Study the text about human attempts to influence the weather and do the exercises below.

Marcin Legeżyński Rainmaking - Truth or Myth?

Weather belongs to the shrinking group of phenomenaphenomena [phenomenon]phenomena humans cannot control… Or does it? People have always dreamt of being able to induce raininduce raininduce rain to water their crops, dissipate fogdissipate fogdissipate fog, or remove the risk of hurricanes or hailstoneshailstones [hailstone]hailstones. However, with the development of science, weather modificationweather modificationweather modification has gained the chance to become reality. Are humans really able to achieve this goal? Before answering this question, you should ask yourself: why modify weather?

According to the World Meteorological Organisation, nearly 50% of all disasters and 45% of all reported deaths worldwide are caused every year by weather hazardsweather hazards [weather hazard]weather hazards. The weather is the cause of suffering or death of many people. One of the weather phenomena causing harm to humans is hail, which forms when droplets of waterdroplets of water [droplet of water]droplets of water freeze together in the cold upper regionsupper regions [upper region]upper regions of thunderstorm cloudsthunderstorm clouds [thunderstorm cloud]thunderstorm clouds. Worldwide, hailstones can damage cropsdamage cropsdamage crops, vehicles and houses, and even kill people when large enough. To ward off hailward off hailward off hail, many farmers in the 19th century would shoot hail cannonshail cannons [hail cannon]hail cannons at clouds, although with little effect. In later years, instead of trying to stop hail from falling, there were many attempts to make the size of falling hailstones smaller. To achive this, certain chemicals were dropped on thunderstorm cellsthunderstorm cells [thunderstorm cell]thunderstorm cells. There is no research which could confirm the effectiveness of these procedures. Attempts have also been made to dissipate fog, especially in areas where good visibility is a matter of safety, like airports and military air bases. These trials also had mixed results and there is no conclusive evidenceconclusive evidenceconclusive evidence that they worked.

Bad weather can also be a great threat to the economy. All over the world, floodsfloods [flood]floods, thunderstorms, or droughtsdroughts [drought]droughts cause over 200 million dollars of losses every day! One of the biggest dangers to farmers producing crops is the lack of water and dehydrationdehydrationdehydration. In order to induce precipitationinduce precipitationinduce precipitation, a number of techniques have been tried in the last 100 years. The early experiments involved dropping dry icedropping dry ice ondropping dry ice on rain clouds, which was later replaced by other chemicals. The process, called cloud seedingcloud seedingcloud seeding, is based on spraying small particlesspraying small particles ontospraying small particles ontospraying small particles ontoonto a raincloud to create ice crystalscreate ice crystalscreate ice crystals, which turn into precipitation and fall down. Although in some areas these attempts have reportedly been successful, there are scientists who question this method. Also, cloud seeding may only work where there are already clouds in place. You cannot actually produce clouds to induce rain.

As you might expect, with the power to affect the weather, there are some people who have thought of using the ability as warfareusing the ability as warfareusing the ability as warfare. In fact, at least one of the attempts may have been successful, although there is still some scientific debatescientific debate onscientific debate onscientific debate onon that. Operation Popeye, led by the U.S. Army during the War in Vietnam, targeted the Vietnamese army by prolonging the rainy seasonprolonging the rainy seasonprolonging the rainy season. After the operation was revealed, weather modification in warfareweather modification in warfareweather modification in warfare was banned worldwide by the Environmental Modification Convention.

All in all, weather modification remains a goal of many projects, but it does not seem that any human to date could actually describe themselves as the master of the weather. Luckily?

1 Źródło: Marcin Legeżyński, licencja: CC BY-SA 3.0.