Don’t Fall For These Climate Rumors

Let’s Sort Fact From Fiction When It Comes To Cloud Seeding, Geoengineering & Misinformation About Our Weather.

Photo by NOAA on Unsplash

Talk to any bride on her wedding day and you will know what it’s like to wish for perfect weather. But a desire to keep clouds at bay is very different than what has been circling in the news in the wake of this year’s hurricane season.

Yes, we’ve seen some strong storms, but we have also seen strong commentary about who “controls the weather.”

When Hurricane Florence slammed into the North Carolina coast in 2018, I don’t remember this same level of chatter and confusion. Experts now say that the level of misinformation seen this fall after Hurricanes Helene and Milton may be a new normal.

As more people are get their news from social platforms, it’s harder to separate fact from fiction. More than half of U.S. adults (54 percent) say they at least sometimes get news from social media, which is up slightly compared with the last few years.

In this fragmented media environment, we all have access to seemingly endless sources of information. But is all that we read really true?

It’s important to say that criticisms or problems with our regulatory agencies still need to be addressed. We report on the shortcomings of the EPA all the time. Science is always evolving, and it takes time to conduct studies and analyze results.

I also don’t think science should be relegated to people in white lab coats. We can all participate. Citizen science is a growing field and practice of public participation and collaboration in scientific research to increase scientific knowledge.

At its essence, science is an observation leading to a ­hypothesis—a possible theory. It’s truly a process of discovery that requires asking questions about the natural world and looking for answers.

The first step in the scientific method is simply asking a question based on something you observe. You know the basic questions: Who, What, When, Where, Why, or How?

Many times, in my investigations of water, I use the concept of Occam’s razor, which is just a fancy way of saying “keep it simple.” Usually, the simplest solution is also the correct one. If the water looks or smells funny, most likely something in the water is making it look or smell that way. Plain and simple.

If someone has been dumping a substance into the water, and now you notice changes, then most likely the culprit is that substance.

Here are a few good questions to ask:

• What has changed in the surrounding area?

• Has the source of drinking water changed?

• Are changes happening in the way we treat our water?

• Is it possible someone has been discharging substances into our water?

• Are there any new businesses in town or old ones moving out?

These small changes have a big impact on our water systems.

I’ll never forget the day I was standing in the hot sun collecting samples of water and doing field research when a PG&E lackey came up to me and said, “You’re not a doctor. Do you even have a college degree? You have no right to comment on green water.”

I realized at that moment how much intimidation is used in these kinds of cases. The more I kept pursuing leads and talking to people, the more clues I found. The closer I got to the truth, the more PG&E tried to bully me. Companies may try to bully you too. The “big guys” don’t want you to discover the truth, so they will try to make you feel small, bad, or wrong. I looked right back at him and told him, “I didn’t know I needed all that to be a human.”

For me, dealing with dyslexia throughout my life has made me indignant when people tell me I can’t do something, and I hate when people tell me that what I see isn’t real. Many people in the communities I have worked with experience these same frustrations too.

It makes sense to be upset when you are told you water is fine, especially when you know it’s not. No one wants to be labeled as irrational or unwise. It upsets our natural instincts, which is the first way we can begin to help ourselves. Never let anyone convince you that brown water is good to drink.

At the same time, it’s important to offer real information and to foster discussions that can help lead to a better world. It’s important to understand the difference between gossip and data, whether you’re dealing with toxic water or a toxic news environment.

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So let’s talk more about the weather.

We reached out to two climate scientists to understand more about the ways we are currently modifying the weather in the U.S. Yes, it’s real. No, we can’t “create” storms or modify the weather in big ways. But yes, geoengineering is being considered as a response to global warming.

The two theories we’ve heard most people talk about when it comes to weather modification are cloud seeding and geoengineering.

“Cloud seeding and geoengineering (climate intervention) are two different categories of humans trying to control the weather,” Alan Robock, a climatologist and professor of atmospheric science at Rutgers University, explained. “Cloud seeding takes place in the lower atmosphere (the troposphere) where we live, and involves spraying silver iodide particles into clouds in order to produce more rain or snow.”

He said that there is no evidence that it works, but that it is a big business. 

“There are claims that over mountains in winter that cloud seeding can slightly increase snow cover, but I remain to be convinced,” Robuck said. “If it worked, a risk would be that it would steal rain from a location downwind.”

I’ve been asked in interviews before about “chemtrails” or what people believe to be chemicals released from airplanes. Yes, geoenigneering, or climate intervention is being considered as a response to global warming. But it’s not what has been portrayed in the rumor mill.

“Geoengineering is a proposed scheme to emulate volcanic eruptions by creating a cloud of sulfuric acid droplets in the stratosphere, above the troposphere,” Robuck explained. “Because there is no rain there, the particles would last much longer.  We know that large volcanic eruptions produce clouds that reflect sunlight and cool the surface for a year or two, until the cloud fall out of the atmosphere.”

He conducts indoor research with computer modeling on this type of technology, and have come up with a long list of risks that you can read here. 

“Nobody is doing it outside, as the technology to get the sulfur up to the stratosphere, presumably with airplanes, does not exist,” he told us, affirming that there is no such thing as chemtrails.

We asked if we should be excited or skeptical about this research.

“Perhaps in a decade or two, geoengineering might be attempted, but society would have to weigh the risks of doing it versus the risks of not doing it,” he said.  “We still need more research to quantify those risks.”

Bart Geerts, a professor in the department of atmospheric science at the University of Wyoming, confirmed that cloud seeding is being conducted in winter months over mountains in the Western U.S. to help increase the snowpack and that seeding is also happening in the Great Plains to help suppress hail damage.

You can find a map of current seeding activities here. Geerts mentioned that the amount of research is still quite small with about 5-10 companies active at any one time.

In a 2022 essay, Geerts offers a brief history of cloud seeding to increase precipitation, discussing a period of intensive field experimentation during the 1950s into the 1980s, in regions dealing with water shortages. Early scientific studies, many of which were published in the peer-reviewed literature, were generally inconclusive.

“It’s certainly an unconventional technique,” he said. “And expectations are lower than they used to be, but people still pay for it.”

He emphasized that the federal government does not fund this research but that utilities, power companies, and even ski operators believe that the research is worthwhile in the face of uncertainty.

Other measures such as high-level secondary and tertiary waste water treatment can recycle water that can then be used for agriculture or potentially even drinking, which he says is much easier to quantify how much water you get from the system.

“With cloud seeding, the benefit is unknown,” he explained. “But under conditions of water shortages, there’s more interest in cloud seeding. When it comes up on a ballot, people tend to support seeding efforts.”

That includes his home state of Wyoming, where scientists have tracked a significant decrease in snowfall and snowpack.

During a budget session in April 2024, lawmakers gave $2 million to the Wyoming Water Development Office to fund its cloud seeding program, hoping it will help mitigate the impacts of ongoing drought in the Western U.S.

Rep. Jon Conrad (R-Mountain View) advocated for the program during the budget session. He urged his peers to do whatever they can to ensure that the state has enough water as upper and lower basin states clash over their use of the Colorado River. As the conflict intensifies, he said, the program is an asset.

“We know that cloud seeding has a positive impact upon snowpack, precipitation and streamflow,” Conrad said. “With the challenges that exist with our current climate, meteorological conditions and the loss of needed precipitation to sustain agriculture, etc., cloud seeding is a viable tool that continues to improve.”

To learn more, check out these articles and additional resources:

https://www.ars.usda.gov/oc/dof/seeding-the-skies-harvesting-rain

https://www.tdlr.texas.gov/weather/weatherfaq.htm#7

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27517140/

https://csl.noaa.gov/news/2023/390_1107.html

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Let us know in the comments if this discussion was helpful. Are you still skeptical or excited to do more research and understand cloud seeding and geoengineering more?