Project Stormfury was an ambitious experimental program of research on hurricane modification carried out between 1962 and 1983. The proposed modification technique involved artificial stimulation of convection outside the eyewall through seeding with silver iodide. The invigorated convection, it was argued, would compete with the original eyewall, lead to reformation of the eyewall at larger radius, and thus, through partial conservation of angular momentum, produce a decrease in the strongest winds.

Since a hurricane's destructive potential increases rapidly as its strongest winds become stronger, a reduction as small as 10% would have been worthwhile. Modification was attempted in four hurricanes on eight different days. On four of these days, the winds decreased by between 10 and 30%, The lack of response on the other days was interpreted to be the result of faulty execution of the seeding or of poorly selected subjects.

These promising results came into question in the mid-1980s because observations in unmodified hurricanes indicated:

   1. That cloud seeding had little prospect of success because hurricanes contained too much natural ice and too little supercooled water.
   2. That the positive results inferred from the seeding experiments in the 1960s stemmed from inability to discriminate between the expected results of human intervention and the natural behavior of hurricanes. 

Reference
Willoughby, H. E., D. P. Jorgensen, R. A. Black, and S. L. Rosenthal, 1985: Project STORMFURY, A Scientific Chronicle, 1962-1983, Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 66, 505-514.

National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA)
Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research
Atlantic oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML)

SOURCE: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hrd_sub/sfury.html

Hurricane Modification?

Can human intervention diminish the force of a hurricane? From the mid-1960s through the early 1980s NOAA actively pursued Project STORMFURY, a program of experimental hurricane modification. The general strategy was to reduce the intensity of the storm by cloud seeding. The seeding, it was argued, would stimulate the formation of a new eyewall that would surround the existing eyewall. The new eyewall would contract, strangling the old eyewall and reducing the intensity of the hurricane. However, research carried out at AOML showed clearly that these "concentric eyewalls" happened often in unmodified hurricanes, thus casting doubt on the seemingly positive results of seeding in earlier experimentation. Hurricane Luis provides an example of this behavior. Moreover, observations showed that hurricanes contain little of the supercooled water necessary for cloud seeding to work.

The American Meteorological Society policy statement on planned and inadvertent weather modification, dated October 2, 1998, indicates, "There is no sound physical hypothesis for the modification of hurricanes, tornadoes, or damaging winds in general, and no related scientific experimentation has been conducted in the past 20 years." In the absence of a sound hypothesis, no Federal agencies are presently doing, or planning, research on hurricane modification.

Some techniques besides seeding clouds that have been considered over the years include: cooling the ocean with cryogenic material or icebergs, retardation of surface evaporation with monomolecular films, changing the radiational balance in the hurricane environment by absorption of sunlight with carbon black, blowing the hurricane apart with hydrogen bombs, injecting air into the center with a huge maneuverable tube to raise the central pressure, and blowing the storm away from land with windmills. As carefully reasoned as some of these suggestions are, they all fall short of the mark because they fail to appreciate the size and power of tropical cyclones. For example, when hurricane Andrew struck South Florida in 1992, the eye and eyewall devastated a swath 20 miles wide. The heat energy released around the eye was 5,000 times the combined heat and electrical power generation of the Turkey Point nuclear power plant over which the eye passed. Better building codes, wiser land use, and more accurate forecasts seem prosaic compared with environmental mega engineering but they are a great deal cheaper and have overwhelmingly favorable cost-benefit ratios.

SOURCE: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hrd_sub/modification.html

Related Links:

• NOAA’S NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE AWARDS $300 MILLION AWIPS CONTRACT TO RAYTHEON

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Weather Service has awarded a performance-based contract to Raytheon Technical Services Company LLC for the operations and maintenance, optional product improvements, and software maintenance and support of the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS).

The contract is for five years, with five one-year award terms for a potential of a 10-year contract. The contract has the potential value of approximately $300 million over a 10-year contract life.

AWIPS is the computerized system that processes and overlays multiple data sources to allow local Weather Forecast Offices and River Forecast Centers to generate weather and water forecasts and warnings. It is a cornerstone technology of the modernized National Weather Service.

AWIPS continually evolves to accommodate new science and technology to meet National Weather Service, NOAA and Department of Commerce strategic goals. This contract represents a new phase in the operation and maintenance of AWIPS, increasing system performance and functionality and improving forecasts and warning timeliness to support the National Weather Service mission.

NOAA’s National Weather Service is the primary source of weather data, forecasts and warnings for the United States and its territories. NOAA’s National Weather Service operates the most advanced weather and flood warning and forecast system in the world, helping to protect lives and property and enhance the national economy.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and providing environmental stewardship of our nation’s coastal and marine resources. Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners and nearly 60 countries to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as the planet it observes.

On the Web:
NOAA: http://www.noaa.gov
NOAA’s National Weather Service: http://www.nws.noaa.gov
SOURCE:  http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/releases2005/aug05/noaa05-098.html

Project Stormfury was an attempt to weaken tropical cyclones by flying aircraft into them and seeding with silver iodide. The project was run by the United States Government from 1962 to 1983.

The hypothesis was that the silver iodide would cause supercooled water in the storm to freeze, disrupting the inner structure of the hurricane. This led to the seeding of several Atlantic hurricanes. However, it was later shown that this hypothesis was incorrect. In reality, it was determined most hurricanes do not contain enough supercooled water for cloud seeding to be effective. Additionally, researchers found that unseeded hurricanes often undergo the same structural changes that were expected from seeded hurricanes. This finding called Stormfury's successes into question, as the changes reported now had a natural explanation.

The last experimental flight was flown in 1971, due to a lack of candidate storms and a changeover in NOAA's fleet. More than a decade after the last modification experiment, Project Stormfury was officially cancelled. Although a failure in its goal of reducing the destructiveness of hurricanes, Project Stormfury was not without merit. The observational data and storm lifecycle research generated by Stormfury helped improve meteorologists' ability to forecast the movement and intensity of future hurricanes.
..

Cloud seeding was first attempted by Vincent Schaefer and Irving Langmuir. After witnessing the artificial creation of ice crystals, Langmuir became an enthusiastic proponent of weather modification.[1] Schaefer found that when he dumped crushed dry ice into a cloud, precipitation in the form of snow resulted.[2]

With regard to hurricanes, it was hypothesized that by seeding the area around the eyewall with silver iodide, latent heat would be released. This would promote the formation of a new eyewall. As this new eyewall was larger than the old eyewall, the winds of the tropical cyclone would be weaker due to a reduced pressure gradient.[3] Even a small reduction in the speed of a hurricane's winds would be beneficial; as the damage potential of a hurricane increased exponentially with its winds,[4] a slight lowering of wind velocity would have a large reduction in potential destructiveness.[4]

Due to Langmuir's efforts, and the research of Schaefer at General Electric, the concept of using cloud seeding to weaken hurricanes gathered momentum. Indeed, Schaefer had caused a major snowstorm on December 20, 1946 by seeding a cloud.[2] This caused GE to drop out for legal reasons. Schaefer and Langmuir assisted the U.S. military as advisors for Project Cirrus, the first large study of cloud physics and weather modification. Its most important goal was to try and weaken hurricanes.[5]

Legacy

In the sense of weakening hurricanes to reduce their destructiveness, Project Stormfury was a complete failure because it did not distinguish between natural phenomena in tropical cyclones and the impact of human intervention.[27] Millions of dollars had been spent trying to do the impossible. In the end, "[Project] STORMFURY had two fatal flaws: it was neither microphysically nor statistically feasible."[29]

In addition, Stormfury had been a primary generator of funding for the Hurricane Research Division. While the project was operational, the HRD's budget had been around $4 million (1975 USD), with a staff of approximately 100 people.[30] Today, the HRD employs 30 people and has a budget of roughly $2.6 million each year.[31]

However, Project Stormfury had positive results as well. Knowledge gained during flights proved invaluable in debunking its hypotheses.[31] Other science resulted in a greater understanding of tropical cyclones. In addition, the Lockheed P-3's were perfectly suitable for gathering data on tropical cyclones, allowing improved forecasting of these monstrous storms.[31]Those planes are still used by the NOAA today.[32]

Related Links:

• Weather Modification Association
• Weather Modification - Weather Control
• Testimony of Dr. Tom DeFelice (Past President, Weather Modification Association) in support of Weather Modification Operations and Research Board - PDF
• Weather Modification Operations and Research Board
• Weather Modification Operations and Research Board (passed Oct.2005) - in corporate cooperation with BAE Systems (HAARP apparatus & facility owner) and Raytheon Corporation (HAARP patent owner)
• Eastlund Scientific Enterprises - The established corporation of Bernard Eastlund, the inventor of the fusion torch, patents used for the HAARP, and the weather-modifying "Thunderstorm Solar-Powered Satellite" system.
• Simulations of ELF radiation generated by heating the high-latitude D- region - Some work is done by The United States Navy using ELF: Simulations of ELF radiation generated by heating the high-latitude D- region. (This work is supported by the Office of Naval Research and, in part, by a grant of HPC time from the DoD High Performance Computing Center at the Army Research Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Ground)
• High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP)
• HARRP Animated Gif
• Bernard Eastlund - Eastlund is one of the patent holders (US Patent #4,686,605) that led to the development of the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program HAARP which has been sensationalized in many books as a weapon with the potential to destroy the world by creating a death ray and altering weather patterns.
• Montana Legislature - 2005 -HOUSE BILL NO. 399; A bill for an act entitled:
• "AN ACT PROVIDING THAT A WEATHER MODIFICATION OPERATION MAY NOT START BEFORE NOVEMBER 1 OR END AFTER MARCH 15; EXEMPTING WEATHER MODIFICATION FROM THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE MONTANA ENVIRONMENT POLICY ACT AND FROM ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENTS; REQUIRING PUBLIC NOTICE OF INTENTION TO CONDUCT WEATHER MODIFICATION ACTIVITIES; ELIMINATING PUBLIC HEARINGS, AND PERMIT FEES, AND PROOF OF FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY BY AN APPLICANT; AMENDING SECTIONS 85-3-101, 85-3-201, 85-3-204, 85-3-210, 85-3-211, 85-3-213, 85-3-214, 85-3-301, AND 85-3-302, MCA; REPEALING SECTIONS 85-3-102, 85-3-202, 85-3-206, 85-3-207, 85-3-208, 85-3-211, AND 85-3-212, MCA; AND PROVIDING AN IMMEDIATE EFFECTIVE DATE."
• 109th Congress S. 517: Weather Modification Research and Technology Transfer Authorization Act of 2005
• Hail Cannon
• Beijing Weather Modification Office
• Space Preservation Act