ABSTRACT
In the main areas of interest–hurricane modification, rain enhancement, lightning suppression, hail suppression, snowpack augmentation–considerable controversy abounds. Aside from the technical issues, important questions arise concerning weather modification efforts should be attempted, even assuming that the method works, and who should make the decision to proceed, who will possibly be adversely affected, and what legal recourse is available to the dissident. Central to the Soviet hail model was the idea that hail grows quite rapidly in zones of very high liquid water content comprised of large supercooled water drops. Since the mid-1950s dozens of apparently well-designed statistical experiments have been conducted in a variety of weather situations. In many cases elaborate computer simulations have been conducted in an attempt to learn more about the potential for weather modification. Basic knowledge of fundamental processes in storms, and the action of silver iodide in the storm, are not just frosting on the cake of weather modification.
