Last week I posted the story about Moscow's Mayor and his plan to keep Russia's capital snow-free this winter to minimize snow removal costs. Now meteorologists in Beijing are using the same method to increase snowfall to help with ongoing drought. Good idea? Or bad?
Here's my thoughts on this. I think this is a very complicated issue that is going to become a much bigger problem over the next few years. I grew up in Arizona where the Colorado River cuts through the Grand Canyon. There are ongoing legal battles about who has rights to that water. Arizona, Utah, Nevada and California all have legitimate needs. In the 1960s, a hydroelectric dam was built upstream from the Grand Canyon at Glen Canyon to create Lake Powell. I've spent a number of weeks water skiing on the lake and hiking around the area and it's a specatularly beautiful lake. The dam also destroyed what had been a spectacularly beautiful canyon. There are some other looming problems associated with Glen Canyon Dam #mce_temp_url# that will have to be addressed in the near future.
Damming, irrigation, canals, logging are all done with the best of intention and often with great benefits, but there are almost always negative consequences that follow. Cloud seeding adds a new element to man's tinkering with nature. Personally, I'm not comfortable with it. What are your thoughts?
Hi Rick!
You asked about my book "Hurricane of Independence: The Untold Story of the Deadly Storm at the Deciding Moment of the American Revolution." You can get a copy at probably any bookstore or e-mail me for a signed copy! David has read it
and liked it (I think :) ).
TOny
Yeah I don't like it either. That's one thing us humans don't do very well and that is looking to the past and thinking long term. We see a problem and want to fix it now, but the unintended consequences are what hurts in the long term. The earth's weather is a balancing act of heat transfer. And if we mess with it too much we might induce a climate change we can't adapt to. Local affects can have a global impact. The butterfly effect.
I'm not comfortable with it either. It's not even completely for religious reasons. Tinkering with the weather just doesn't seem like a good idea to me. I understand that the ability to do so could be viewed as a gift but actually using that particular gift could cause tremendous problems in the form of uncontrollable flooding or any of myriad other unforeseen catastrophes.
cuts through the Grand Canyon. There are ongoing legal battles about who has rights to that water. Arizona, Utah, Nevada and California all have legitimate needs. In the 1960s, a hydroelectric dam was built upstream from the Grand Canyon at Glen Canyon to create Lake Powell. 
I've spent a number of weeks water skiing on the lake and hiking around the area and it's a specatularly beautiful lake. The dam also destroyed what had been a spectacularly beautiful canyon. There are some other looming problems associated with Glen Canyon Dam 
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Tony Williams
Perhaps until we've become gods?
Tony Williams
Hi Rick! You asked about my book "Hurricane of Independence: The Untold Story of the Deadly Storm at the Deciding Moment of the American Revolution." You can get a copy at probably any bookstore or e-mail me for a signed copy! David has read it and liked it (I think :) ). TOny
David (USAF WX)
Yeah I don't like it either. That's one thing us humans don't do very well and that is looking to the past and thinking long term. We see a problem and want to fix it now, but the unintended consequences are what hurts in the long term. The earth's weather is a balancing act of heat transfer. And if we mess with it too much we might induce a climate change we can't adapt to. Local affects can have a global impact. The butterfly effect.
Dan Fugate
I'm not comfortable with it either. It's not even completely for religious reasons. Tinkering with the weather just doesn't seem like a good idea to me. I understand that the ability to do so could be viewed as a gift but actually using that particular gift could cause tremendous problems in the form of uncontrollable flooding or any of myriad other unforeseen catastrophes.