In order for aircraft to take off and land, it is necessary that the ceiling (the height of the cloud base above the ground) and visibility be above certain minimum values. It has been estimated that, in the United States alone, airport shutdowns by fog were costing the airlines many millions of dollars annually. The vital effect of low ceilings and visibilities on military aircraft operation was forcefully emphasized during World War II when Allied aircraft flew out of foggy England.
During the late 1930s attempts were made to dissipate fogs by seeding them with salt particles, in particular calcium chloride. Some success was experienced, but this technique did not appear to be practical. During the mid-1940s large quantities of heat were used to clear airport runways. The scheme called FIDO (Fog Investigation Dispersal Operations) employed kerosene burners along the runways. The heat they released decreased the relative humidity of the air and caused droplet evaporation and a sufficient improvement in ceiling and visibility to allow aircraft to land or take off.
The dissipation of supercooled fogs by means of ice nuclei has been going on for many years. Tables have been prepared that specify the quantities of dry ice to be dispersed, depending on such factors as wind speed, cloud thickness, and temperature. A typical seeding rate might be about two kilograms per kilometre of flight. Special equipment has been developed for the purpose of dispensing dry ice flakes or pellets from an airplane or from the ground.
Investigations have been made of the value of acoustical techniques for clearing fogs. Such schemes work well in a cloud chamber where standing sound waves can be set up, but there is no evidence that reasonable sound sources can effectively change the characteristics of fogs in the free atmosphere.
Precipitation modification
Shortly after Schaefer’s proof that dry ice seeding could modify supercooled stratus clouds, there were many projects aimed at increasing rain or snow by economically important amounts. The first cloud-seeding tests demonstrated that, in the course of dissipating stratiform clouds, some small amounts of snow fell that would not have fallen had there been no seeding. Certain meteorologists hypothesized that by seeding thick clouds it should be possible to cause substantial increases of rain or snow. Unfortunately, from the point of view of designing a scientific experiment that would put this hypothesis to the test, the thicker the cloud, the better the chance of natural precipitation. Cloud thickness alone does not allow a unique specification of the quantity of rain or snow. Other factors such as the strength and persistence of the cloud updraft, cloud-top temperature, the horizontal dimensions of the cloud, and its microphysical properties influence the amount of precipitation.
The complex nature of clouds has so far thwarted attempts to develop quantitative forecasts of rainfall of sufficient accuracy to be used to evaluate a cloud-seeding scheme. Also, as is well known, precipitation is highly variable in space and time. As a result, it is not possible, on the basis of a physical theory, to answer satisfactorily the question, “How much rain or snow would have fallen if there had been no cloud seeding?”
The most reliable evidence concerning the effects of cloud seeding has come from programs in which statistical techniques were employed to design experiments and test hypotheses dealing with the effectiveness of any particular cloud-seeding scheme. Many experimental designs and evaluating procedures have been used since the late 1940s. There have been many disagreements among scientists and statisticians about the interpretation of programs that have been conducted in the past.
A question of fundamental importance has been raised about the scientific value of precipitation-augmentation projects conducted by private or commercial interests. Such operations usually have been based on the assumption that seeding would increase precipitation. They have not been conducted as experiments designed to test whether or not such would be the result. Certain prominent statisticians have taken the position that because these projects have not purposefully incorporated “randomized” or other control procedures to reduce the effects of bias by the operators, the data they have yielded cannot be used to test the efficacy of cloud seeding. On these grounds, in 1957 optimistic conclusions by the U.S. Advisory Committee on Weather Control on the effectiveness of cloud seeding were rejected by various statisticians. The final report of the committee concluded that precipitation from winter supercooled clouds over the mountainous western United States was increased by some 10 to 15 percent as a result of silver iodide seeding. In 1966 a special panel of the National Academy of Sciences, again employing data mostly derived from private or commercial operators, arrived at almost the same conclusion. Since the late 1990s, silver iodide is routinely used to seed winter supercooled clouds over the mountainous western United States in order to increase the snowpack.
The most recent evidence indicates that sometimes ice-nuclei seeding may increase precipitation from certain supercooled clouds by some tens of percent. In other circumstances the seeding may lead to decreases of about the same magnitude. In still other meteorological situations seeding is ineffective. With a few exceptions it still is not possible to specify the conditions under which positive or negative effects would be expected to occur. It appears that in certain types of supercooled clouds the temperature at the upper boundary of the cloud is an important but not sole indicator of the most likely effects of ice-nuclei seeding.
Since the late 1960s, increasing effort has been made to develop mathematical models of clouds and cloud systems. Once an accurate model exists, it is possible to calculate the expected results of ice-nuclei seeding by means of a computer. This approach was employed by Joanne Simpson of the U.S. Environmental Science Services Administration and others to test the effects of heavy doses of silver iodide on cumulonimbus clouds. She found that the effects of ice nuclei on large convective clouds conformed closely with theoretical predictions. Certain specified clouds were caused to grow and to produce more rain than they would have if they had not been seeded.
An important but still unresolved question deals with effects of cloud seeding on precipitation downwind from the target area. For the most part studies have shown excesses of precipitation, but there still exists the possibility of decreases not only far downwind but in all other directions as well.
A number of tests have been made to stimulate rainfall from warm cumulus clouds by seeding them with sodium chloride particles. Experiments in India and certain other countries were reported to have increased the amount of rainfall successfully.