Controlling Weather with Lasers

Just what happens when we hit it with a microwave set at 27 Ghz to cause water disassociation and a heat releasing recombination? Could this help to induce condensation even.  My real point is that we now have powerful enough lasers and aerial delivery.  This could be made to actually work.

Whatever works is naturally important just to bleed incoming tropical storms let alone to dump rain out of passing thunder clouds on demand.  This would be wonderful for Mexico and since the same moisture would soon be back in the hydrostatic cycle, no real loss is incurred and general conditions are improved.

Let us hope to see more research along these lines.

Controlling Weather with Lasers

AUG 29, 2013 09:55 AM ET // BY LARRY O'HANLON

http://news.discovery.com/earth/weather-extreme-events/controlling-weather-with-lasers-130829.htm

What could be cooler than zapping clouds to make them do as you wish? The dream has been around a long time. Is it nuts?

A decades ago the only weather-related laser research hitting the science news pages was the limited success of New Mexico researchers who were trying to trigger lightning with high-powered lasers shot from a mountain top at passing thunderheads.

This is a pretty dangerous work, since the North American monsoon is what powers the thunderstorms in the Southwest and they can be pretty violently electric. I remember asking one of these researchers what would happen if they succeeded. Would their laser get blasted to bits by an angry Zeus? Silly me. They used mirrors to launch the beam perpendicular from its source. Ben Franklin would be so proud.

But all that laser and lightning stuff is not where it’s at any more. More recently it’s been discovered that lasers can influence the water condensation in the air, which is a little lever that could perhaps be made into a bigger lever that could make it possible to squeeze more rain out of clouds in dry regions. Maybe. Hopefully.

The prospect is good enough that there was a Conference on Laser-based Weather Control in 2011 in Geneva. This year the same organizers are putting together their second international meeting: the Conference on Laser, Weather and Climate (LWC2013) at the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), once again in Geneva.

Their website explained that “ultra-short lasers launched into the atmosphere have emerged as a promising prospective tool for weather modulation and climate studies.” They point out such prospects as the old lightning control dream, laser-assisted condensation, and then add “the striking similarities between the non-linear optical propagation and natural phenomena like rogue waves or climate bifurcations.”

I will not pretend to understand more than a sliver of that last phrase, but I look forward to hearing about more specific science coming out of the conference itself, on Sept. 16-18. Meetings like these are critical for an unusual field because they require such a wide array of talents — meteorologists, atmospheric physicists, electrical engineers (someone has to work the laser), and so on — who may not all be employed at the same institution. Hopes are that collaborations will ensue. Long gone are the days when two guys with a kite, key and a jar could do meaningful science.