WEBVTT - The Future of Weather: Part Two 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.160 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:14.840 Forward Thinking. Hey, welcome to Forward Thinking, the podcast that 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:17.279 looks at the future and says I only wanted to 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:20.759 see you laughing in the laser lightning. I'm Joe McCormick, 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:24.440 and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum and our other host, Jonquin Strickland, 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:27.720 is out today. He is on a lovely vacation, I 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:31.840 believe in an old tiny barrel boat. Yeah, he's circumnavigating 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:35.000 the globe in a an old timey wooden bathtub. Oh 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:39.880 woulden bathtub, not barrel boat. Completely my mistake. I apologize, 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:45.120 but we have in his absence, welcomed our wonderful coworker 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:48.640 Julie Douglas and to speak with us. Hello, how are 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:52.559 you doing today, Julie, I'm doing well. Yeah, you know, 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:55.440 I feel like I got a little something in my step. 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:59.080 I think it's all this weather control talk. So this 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:01.760 is going to be part two of a two part series. 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:05.000 We did part one last time with Julie talking about 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:07.720 some of the history leading up to the present of 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:11.640 weather control, and today we're going to focus on some 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:16.319 potential future technologies for weather control. So if you haven't 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:19.040 heard part one yet, you should go back download that 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:22.039 listen to that one first. That was the podcast that 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:25.080 was released directly before this one. Ah yeah, because we 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:29.120 we've been through some of the concepts of why weather 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:32.360 is is such a problem, to to suss out why 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:36.440 controlling it is difficult, and what kind of projects people 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:39.480 have been working on up through today to try to 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:42.319 do that kind of stuff. Also, you will miss out 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:45.680 on a story about Buddhist monks fleeing from the rain, 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:51.360 Kurt Vonnegut's brother, and some other choice bits. Yeah, okay, 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:53.800 but if you're here and you're like, no, I'm not 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:55.400 going to do that, don't You're not going to tell 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:57.440 me what to do. I'm gonna listen to this part 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:00.080 this one first. Maybe we should do a sup for 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:03.320 quick rundown on what we covered last time, just to 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:07.200 bring you up to speed. So, so we did talk about, uh, 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:12.119 the proposed strata shield. It was a solution, a geoengineering 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:15.919 solution for combat and global warming. It's essentially a hose 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:18.080 that goes up into the sky held up by balloons 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:20.440 where you can pump some particles into the atmosphere that 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:23.120 will reflect back some of the Sun's light and cool 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:26.880 the earth. But it has been also pointed out that 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:29.680 if we were to invent something like this, a side 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:32.559 effect would be that it could be used for weather warfare, 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:35.600 Ain't that right, Julie, Yeah, it's kind of like part 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:38.800 of that. Yeah. Then we also talked about essentially some 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:42.200 of the main problems with with the human relationship with 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:45.560 weather and human weather modification efforts in the past, like 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:48.600 why it's so difficult to control the weather. A couple 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:51.160 of the principles we touched on where that weather it 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:55.120 involves vast amounts of energy, way more energy than we realize. 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:58.000 Even though it seems like it would hurt more to 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:00.359 get hit by a truck than blown by the wind, 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:03.720 there's a lot more wind than truck. Wiser words I 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:06.519 have never spoken. I'll never forget it long and those 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:08.320 will stick with me for the rest of my life. 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:10.799 And then the other thing being, of course, the mathematical 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:15.600 complexity and chaos of weather, how small variations and perturbations 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:19.639 can become magnified over time that makes weather systems inherently 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:23.280 unstable and difficult to predict. Yeah. Then we we talked 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:25.320 about a few of the attempts that have been made 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:29.560 to control weather through hail cannons, which is, as far 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:32.720 as we can tell, pretty much just garbage. Uh. Scientists 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:34.920 don't seem to think there's any evidence they work. But 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:37.920 one that's where the jury is maybe still out a 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:41.200 little bit would be cloud seating. Yeah. In cloud seating 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:44.200 is something that has been used for decades and so, 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:47.280 I mean the idea behind it is that it does 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:51.760 have an effect on the weather. Perhaps it does create rain, 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:54.760 but to what extent we just don't know yet. That 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:58.440 being said, there are many countries that are invested in 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:02.360 weather management systems lie cloud seating. And then we talked 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:06.560 about how how predictive modeling. If we can figure out 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:09.040 how to accurately predict the weather, we can at the 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:11.880 very least get people to safety and get them full 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:16.200 of fried chicken when when a storm is coming. Yes, man, 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:20.080 you keep out doing yourself for them. Wise words. And 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:23.480 that's that's about where we wrapped, uh. And so yeah, 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:27.440 so let's let's go into the the potential future of 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:30.240 weather control. One thing that I think you're going to 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:33.240 notice is that in this discussion there are going to 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:38.080 be a lot of maybees, which is not all that 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:41.200 unfamiliar if you're a fan of forward thinking and discussions 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:44.520 about future technology. I mean, if there were no maybes 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:48.480 left lingering, it wouldn't be future technology, would be present technology. True, 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:52.000 But I think, especially in weather control, there's a lot 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:57.280 of uncertainty about exactly what can be done, and so 0:04:57.640 --> 0:04:59.520 you're gonna hear that crop up a few times, and 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:01.680 maybe we can talk a little bit in the end 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:03.880 about why that is. But but I do want to 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:07.040 talk about some of the coolest proposals we have come 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:12.960 across for using technology to manipulate or protect ourselves from 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:15.600 the weather. Now, one that you mutter about at our 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:19.120 office windows basically every day. This is actually a very 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:24.360 intricate intervention for you, Joe is lasers. You're constantly just 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:29.800 face pressed against the glass talking to clouds about lasers. 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:33.480 Do want noise? Oh? You should see the world from 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:35.880 my perspective. I mean, when other people open their mouths, 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:39.120 words don't come out. I just hear pup you like 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:44.680 Morse codes. This explains a lot, actually, But know that 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:47.480 there are real proposals on one thing I do want 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:49.760 to talk about that I think was really cool, and 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:54.480 we'll see how applicable or not this might be to 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:59.440 real weather control. But but is experiments about summoning clouds 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:03.360 with lasers. So like, what if the problem is I 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:05.839 don't have any rain clouds and I want rain clouds? 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:09.240 Could do it? Yeah, you could do it with lasers, 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:12.440 that's the proposal. So so I came across an interesting 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:15.560 May two thousand ten article and New Scientists about this, 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:18.719 and what it mentioned is that researchers in Europe have 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:22.360 found a way to use lasers to trigger the condensation 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:24.840 of water in the atmosphere. In other words, they can 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:29.760 cause the formation of rain clouds under lab conditions, and 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:34.440 they claim under natural conditions, all via lasers. So here's 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:37.320 how your experiment goes. You start with a container of 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:41.160 very cold, very humid air. So this is gonna be 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:45.640 water saturated air, like negative twenty four degrees celsius, sort 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:48.400 of the conditions of of the atmosphere when it might 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:50.960 start raining. Sure you want you you wanted to be 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:53.720 very cold and very humid. Uh so these are sort 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:56.920 of ideal conditions for the cloud to form. And then 0:06:56.960 --> 0:07:02.039 you fire short pulses of this extremely high energy infrared 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:06.760 laser into the container and along the path of the 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:11.040 laser you can see the formation of clouds. Now, why 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:15.160 does that happen? Well, the explanation given is by one 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:19.320 of the researchers involved, and that's Jerome Casparian from the 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:24.360 University of Geneva. Explains quote that the laser pulses generate 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:28.200 clouds by stripping electrons from atoms in the air, which 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:33.840 encouraged the formation of hydroxyl radicals. Those convert sulfur and 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:37.800 nitrogen dioxides in the air into particles that act as 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:41.480 seeds to grow water droplets. So actually this has a 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:44.720 little bit in common with the cloud seating we talked about, 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:47.040 so just a different method. Yeah, if if what you 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:49.679 do in cloud seating is you fly over or through 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:54.640 a cloud, uh, and you disperse little particles into the cloud, 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:59.240 for example silver iodide, or you fire silver iodide particles 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:01.840 into a cloud with the rocket. What you're hoping will 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:07.280 happen is that water will coalesce around these tiny particles. 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:11.640 The particles will act as nuclei for rain drops or snowflakes. 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:13.760 And here you're sort of doing the same thing, but 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:17.840 instead of shooting particles into the cloud, you're creating these 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:21.080 little particle seeds in the air. Yeah, you're manipulating the 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:24.040 particles that are already there and changing them so that 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:28.120 they will become these seed capable. Yeah, and so they 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:31.080 found that in these in the experiment, after they fired 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:34.400 lasers into the chamber, the volume of condensed water droplets 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:38.120 had increased by fift in the chamber. And so that 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:40.840 that's good under lab conditions. But the big question is 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:43.720 is this going to work in wild skies? Right? Because 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:46.520 the chamber is very easy to create those conditions and 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:49.679 control them, right. So the author of the article spoke 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:52.079 to one scientist who is skeptical that it would work 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:55.600 in wild skies. But to counter that, Casparian claimed that 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:58.680 the team had tried out the experiment sixty meters over 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:02.800 the skies of Berlin and they said it worked. According 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:06.560 to Casparian, weather lidar showed quote, the density and size 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:09.800 of water droplets spiked when the laser was fired, and 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:12.720 this was over the open air. Where do you file 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:17.200 paperwork to get permission to shoot a high frequency, high 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:21.400 power laser into the air over a city? Berlin? May 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:23.880 I modify your weather? I wonder what cities are the 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.840 most lenient about weather modification, Like, which are the ones 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:32.319 where it's it's a pretty easy process. I actually wouldn't 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:34.920 think that Berlin would be for that. Yeah, you know, 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:38.960 I think that many places would not be for that, right, 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:41.600 I mean that that city has many people in it. 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:46.400 The government's pretty solid. Uh. But of course they're not 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:48.640 claiming that this is going to form like a volcano 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:51.280 in the sky that you know. It's just like it's 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:53.280 what they're saying is it's a rain cloud. I guess 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:56.080 you could be worried, like, well, what exactly could happen 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:59.440 if something goes wrong? This is an extremely high energy laser. 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.720 Oh and the laser had a name. It's it's a 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:05.679 great name too. It was called the terramobile, which is 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:08.600 from its terra watt power and its mobility. So you 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:12.079 can wheel the terramobile through the streets of Berlin at night. 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:15.960 So uh a, that's great. I want to name many 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:20.320 things the terramobile be uh that that was. Are there 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:23.600 any updates on our cloud laser since then? Yeah, it 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:26.600 looks like this general line of research is ongoing. So 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:30.040 in I found that there was a University of Central 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:33.560 Florida press release about research in the University's Optics and 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:38.000 Photonics department about how to optimize known methods of laser 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:41.840 cloud formation, and their suggestion was you add a buddy beam, 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:45.080 So instead of just having one laser beam, you sort 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:49.040 of dress the original beam in a surrounding, lower intensity 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:52.160 laser beam that would extend its range higher and farther 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:56.760 into the atmosphere. So I'll always approve of the buddy system. Um. Yes, 0:10:56.960 --> 0:10:59.560 and it's a good system even for lasers. But it 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:02.680 looks like this line of research is ongoing and and 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:07.520 this is not the only weather related laser research going on. No, 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:11.719 I want to get into even slightly more bond Villany territory. 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:16.000 So in March, new research published in a I P 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:20.240 Advances show that you can probably in principle, use lasers 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:23.120 to attract and direct strikes of lightning. This one is 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:26.480 fascinating to how you like that? This is like straight 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:30.440 up thar stuff. So yeah, normally what does lightning do? 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:33.800 How does lightning choose where it goes from place to place? 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:37.280 It finds the tallest object that it can strike. Yeah, 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:40.040 it's the path of least resistance between two objects, and 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:43.240 that usually means the shortest path. It's the nearest object, 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:45.080 which when it's coming down from the sky is going 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:49.800 to be the tallest thing. So there are extremely powerful 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:54.240 lasers that can ionize air along their path. So that 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:56.920 means that the air molecules that are caught in the 0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:00.520 gaze of this cruel laser beam are ripped of their 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:05.080 electrons and become free floating charged particles. They've become ions 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:08.960 and you can use this principle to create pathways of 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:15.320 ionized air called filaments that electricity likes to follow. And 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:19.200 so a group led by Andre Mssirowitz has done work 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:22.880 on getting high voltage discharge, which is similar to lightning, 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.760 to follow these kinds of filaments, and in they published 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:30.120 findings showing that they were able to get this discharge 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:33.400 under lab conditions to ignore its straight line from A 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:37.880 to B approach and instead follow the laser ionized filaments 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:42.160 to their destination. So you can essentially plot a course 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:46.319 for electricity to take through the air by using these, uh, 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:55.000 these lasers, so you could reroute the lightning from unsuspecting golfers. 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:59.360 That's true. This technology mainly applies to golfers. I thought 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:03.880 so from the off association it was funded by. Yeah, no, 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:06.520 I mean this is very interesting because in theory. What 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:08.400 it means is that if you have a powerful enough 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:11.600 laser and you design just the right types of pulses 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:15.400 of laser light, this principle could be exploited to use 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:18.400 lasers to guide lightning wherever you wanted to go. And 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:20.560 that could mean away from my house, or it could 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:23.840 mean onto Jeffrey. So in a sense, it could be 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:26.840 used for warfare as well. I think I think any 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:28.960 time that you start talking about controlling the weather, you 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:33.160 have the potential for for warfare. Although directing lightning strikes 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:37.480 is yeah, well it sounds way worse than rain. I 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:40.960 on one hand, I think that's true. It sounds worse, 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:45.520 but it's weird. It's weird keeping levels of violence in perspective, 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:48.880 because lightning might strike one person and kill them in 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:52.000 a very spectacular and shocking way. But if you can 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:55.040 cause enough rain that an area of floods, you might 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:57.839 be able to kill hundreds of people. Yeah. Yeah, And 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.120 I think you mentioned that in in Vietnam when when 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:03.839 they were conducting the experiments, some of the flooding that 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:07.160 may or may not have been caused by cloud seating 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:10.840 did result in depths there. Yeah. Yeah, there was a 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:13.679 certain bridge that during the Vietnam War that they were 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:15.920 just trying to bomb over and over again, but they 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:19.680 cloud seated the area and lo and behold they you know, 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:23.160 they created so much rain that began to flood and 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:26.560 it destroyed the bridge and flooded the value and people 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:30.000 died as a result. Okay, what about another avenue of 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:33.120 what weather control that I know I've heard something about 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.640 on them internet forums, and that would be high power 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:40.080 radio transmitters. Yeah. We we said, we said in our 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:43.400 first episode on this topic that we've never really covered 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:46.240 weather control on this show before, or on on this 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:49.480 podcast before specifically, but we did once talk about a 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:52.600 technology that does not control the weather as far as 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:57.440 we can reasonably discern, and that's HARP, the High Frequency 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:02.960 Active Auroral Research Program. I'm stationed in Alaska. UH. One 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:06.160 of the devices involved in HARP can send specific types 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:09.720 of radio waves into the ionosphere for a whole bunch 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:14.360 of different research and potential communication purposes. And fringe theories 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:18.080 based in what seemed to be misinformed interpretations of not 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:21.320 only the technology at hand, but also like the electromagnetic 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:26.000 spectrum um. These fringe theories suggest that the facility could 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:30.720 be used to change and or control the weather. And Okay, 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:36.320 in some applications, harp would heat and or excite small, 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:39.800 controlled portions of the ionosphere for short periods of time. 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:44.680 And this can move chunks of air soup around a bit, because, 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:46.400 as we have talked about many times on the show, 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:50.000 air is not thin. It is soup. It's a thin soup. 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:54.000 But at any rate, uh uh So, as far as 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:56.400 we can tell, though, in the ways that HARP has 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:58.560 been used, and even in the ways in which it 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:02.280 could potentially be used, if someone was trying to do this, 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:05.960 it wouldn't make an appreciable difference to either local or 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:08.880 global weather. Yeah. And I think the grain of truth 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:11.360 in this, which is I think you sort of mentioned it, 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:14.920 is that some parts of the radio frequency spectrum can 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:18.000 cause heating, like, for example, the way microwaves can cause 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:21.600 heating of water molecules. Oh sure, And and harp would 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:25.360 heat portions of the atmosphere a little bit, uh of 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:28.000 of the ionosphere specifically. I mean. The thing is is 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:32.040 that the amount of radiation being applied to the ionosphere 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:35.720 every second of every day by the Sun and everything 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:40.680 else outside of the Earth is tremendous, and so these small, 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:45.880 short disturbances or periods of excitement, you know, sure they 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:49.040 could have an effect. And we talked before about how 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:52.320 the number of variables involved in in weather are what 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:54.440 make it so tricky to figure out. So it's something 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:57.480 that you would want to watch, but but it's not. 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:00.400 It's not a super weapon. Uh and and it's being 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:03.200 used to to strike down airplanes or anything like that. 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:05.440 If you want to turn tune into the full episode 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:07.800 that we did. Uh, it's called What Does HARP Do? 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:12.720 And it published in February UM. At that time, HARP 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:14.720 had been shut down due to budget cuts and its 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:18.000 future was was very uncertain. That there's an update there. 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:21.000 Its ownership is currently being transferred from the Air Force 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:24.639 to the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:28.520 which is going to operate HARP on a paper use basis. 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:30.159 Oh great, so they're going to rent it out to 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:35.800 whatever supervillain wants it that week, right, But I mean okay, So, 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:38.960 so we'll have to start taking data from from those 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:42.080 experiments into account the same way that we do for 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:45.040 for any technology and for for any bit of human 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:48.600 civilization in general. Because because of course the cities that 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:50.800 we build. The stuff that we do has an effect 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:53.719 on local weather. Uh. Yeah, And of course I wouldn't 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:56.639 put it out of the question that that experiments in 0:17:56.760 --> 0:18:00.680 bombarding the ionosphere or any of the uf up there 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:04.240 with different radio frequencies couldn't turn up knowledge that could 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:08.679 potentially be used in, for example, microwave control of cyclones, 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:10.440 which is something that we'll talk about in a bit. 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:13.239 Oh sure, sure it might turn out that that some 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:16.199 of this could nudge weather systems in one way or another, 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:18.840 especially if we built like a whole lot of these 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:22.520 things in very key places around the world. Uh. For 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:25.520 right now, it's nothing that certainly that anyone needs to 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:28.919 be worrying about. Um and and it's uncertain whether it 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:31.520 will ever come to fruition. So what you're saying is 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:34.160 there's still more wind than truck. There's still more wind 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:36.640 than truck. Okay, Well, I want to talk about one 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:40.720 of the funniest weather control proposals I've come across. Uh 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:43.400 and this, this I think falls more into the category 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:47.320 of geoengineering rather than direct weather control. So these are 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:50.439 two things we should sort of recognize or at different 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:53.879 ends of a spectrum, you might say, whereas something like 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:58.879 cloud seating is designed to effect have a temporal effect 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:02.360 a temporarily limb. It did effect on a specific weather pattern, 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:07.240 like make that cloud rain now, whereas these other projects, 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:13.520 like geoengineering projects, want to fundamentally change the climate in 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:18.200 a particular ecoregion or something like that. And this particular 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:21.440 proposition ties into a joke I've made on this very 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:25.040 podcast before that we should protect ourselves from hurricanes by 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:27.760 doing what we do best in the United States and 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:30.840 building a wall along the southeastern coast of the United 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:33.560 States stretching up to the top of the atmosphere. I 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:35.720 mean that do it, wouldn't it? But you're you're surely 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:38.440 not just bringing this up in ingest again. You're you're 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:42.240 unfortunately bringing it up because this has been an actual proposal. Yeah. Well, 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:45.800 strangely enough, something kind of like this has been proposed 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:50.280 in uh in the scientific literature, not to protect Florida 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:53.919 from a hurricane, but to protect Tornado Alley from the 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:58.159 next spade of killer twisters. So in a Temple University 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:02.880 physicist named Ronia da suggested in a paper for International 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:06.160 Journal of Modern Physics be that you could build a 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:11.840 series of three gigantic walls to stop tornadoes in the 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:14.320 in the United States, in the tornado Alley in the 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:18.960 Midwest and the southern central United States. So how how 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:22.600 would that work? Because I mean, obviously it's not what 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:24.760 you're thinking. It's not that you put up a wall 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:27.720 around the city so that the tornado can't get in. 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:30.679 It's hard to envision just because I think about this, 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:34.920 these vast planes, right, which I understand that the vast 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:37.720 planes are, you know, part and parcel of the reason 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:41.080 why there are so many tornadoes. Yeah. So dal claims 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:44.439 that the problem, the reason these tornadoes form is that 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:47.960 the Midwest region between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachian 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:51.600 Mountains is very flat, and that in this flat landscape, 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:55.320 warm southern air currents from the Gulf of Mexico rush 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:59.080 up and meet cold northern air currents coming down from 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:03.040 the north, and they form these vortexes that turned into tornadoes. 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:07.119 And uh Too points out that in the northern China 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:09.919 plane and the Eastern China plane, they're there's sort of 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:14.320 similar areas in China. They experience mixing of air currents, 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:17.800 but they have far fewer extreme tornadoes and and he 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:21.600 claims that this is because there are three small mountain 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:25.600 chains running from east to west, which act as buffers 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:28.280 for the north south winds and prevent the formation of 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:32.359 these vortexes that become tornadoes. Tornado Alley doesn't really have 0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:35.320 any mountain ranges like this, but Too argues that if 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:39.920 we built a series of three gigantic east west walls, 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:42.200 each about three hundred meters highs so would be about 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:45.840 a thousand feet and fifty meters wide about a hundred 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:49.639 and sixty five ft, we could simulate China's mountain ranges 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:53.600 and attenuate the circumstances that lead to the formation of tornadoes. 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:58.920 What do y'all think? Uh? And I sore. First, I 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:00.640 don't know, have you ever driven through there? I would 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:02.680 sort of welcome you could put up some really great 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:05.280 art on those walls. It would it would spice up 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:09.480 a lot of of coast to coast driving experiences. You know. Actually, 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:14.439 the potential for graffiti is tremendous. Yeah, Um, I don't know. 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:17.560 I mean, I just think about the natural shapes of 0:22:17.760 --> 0:22:22.200 mountain ranges and the way that the air flows through, 0:22:22.920 --> 0:22:25.200 and it seems to me like this, in my mind, 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:29.359 this is like one big, homogeneous hunk of concrete or 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:33.240 I don't know what material, and you'd have, it wouldn't 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:35.560 be able to replicate sort of the natural formations that 0:22:36.040 --> 0:22:39.120 mountains have. Yeah, I don't know if that's a factor 0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:42.800 influencing it or not. But many experts, actually, I shouldn't 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:45.720 even say many experts, All experts I could find who 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:50.200 had commented on this proposal have expressed serious skepticism about it. 0:22:50.560 --> 0:22:53.240 I mean, just the cost alone. I mean, and I 0:22:53.280 --> 0:22:57.120 don't want to downplay that, the cost that these damaging 0:22:57.160 --> 0:23:01.359 tornadoes have on on livestyle, sucking crops and people's lives 0:23:01.359 --> 0:23:03.520 and all of that, and and I'm sure it's tremendous. 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:07.720 I I find it difficult to believe that anyone would 0:23:07.800 --> 0:23:11.800 greed light this project. Well, yeah, the obvious questions about 0:23:11.800 --> 0:23:15.840 the cost. Aside that the experts think that this is 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:20.320 that this has been widely characterized as completely nuts. I 0:23:20.359 --> 0:23:23.359 don't want to be uh to be unfair to tell, 0:23:23.359 --> 0:23:26.240 like you, I'm not I'm myself not an expert, not 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:28.919 a meteorologist who could comment on this, But all the 0:23:28.960 --> 0:23:31.720