Posts
Yesterday
I covered Dr. Naomi Wolf’s reporting on cloud seeding and
geoengineering. She made reference to Australia as one of the
countries that has been cloudseeding.
It
seems that, in Tasmania at least the Tasmania Hydro’s program has
been suspended after it was demonstrated that major floods were
preceded by several days of cloud seeding.
Here
is some background.
But first there is this. The
poisoning of the atmosphere is turned into a cute human interest
story
“The
technology, which was used by the Chinese government to prevent a
downpour during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, is becoming more
mainstream.”
Company
guarantees a rain-free wedding day with cloud-seeding service
10
March, 2015
Mid-1990s
songstress Alanis Morissette sang that rain on your wedding day was
Ironic.
While
"ironic" might not have been the word Morissette was after,
rain on a couple's big day is certainly annoying, particularly if an
outdoor ceremony is involved.
But,
for just £150,000 ($NZ308,000), one company is willing to guarantee
blue skies while you tie the knot.
London-based
Oliver's Travels, a luxury travel company that specialises in
destination weddings, is now offering a cloud-bursting service for
its clients.
"Here
at Oliver's Travels, we've helped countless happy couples arrange the
destination wedding of their dreams by pairing them with a perfect
venue and making sure the food, drinks and entertainment are exactly
what they've always wanted," the company says on its website.
"But
one thing always bugged us – we can help plan everything down to
the last detail, but there was one thing we could never really
change: the weather. So we decided to do something about that."
The
service uses silver iodide particles to essentially "pop"
the clouds before they are due to produce rain.
The
company employs a meteorologist, who studies the wedding venue's
weather patterns for a week before the big day.
The
day before the event, a pilot flies over the site of any identified
rainclouds, spraying silver iodide into the air, which attracts
moisture in the cloud, turning the cloud's condensation into ice
crystals, delaying the rain.
Natasja
Rasmussen, head of customer experience at Oliver's Travels, told
Discover that the technology, which was used by the Chinese
government to prevent a downpour during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, is
becoming more mainstream.
"Cloud
seeding is now considered a mainstream tool," she said. "New
technology provides much more reliable results, meaning we can
guarantee the perfect day."
Despite
this, Oliver's Travels are yet to sign up a client since debuting the
service earlier this year.
And
here is some background written on the topic.
Revealed:
The Australian companies manipulating our weather
TOTT,
25
June, 2018
Cloud
seeding is a method of artificially generating additional rainfall
from clouds through technology. It may involve attempting to produce
rain when none would normally fall or it may be working to increase
precipitation over a particular area.
For
over five decades in Australia, the study of clouds, rain and the
atmosphere has been largely hidden from the public, as a secretive
network of private business interests and faceless corporate entities
continue to manipulate the weather around us to their benefit.
CSIRO
& CLOUD SEEDING:
Experiments
of the cloud seeding theory began in Australia shortly following the
world’s first laboratory trials, after new research papers
published by USA researchers I Langmuir and V Schaefer stated that
rain could be induced by seeding clouds with dry ice.
After
a series of experiments in New York, the two researchers managed to
make it rain using silver iodide bullets. They got
a patent for their technique,
referred to as cloud-seeding, soon after.
As
a result of the international study, cloud seeding was
first trialed in
Australia in 1947 when the CSIRO used Royal Australian Air Force
aircrafts to drop dry ice into the tops of cumulus clouds.
According
to CSIRO history, the method worked reliably with clouds that were
very cold, producing rain that would not have otherwise fallen,
leading to more subsequent trials.
“This is believed to be the first documented case anywhere in the world of an appreciable man-made rainfall reaching the ground and the first time that dynamic cloud growth had followed seeding.”
Following
the success of initial trials, CSIRO scientists would continue this
work until 1952, soon expanding to include theoretical, laboratory
and airborne investigations of cloud structure and reaction.
CSIRO
carried out similar trials from 1953 to 1956 in South Australia,
Queensland and other states, however this time covering a large area
instead of singular clouds as before.
Experiments
used both ground-based and airborne silver iodide generators to gain
results. Each experiment covered a target area of 2,000 to 8,000
square kilometres and a neighbouring control area of the same size
which was not seeded.
During
the late 1950s and early 1960s, CSIRO performed cloud seeding in the
Snowy Mountains, on the York Peninsular in South Australia, in the
New England district of New South Wales, and in the Warragamba
catchment area west of Sydney.
CSIRO’s
activities in Tasmania in the 1960s were also successful, with
seeding over the Hydro Electricity Commission catchment area on the
Central Plateau achieved documented rainfall increases as high as 30%
in autumn.
The
Tasmanian experiments were so successful that the Commission has
regularly undertaken seeding ever since in mountainous parts of the
state.
Furthermore,
striking results documented across Australia held such promise at the
time that new systematic programs of cloud seeding were set up as a
result for the next fifty-years.
This
work is done today by the CSIRO
Division of Cloud Physics under
the ‘Marine and Atmospheric Research’ division.
THE
PLAYERS:
Cloud
seeding continues across Australia in 2018 – and is more advanced
than ever.
Today,
while some government-run projects exist, the most popular type of
project involves coordination between the government and a private
company.
A
key example of a modern operation currently bringing these
experiments to the modern era – one of two of the largest in
Australia – is weather and water experimental company, Snowy
Hydro,
based out of the Snowy Mountains in NSW.
Following
initial trials in 2004 in the region, Snowy found that
the “exceptional
scientific merit of the trial”, “positive
results of the evaluation”,
and “absence
of adverse environmental impacts” were
sufficiently ‘compelling’ for the government to pass legislation
for an ongoing, operational cloud seeding program.
James
Pirozzi, manager at Snowy Hydro, explained how their technology works
and has developed in the 21stcentury:
“We’ve got a series of ground-based generators on the western side of the Great Dividing Range in the Kosciusko National Park, and we use the natural terrain features in the wind to give us uplift to get that material from the ground up into the clouds,” Mr Pirozzi said.
Those generators, the burners themselves [are] essentially a big propane flame.”
The
cloud seeding activities undertaken by Snowy Hydro are authorised by
the Snowy
Mountains Cloud Seeding Act 2004 (Act), which
prescribes a number of mandatory requirements for cloud seeding
programs in NSW.
A 2009
paper looking
into cloud seeding found “overall
rainfall over targets was somewhere between 5 per cent and 13 per
cent greater than over a nearby control region”.
Another
recent peer
reviewed paper suggested
an average 14 per cent increase in rainfall due to recent Snowy
Mountain cloud seeding trials.
A
company by the name of Hydro
Tasmania conducted
were also recently under fire for cloud seeding in the lead-up to
deadly flooding in north-western Tasmania that resulted in a coronial
inquest.
It
was later found in a DPAC review that the seeding from Hydro “had
no measurable impact on precipitation”
— despite the flight lasting for an hour and 34 minutes over the
Upper Derwent catchment, targeting Lake Echo.
The
review found
the cloud seeding flight did not contribute to subsequent flooding of
2016.
Hydro
Tasmania’s cloud seeding operation has been on hold since the
incident.
Weather
Modification, Inc. also
supported the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency during their
2008 ‘Feasibility Study for the Augmentation of Rain & Air
Chemistry Monitoring’ – providing
an instrumented aircraft and crew for cloud seeding.
In
December 2006, the Queensland government announced
$7.6 million in
funding for “warm cloud” seeding research to be conducted jointly
by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and the United States
National Center for Atmospheric Research.
These
are only a few examples!
THE
MURDOCH CONNECTION:
Current
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced
in 2007 that
$10 million from the Australian Government Water Fund will be given
to the investigation of an ‘untried technology’ that aims to
trigger rainfall from the atmosphere, even when there are no clouds.
The
money bankrolls research into mysterious ionisation technology
promoted by the secretive Australian Rain Corporation (now Australian
Rain Technologies),
in hopes of using forthcoming trials to show the technology can bring
increased rain.
In
a sense, the company will be taking methods previously discussed
above, and adding electrification of the ionosphere to create clouds
out of thin air, even when there is no rain.
Mr.
Turnbull’s office says there was no breach of caretaker protocol
because the project was actually approved before the election was
announced.
Malcolm
Turnbull’s fundraising group, the Wentworth Forum, includes a long
list of generous donors responsible for this move, including Frank
Lowy, Ros Packer, John Simons, and Matt Handbury – chairman and
part-owner of the Australian Rain Corporation!
It
has been revealed that Mr. Handbury is the wealthy
nephew of Rupert
Murdoch and
chairman and proprietor of Murdoch Books, which is the headquarters
for Australian Rain Corporation!
All
starting to make sense now?
Malcolm
Turnbull was asked the following question in relation to the
connection by the ABC in 2007: Has Matt Handbury’s
contribution to your fundraising Wentworth Forum helped in securing
funding for the Australian Rain Corporation?
“There is absolutely no connection,” he said.
“That is an outrageous suggestion”.
Requests
for interviews with Mr. Turnbull, the head of the Australian Rain
Corporation, the head of the center contracted to test the device
were declined.
RELATED
CONTENT:
Guidelines
for the utilisation of cloud seeding as a tool for water management
in Australia: cmar.csiro.au
Cloud
seeding stimulates rainfall, but what is it and how does it
work?: abc.net.au
Turnbull
pumps $10m into rainmaking gamble: abc.net.au
ATLANT™
Technology: australianrain.com.au
Clouds
form over rain-making technology: abc.net.au
TOTTNews is Australia’s fastest growing source of independent,
alternative multimedia news, dedicated to bringing the people of
Australia hard-hitting, investigative journalism, through a range of
exclusive domestic and international news stories, feature reports,
opinion pieces, video coverage and much more.
Founded
in 2011, TOTT News has transformed throughout the decade to become a
cross-platform, multimedia content publisher, and a primary source of
alternative media in Australia and around the world.
And
some confirmation from mainstream media. The connections between the
Tasmanian floods and cloud-seeding got quite a lot of coverage across
Australian media.
Climate control gone wrong: Tasmanian Hydro seeded clouds before disastrous floods
11 June, 2016
Greedy
Green Hubris gone wrong? It took months of bad choices to achieve
this Gold-Star Moment in Bad Management:
Tasmania’s
state-owned Hydro-electric
power generator could face legal action for
damages after admitting it cloud-seeded in or near water catchments
the day before disastrous flooding, although heavy rain was
forecast.
Tasmania
shut their only fossil fuel power plant in August last year, and
relied on renewable energy and one sole Basslink electricity cable to
mainland Australia. The cable was supposed to be a back up supply but
was bringing in 40% of Tasmania’s electricity, and it broke in
December. But a green and greedy approach in Tasmania meant that the
state had already run its dams down to 26% levels by selling too much
electricity to the mainland at high “renewable” subsidized
prices. That was a low level at the start of summer, normally a drier
season in Tasmania. After the Basslink cable broke, the dam levels
fell to a precipitous 13%, so fast that the green state had to bring
in diesel generators just to keep the lights on. They also switched
back on the Tamar
Gas plant in late January. So
much for being the “100% renewable” state.
When
rain was forecast in June the hydro managers must have been
delighted, but even faced with the
forecasts
they seeded clouds on June 5th as well. (Rivers
were rising on June 4 and flood
warnings were
valid for many areas of Tasmania.) This was the same storm system
that hit
Sydney on its way to Tasmania, causing deaths and threatened houses.
Flood damage and losses from that same system in Tasmania now amount
to around $100 million. One man is still missing, feared drowned....
Hydro Tasmania's website is HERE
November
1, 2003
In
August 1952, the RAF in Britain conducted Operation Cumulus, which
involved gliders spraying clouds with dry ice, salt or silver iodide.
Within days North Devon received 250 times its normal August
rainfall. The town of Lynmouth was virtually washed away and 35
people were killed.
The
link between the experiments and the flood has not been proved and
cloud seeding over mainland Australia has also been inconclusive,
according to the CSIRO.
But
artificial rainmaking has its supporters, and a House of
Representatives inquiry into water supplies has reignited their
dispute with the CSIRO.
Only
Tasmania conducts cloud seeding, although in August, Snowy Hydro
announced it would undertake a six-year $5 million trial in the Snowy
Mountains, spraying clouds with silver iodide from generators on the
ground.
Snowy
Hydro predicts that snowfall could increase by 10 per cent and could
deliver improved environmental flows to the Murray River.
The
federal member for Mallee, the National Party's John Forrest, is
Canberra's main advocate of cloud seeding.
A
Melbourne weather research company, Australian Management
Consolidated - which advocates the research of Israeli meteorologist
Danny Rosenfeld - has also given evidence to the inquiry, which
expects to finish its report early next year. AMC and Professor
Rosenfeld say pollution from the Latrobe Valley and Melbourne has
caused drought in Gippsland and the Alps by hindering the way clouds
release rain. Cloud seeding would rectify the problem, they say.
The
head of cloud seeding at Hydro Tasmania from 1990 to 2002, Ian
Searle, said the process boosted rainfall in Tasmania's catchment
areas by about 87 millimetres a year.
"In
my view, the current CSIRO view is based on some rather unhappy
experience they had and I think it's flawed," Mr Searle told The
Age.
Monthly
rainfall varies greatly from year to year. Trying to prove rain was
caused by cloud seeding would require a long, expensive experiment.
The CSIRO says the trials it conducted in Victoria in the 1970s and
1990s were unable to prove that cloud seeding worked.
Mr
Searle disagrees. He said a trial in Tamworth in 1994 was
inconclusive, but farmers found it useful. "In my view . . . it
was an outstanding success," he said. "People would call up
and say they got so much rain. They were very happy."
John
Forrest - who says 40 countries, including South Africa, the United
States and China practise weather modification - visited Texas last
year, where cloud seeding is practised over a third of the state.
Like AMC, he says pollution is hampering rainfall, but cloud seeding
with salt will fix it.
"The
(clouds) are full of aerosols and dust and industrial pollutants
which impairs the rain-producing capabilities of the cloud . . . $5
million would give us a good (cloud seeding) program over six or
seven years," he said.
The
CSIRO says the money could be better spent elsewhere.
"Over
Victoria, there is absolutely no reason at all, no evidence, that
pollution has an effect on rainfall," the CSIRO's climate
modelling team leader, Brian Ryan said, before adding that the
climate "is so complex we can't rule anything out".
Dr
Ryan said the decline in the state's rainfall was more likely the
result of natural variability and the greenhouse effect.
While
he agreed that the Snowy Hydro trial would be a good test of
cloud-seeding technology, he said the US National Academy of Sciences
this month found there was no evidence that cloud seeding worked.
Tasmania's
government-owned energy company has been asked to explain why it
conducted cloud seeding over the Derwent River catchment the day
before flooding began this week.
The
catchment flooded on Monday near use
in southern Tasmania, where the search continues for a missing
farmer.
In
the state's north, one person was killed and another remains missing.
For
centuries mankind has dreamed of changing the weather at will, to
reverse drought, stave off destructive storms or to water crops.
Climate
change aside, most of those attempts have been little more than
wishful thinking. But when the snow begins to fall in Kosciuszko
National Park in a few short months time, it will be getting a
helping hand – from a utilities company.
Officials
with electricity generator Snowy Hydro are installing a series of
burners along the western edge of Kosciusko national park. Those
burners are part of a large network of equipment and expertise the
company plans to use to increase the amount of snow falling in the
NSW alps this winter.
With
more than 10 years of scientific trials complete, the company has
been given the green light by the NSW Government to conduct regular
cloud seeding operations, a move that has some environmentalists
worried, despite the strict operating restrictions placed on the
program
Hydro Tasmania to conduct a review of its cloud seeding operation
August
1, 2016
THE
future of cloud seeding in Tasmania is unclear, as Hydro Tasmania
embarks on a review of the controversial practice.
Hydro
released a report on Friday on a cloud seeding flight over the Upper
Derwent catchment on June 5, the day before deadly floods hit the
region. The report said the cloud seeding did not have a measurable
impact on the floods.
But
cloud seeding in general will now be subject to a review – and
there is no word on when it may resume.
