Scientists at Harvard University are researching the possibility of creating a similar effect without the volcano. First, they plan to use balloons to create normal clouds out of ice particles.
Then, once they've perfected that method, they hope to move on to chemicals that can block even more light. The chemicals released in a volcanic explosion, called sulfate-aerosols, would probably work the best, but they can damage the ozone layer.
So Harvard scientists are looking into other chemicals that might do the job without risking ozone damage. But it will be a while before we know how this would work on a large scale, and if there are any side effects. So until more research is done, it's hard to tell if the benefits outweigh the risks.
Needless to say, controlling the weather is complicated. But there are other technologies in development that could help battle the extreme effects of climate change.
Several companies have come up with ways to convert fog to drinking water in areas with severe droughts. And it's already being used in places like California, Morocco and Chile. For decades, researchers have explored ways to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it somewhere else, like deep in the ocean or inside bedrock.
In Cyclone Sidr flattened , homes, but a warning system and fortified shelters helped limit deaths to 3, Today restoring coastal mangroves and hillside forests aims to stave off surging seas, landslides, and floods during future storms.
The global average temperature in May was the highest on record. To cope, the city of Ahmadabad offered potable water and cooling centers in high-risk areas and trained health aides to treat heat-related illness. Climate change may not cause a particular storm, but rising sea levels can worsen its impact. In a nine-foot storm surge from Hurricane Sandy hit New York City at high tide, making the water 14 feet higher than normal at the tip of Manhattan.
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Changing the path of tornadoes. In the s and s, the United States and other governments invested heavily in weather-modification research. They saw potential not only for helping their people but also for aiding the military.
Weather control could be a potential weapon. It also could let armies guarantee they got the weather they needed for a particular operation. Not every attempt at cloud seeding ended with rain or snow. And even in those that did, it was impossible to tell if the seeding caused that precipitation or if the rain or snow would have fallen on its own.
In time, money for cloud-seeding research dwindled. More effort was put into improving weather prediction. Weather modification did not, however, disappear. More than 50 nations now have cloud-seeding programs, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
China, for instance, set off hundreds of rockets to seed clouds in Its goal was to ensure clear skies for the opening ceremonies of the summer Olympics in Beijing. There also are dozens of private weather-modification companies. And many other companies pay for cloud seeding. What they achieve, today, is much more subtle than the grand visions that had once been proposed. It might produce some 15 percent more precipitation during a storm, he estimates.
But just what the right conditions still are not completely known. Idaho Power, an electric company, had been running a cloud-seeding program for years. When that snowpack melts in spring and summer, it feeds rivers and lakes. Cloud seeding makes sense for this company. But those efforts need better data if they are to really pay off. So we look for situations in where we can try to do somewhat controlled experiments.
And cloud seeding, it turns out, is one of those areas. Then they would use the second aircraft to take measurements within that cloud — both where it had been seeded and where it had not. The part without seeding was the control unchanged condition for the experiment. The researchers collected a variety of data. They took high-resolution images of the cloud crystals.
This would show them something about how the crystals grew. Radar on the aircraft and on the ground provided data about the broader cloud structure.
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