercooled clouds, thus useful in augmentation of winter snowfall over mountains and under certain conditions, and lightning and hail suppression. While not a new technique, hygroscopic seeding for enhancement of rainfall in warm clouds is enjoying a revival, based on some positive indications from research in South Africa, Mexico, and elsewhere. The hygroscopic material most commonly used is salt. It is postulated that hygroscopic seeding causes the droplet size spectrum in clouds to become more maritime (bigger drops) and less continental, stimulating rainfall through coalescence. From March 1967 until July 1972, the U.S. military's Operation Popeye cloud-seeded silver iodide to extend the monsoon season over North Vietnam, specifically the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The operation resulted in the targeted areas seeing an extension of the monsoon period an average of 30 to 45 days. The 54th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron carried out the operation to "make mud, not war".
One private organization which offered, during the 1970s, to conduct weather modification (cloud seeding from the ground using silver iodide flares) was Irving P. Krick and Associates of Palm Springs, California. They were contracted by the Oklahoma State University in 1972 to conduct such a seeding project to increase warm cloud rainfall in the Lake Carl Blackwell watershed. That lake was, at that time (1972–73), the primary water supply for Stillwater, Oklahoma and was dangerously low. The project did not operate for a long enough time to show statistically any change from natural variations. However, at the same time, seeding operations have been ongoing in California since 1948.
An attempt by the United States military to modify hurricanes in the Atlantic basin using cloud seeding in the 1960s was called Project Stormfury. Only a few hurricanes were tested with cloud seeding because of the strict rules that were set by the scientists of the project. It was unclear whether the project was successful; hurricanes appeared to change in structure slightly, but only temporarily. The fear that cloud seeding could potentially change the course or power of hurricanes and negatively affect people in the storm's path stopped the project.
Two federal agencies have supported various weather modification research projects, which began in the early 1960s: The United States Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation; Department of the Interior) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA; Department of Commerce). Reclamation sponsored several cloud seeding research projects under the umbrella of Project Skywater from 1964 to 1988, and NOAA conducted the Atmospheric Modification Program from 1979 to 1993. The sponsored projects were carried out in several states and two countries (Thailand and Morocco), studying both winter and summer cloud seeding. More recently, Reclamation sponsored a small cooperative research program with six Western states called the Weather Damage Modification Program, from 2002–2006.
Funding for research in the United States has declined in the last two decades. The Bureau of Reclamation sponsored a six-state research program from 2002–2006, however, called the "Weather Damage Modification Program". A 2003 study by the United States National Academy of Sciences urges a national research program to clear up remaining questions about weather modification's efficacy and practice.
Dr. Vincent Schaefer prepares for a Project Cirrus flight in 1948.
In Australia, CSIRO conducted major trials between 1947 and the early 1960s:
1947 – 1952: CSIRO scientists dropped dry ice into the tops of cumulus clouds. The method worked reliably with clouds that were very cold, producing rain that would not have otherwise fallen.
1953 – 1956: CSIRO carried out similar trials South Australia, Queensland and other States. Experiments used both ground-based and airborne silver iodide generators.
Late 1950s and early 1960s: Cloud seeding in the Snowy Mountains, on the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, in the New England district of New South Wales, and in the Warragamba catchment area west of Sydney.
Only the trial conducted in the Snowy Mountains produced statistically significant rainfall increases over the entire experiment.
An Austrian study to use silver iodine seeding for hail prevention ran during 1981–2000, and the technique is still actively deployed there.
Asia
The largest cloud seeding system in the world is that of the People's Republic of China, which believes that it increases the amount of rain over several increasingly arid regions, including its capital city, Beijing, by firing silver iodide rockets into the sky where rain is desired. There is even political strife caused by neighboring regions which accuse each other of "stealing rain" using cloud seeding. About 24 countries currently practice weather modification operationally[citation needed]. China used cloud seeding in Beijing just before the 2008 Olympic Games in order to clear the air of pollution, but there are disputes regarding the Chinese claims. In February 2009, China also blasted iodide sticks over Beijing to artificially induce snowfall after four months of drought, and blasted iodide sticks over other areas of northern China to increase snowfall. The snowfall in Beijing lasted for approximately three days and led to the closure of 12 main roads around Beijing..At the end of October 2009 Beijing claimed it had its earliest snowfall since 1987 due to cloud seeding.
In Southeast Asia, open burning produces haze that pollutes the regional environment. Cloud-seeding has been used to improve the air quality by encouraging rainfall. In India, cloud seeding operations were conducted during the years 2003 and 2004 through U.S. based Weather Modification Inc. in the state of Maharashtra. In 2008, there are plans for 12 districts of state of Andhra Pradesh.
North America
In the United States, cloud seeding is used to increase precipitation in areas experiencing drought, to reduce the size of hailstones that form in thunderstorms, and to reduce the amount of fog in and around airports. Cloud seeding is also occasionally used by major ski resorts to induce snowfall. Eleven western states and one Canadian province (Alberta) have ongoing weather modification operational programs . In January 2006, an $8.8 million cloud seeding project began in Wyoming to examine the effects of cloud seeding on snowfall over Wyoming's Medicine Bow, Sierra Madre, and Wind River mountain ranges.
A number of commercial companies, such as Aero Systems Incorporated , Atmospherics Incorporated , North American Weather Consultants , Weather Modification Incorporated , Weather Enhancement Technologies International , Seeding Operations and Atmospheric Research (SOAR) , offer weather modification services centered on cloud seeding. The U.S. signed an international treaty in 1978 banning the use of weather modification for hostile purposes.
During the sixties, Irving P. Krick & Associates operated a successful cloud seeding operation in the area around Calgary, Alberta. This utilized both aircraft and ground-based generators that pumped silver iodide into the atmosphere in an attempt to reduce the threat of hail damage. Ralph Langeman, Lynn Garrison, and Stan McLeod, all ex-members of the RCAF's 403 Squadron, attending the University of Alberta, spent their summers flying hail suppression. A number of surplus Harvard aircraft were fitted with racks under each wing containing 32 railroad fuzees that were impregnated with silver iodide. These could be ignited individually or all at once, depending upon the threat. In coordination with ground units, the aircraft would lay a plume of silver iodide in front of approaching cumulo-nimbus clouds with noticeable effect. Large, active CBs were reduced to nothing. Heavy hail storms were reduced in intensity. This effective program was funded by farmer contributions and government grants.
Europe
Cloud seeding begun in France during the 1950s with the intent of reducing hail damage to crops. The ANELFA project consists of local agencies acting within a non-profit organization. A similar project in Spain is managed by the Consorcio por la Lucha Antigranizo de Aragon. The success of the French program was supported by insurance data; that of the Spanish program in studies conducted by the Spanish Agricultural Ministry.
Soviet military pilots seeded clouds over the Byelorussian SSR after the Chernobyl disaster to remove radioactive particles from clouds heading toward Moscow. At the July 2006 G8 Summit, President Putin commented that air force jets had been deployed to seed incoming clouds so they rained over Finland. Rain drenched the summit anyway. In Moscow, the Russian Airforce tried seeding clouds with bags of cement on June 17, 2008. One of the bags did not pulverize and went through the roof of a house. In October 2009, the Mayor of Moscow promised a "winter without snow" for the city after revealing efforts by the Russian Air Force to seed the clouds upwind from Moscow throughout the winter.
Australia
In Australia, CSIRO’s activities in Tasmania in the 1960s were successful. Seeding over the Hydro-Electricity Commission catchment area on the Central Plateau achieved rainfall increases as high as 30% in autumn. The Tasmanian experiments were so successful that the Commission has regularly undertaken seeding ever since in mountainous parts of the State.
In 2004, Snowy Hydro Limited began a trial of cloud seeding to assess the feasibility of increasing snow precipitation in the Snowy Mountains in Australia. The test period, originally scheduled to end in 2009, was later extended to 2014. The New South Wales (NSW) Natural Resources Commission, responsible for supervising the cloud seeding operations, believes that the trial may have difficulty establishing statistically whether cloud seeding operations are increasing snowfall. This project was discussed at a summit in Narrabri, NSW on 1 December 2006. The summit met with the intention of outlining a proposal for a 5 year trial, focussing on Northern NSW.
The various implications of such a widespread trial were discussed, drawing on the combined knowledge of several worldwide experts, including representatives from the Tasmanian Hydro Cloud Seeding Project however does not make reference to former cloud seeding experiments by the then Snowy Mountains Authority which rejected weather modification. The trial required changes to NSW environmental legislation in order to facilitate placement of the cloud seeding apparatus. The modern experiment is not supported for the Australian Alps.
In December 2006, the Queensland government of Australia announced A$7.6 million in funding for "warm cloud" seeding research to be conducted jointly by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and the United States National Center for Atmospheric Research. Outcomes of the study are hoped to ease continuing drought conditions in the states South East region.
Africa
In Mali and Niger, cloud seeding is also being used on a national scale.
Fonte: Wikipedia
sábado, 17 de março de 2012
Bill Gates Supports Controversial Climate Change Plan
With the help of a group of very wealthy and well known individuals, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Chairman of the Virgin Group, Richard Branson, a group of leading climate scientists are advocating for the use of controversial geoengineering as a way to prevent catastrophic climate change. The scientists are lobbying national governments and international organizations to fund experiments that would involve manipulating the atmosphere on a large scale to counteract high concentrations of greenhouse gases. These might include methods like fertilizing the oceans to create a huge carbon sink or spraying reflective particles or other chemicals into the air to reflect sunlight and prevent it from warming the atmosphere.
The Guardian is reporting that the scientists support the tactic as “plan B” should the UN and global politicians fail to come to agreement on making significant cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Pressure is mounting to find a technological fix to climate change, as no international agreement to reduce emissions has been made. Although a process for negotiating one was set as a result of the COP17 climate negotiations that took place in December, it’s unclear whether reductions can be made in time to reverse the negative effects of the warming atmosphere. A recent report from the Department of Energy found that 2010 had the largest increase in carbon emissions ever reported, and according to the International Energy Agency, global temperatures could reach dangerous levels unless internationally coordinated action is taken to reduce emissions by 2017.
Geoengineering is an appealing alternative because it’s cheap relative to what it would take to make emissions reductions and the effects would be experienced more quickly. However, these techniques are highly controversial due to the risks they pose. These include:
The possibility of unilateral implementation with impacts that are experienced on a global scale
The risk that these efforts would fail to reverse climate change and would discourage efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or to make necessary adaptations
The high potential for unintended consequences that would create other more serious environmental problems
Fear that these new technologies could be used as a weapon
With the exception of small scale studies, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity even banned geoengineering experiments.
There is concern that this move by Bill Gates and other powerful parties in support of geoengineering could give this one group of scientists greater influence over decisions that are made about geoengineering research and policy. Jane Long, director at large for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory recently said at a conference on geoengineering and ethics, ”We will need to protect ourselves from vested interests [and] be sure that choices are not influenced by parties who might make significant amounts of money through a choice to modify climate, especially using proprietary intellectual property.”
The scientists deny that they have undue influence over the issue. David Keith of Harvard University, one of the leading advocates of geoengineering research said, ”Even the perception that [a small group of people has] illegitimate influence [is] very unhealthy for a technology which has extreme power over the world. The concerns that a small group [is] dominating the debate are legitimate, but things are not as they were,” said Keith. “It’s changing as countries like India and China become involved. The era when my voice or that of a few was dominant is over. We need a very broad debate.”
I’m not sure what’s worse, the idea of unleashing such powerful human controlled forces on our planet or the possibility that they be undertaken by rogue individuals and not properly researched or tested.
By Kara Scharwath
[Image credit: World Economic Forum, Flickr]
Bill Gates ...
Um seleto grupo de cientistas, financiado por bilionários preocupados com o aquecimento global e a emissão de gases causadores do efeito estufa, está tentando convencer governos e órgãos internacionais a aprovar experimentos que podem manipular o clima em escala global. Com isso, eles querem evitar uma mudança climática de proporções catastróficas.
Um dos financiadores desses experimentos é ninguém menos que Bill Gates. Além dele, outros bilionários, como o cofundador do Skype, Niklas Zennström, e da Virgin, Sir Richard Branson, também estão investindo pesado nas pesquisas.
Geoenge... O quê?
A geoengenharia — ou engenharia da Terra — defende o uso de métodos altamente controversos, que dividem a opinião da comunidade científica. Enquanto uns acreditam que a sua aplicação pode resultar em algo positivo, sendo uma solução rápida e barata para retardar o aquecimento global, outros temem que os experimentos conduzidos possam mudar os padrões de chuva de forma irreversível e interfiram no clima do planeta.
Um dos experimentos defendidos pela geoengenharia inclui a emissão de milhões de toneladas de partículas refletoras de dióxido de enxofre na atmosfera — a 50 quilômetros da superfície terrestre —, com o objetivo de bloquear a incidência de raios solares e, consequentemente, reduzir a temperatura do planeta.
Jogo de interesses
Muito está em jogo, e os cientistas não são os mais indicados para lidar com as questões políticas, éticas e sociais que envolvem a geoengenharia. A preocupação vem aumentando devido ao pequeno — porém extremamente influente — grupo de cientistas e seus financiadores que, devido à sua posição, podem ter o poder de pressionar as decisões relacionadas a pesquisas de alto risco e suas políticas. Quem garante que não existem outros interesses, mascarados como boas intenções?
E, quanto mais os governos e órgãos internacionais demorarem para chegar a um acordo sobre as emissões de gases, maior é a pressão para que uma opção tecnológica rápida seja encontrada.
O que dizem os cientistas
Os pesquisadores se defendem, dizendo que, se recebessem mais fundos dos governos, não precisariam aceitar recursos oferecidos por pessoas como Bill Gates. Além disso, eles alegam que todo o dinheiro que possa ser gerado a partir do uso da geoengenharia será doado a ONGs e instituições de caridade, além de garantir que não têm expectativas de enriquecer com isso. Segundo os cientistas, todo o trabalho é realizado de forma transparente e aberta, através de simulações em computadores e da avaliação de possíveis consequências.
fonte : http://www.tecmundo.com.br/ciencia/19961-bill-gates-investe-em-tecnologia-que-pode-manipular-o-clima-terrestre.htm#ixzz1pRIkWcqB
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