Swiss Researchers Try to Make it Rain With Lasers 139
formaggio writes "Last year a team of researchers at Switzerland's University of Geneva had come up with an interesting way of making it rain– by shooting lasers high up into the sky. At the time it seemed like science fiction, but now they are one step closer after the team successfully finished tests around Lake Geneva. From the article: 'Records from 133 hours of firings revealed that intense pulses of laser light created nitric acid particles in the air that behaved like atmospheric glue, binding water molecules together into droplets and preventing them from re-evaporating. Within seconds, these grew into stable drops a few thousandths of a millimeter in diameter: too small to fall as rain, but large enough to encourage the scientists to press on with the work.'"
Make it rain... (Score:5, Funny)
While they weren't able to make rain fall they did make 34 pigeons, 12 sparrows, 334 bees and 1 hanglider fall from the sky...
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...and a whole lot of nitric acid.
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Yes, and the people who were near the where the lasers impacted the earth at the end of their ballistic trajectory were not amused.
Obligatory XKCD (Score:2)
http://xkcd.com/401/ [xkcd.com]
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Re:what could go wrong? (Score:5, Interesting)
The real giggles, with the eventual success of any of these cloud-seeding projects, will be political(probably with a side of Aral-sea style ecological fuck-uppery in places where people don't care very much):
As with rivers that flow across political boundaries(a source of endless contention over water rights, complaints by team downstream that team upstream is taking too much water out and/or dumping too much shit in, etc.), air currents carrying enough water vapor to be even theoretically 'seed-able' are a finite resource. Rain that falls in one location won't be available to fall in another one. Historically, there hasn't been all that much fighting(either the legal flavor, or the literal flavor) about it, because rainfall was pretty much just a function of geography, climate, and luck.
Should it become possible to 'pump' a cloud with some comparatively inexpensive apparatus(whether it be this laser widget or some other thing), reliable air currents flowing from regions of evaporation will become a new flavor of 'river', suddenly subject to rivalrous use, and the rivalries that stem from it. Happy times!
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Should it become possible to 'pump' a cloud with some comparatively inexpensive apparatus(whether it be this laser widget or some other thing), reliable air currents flowing from regions of evaporation will become a new flavor of 'river', suddenly subject to rivalrous use, and the rivalries that stem from it. Happy times!
I believe it already is possible, at least partially (seems the jury is still out on effectiveness). Using lasers is just another way to do it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_seeding [wikipedia.org]
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Yes, I
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It gets the droplets large enough and heavy enough to start falling and reach the ground before evaporating.
But that doesn't solve the fundamental atmospherics of these latitudes.
Problem with these dry areas isn't that they don't get enough rain during the day, it's the fact the cold dry air falling from high altitudes night desiccates the moisture and dust from the surface.
Places like the Sahara desert are right on the boundary of two Hadley cells [youtube.com] where the night-time temperatures go below zero.
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I don't understand how cloud seeding can possibly be effective.
Ah, if only you had stopped there. But no, you had to give us your own take on something you just said you don't understand, and which lots of people who spend their lives studying it seem to think has some merit.
I'm sure you are right, this is just a bunch of idiots firing lasers up in the sky. If only they had asked you first.
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Indeed, let's stifle progress based on what COULD go wrong.
Flood the Sahara (Score:2, Insightful)
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All of them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine
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10
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The question is, how many languages can you have with binary based languages?
How about 10?
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And stop solving food distribution issues by draining Chad or Aral Sea
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http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/01/110118-abu-dhabi-desert-rain-cloud-seeding-controversy/ [nationalgeographic.com]
Re:Flood the Sahara (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, then that way the dust that blows across the Atlantic from the Sahara to fertilize the Amazon can stop, and whilst Africa becomes a luscious new area of growth the whole of the Amazon can just die off.
Really, fucking around with things that can have such a massive, potentially unknown effect elsewhere isn't a smart idea at all because you can just end up making things worse.
Other parts of the world depend on the Sahara being like the Sahara is, so if you change the Sahara, you change those other parts of the world. In boosting food supplies in Africa you damage the food supplies in say South America, and create a problem there instead.
Re:Flood the Sahara (Score:4, Funny)
> Other parts of the world depend on the Sahara ...
Yep. I've got hurricanes on the mind lately, so here's just one example that might not immediately occur to more normal people (I'm definitely abnormal): sometimes, you'll have a storm brewing in the Atlantic, but intensity will be inhibited by dry Saharan air mixing into the core. If you remove that dry air, we might have stronger hurricanes.
Of course, then someone will decide to blow lasers or set off nukes in the storm to compensate. What could POSSIBLY go wrong then? :)
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In boosting food supplies in Africa you damage the food supplies in say South America, and create a problem there instead.
Which might bother the Africans if they weren't largely subsistence farmers.
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It depends what you mean by "just fine".
Certainly it wasn't the same ecosystem it is now, and certainly removing fertilization from the sahara would decrease south american biomass and reduce biodiversity.
If you mean it'd still have some green stuff there then yes, you're probably right, but how much, and how diverse would be the fundamental problem. Would biomass increase in Africa occur quickly enough to deal with the resultant decrease in South America, and hence the potential imbalances in CO2 capture,
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Other parts of the world depend on the Sahara being like the Sahara is, so if you change the Sahara, you change those other parts of the world.
And my straw reaches acroooooooss the room, and starts to drink your milkshake ... I... drink... your... milkshake! I drink it up!
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Not sure if you misread my comment, it wasn't humidity I was talking about, it was the dust from the Sahara which acts as fertilizer for places like the Amazon. If you make Africa green that dust will not be so easily able to blow free. Whilst it's likely the loss of that fertilizing dust from the Sahara wouldn't kill plantlife in the Amazon it would at least cripple growth somewhat- there would be a much larger pressure on plantlife to fight over nutrients such that many species of plant less strong would
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WHA ?? NO SHARKS ?? (Score:1)
Stupid swiss should better stick to making chocolate !!
Cheesolate (Score:2)
Stupid swiss should better stick to making chocolate!!
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Next up: making it STOP raining! (Score:2)
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Solution as clear as the sky: Attach a propel to the LHC.
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Indeed! But don't call me Shirley.
New Age (Score:1)
And they will call this the Laser Age!
Re:New Age (Score:5, Funny)
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The in 1980's origins http://www.eastlundscience.com/HAARP.html [eastlundscience.com]
by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Eastlund [wikipedia.org]
The DoD presentations http://www.eastlundscience.com/HAARPROOTS.html [eastlundscience.com]
The early ideas http://www.eastlundscience.com/HAARPROADMAP.html [eastlundscience.com]
The U. S. Patent 4,712,155 http://www.eastlundscience.com/HAARPWEATHER.html [eastlundscience.com]
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I'm not convinced that Eastlund's account is all that credible. That he took his presented about applying microwave technology to the military is undeniable, but the connection to HAARP amounts to "I had these ideas, I think HAARP is somehow doing them".
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Someone has a nice tight budget, lots of electrical power, toys and land.
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This gave me an image in my head similar to Travolta's famous dance scene in Saturday Night Fever, but it was a guy in a laser suit (suit that emits lasers in all directions) breakdancing in the middle of the room to electro music with lasers going everywhere like an epileptic's worst nightmare. Also everybody was wearing Daft Punk-style helmets (which makes sense now that I think about it, you'd need to shield your eyes from the lasers).
LASER AGE! pewpewpew!
Now the sharks will flood the earth... (Score:2)
Is this safe? (Score:1)
Nitric acid [wikipedia.org] raining from the sky sounds no good at all to me.
But maybe I'm not so good at science to understand the pros of such a rain.
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Re:Is this safe? (Score:4, Informative)
Compounds like nitric acid act as nucleation sites for rain already. It'd be no more acidic than natural precipitation.
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There will definitely be more nitric acid than natural. They are pushing hard to increase it above the natural concentration.
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Right, you still have to deal with dicking with the nitrogen cycle, but at least the pH of the rain will be normal.
We won't like it (Score:1)
We won't like it when it's going to rain sharks all of a sudden!
Great! (Score:2)
Presumably they were testing the equipment in Europe this year, thus summer failed to happen.
CC.
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Presumably they were testing the equipment in Europe this year, thus summer failed to happen.
It sure happened! it was the 17th of August.
That's good (Score:2)
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Not much luck with the rain (Score:3)
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cosmic rays from the sun (Score:1, Troll)
Re:cosmic rays from the sun (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. [discovermagazine.com]
Your version of the story is not getting much press because it's not true.
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You might want to read the quotes from the actual research cited there. And I won't hear a thing said against Philip Plait.
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No, his version of the story is not getting much press because there's no money in it. Truth and falsehood make no difference to the press.
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Interesting. After some searching.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/24/breaking-news-cern-experiment-confirms-cosmic-rays-influence-climate-change/ [wattsupwiththat.com]
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/25/some-reactions-to-the-cloud-experiment/ [wattsupwiththat.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD [wikipedia.org]
I hadn't heard about this.
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Instead of reading a blog, you should read the actual article. Much more informative, and much less wrong. See above for various links with far more informational content than Watt's blog.
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Here. Read this [slashdot.org] who describes the original paper and it's conclusions. Not some random blogger. One of the better posts on the thread.
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Um... cosmic rays do not come from the Sun, in fact when the Sun is at the top of its 11 year cycle cosmic rays are suppressed by the Sun's magnetosphere and vice versa.
No one is suppressing the story about this research unless you think pointing out that doesn't mean as much as WattsUpWithThat and others want it to mean with regards to global warming is suppressing it.
Pacman Jones already knows how to make it rain. (Score:2)
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Just don't let the airline pilots look down (Score:2)
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It's warranted, my friend. It's warranted.
Some moderators don't understand the concept of "humor", but a lot of them do. Roll dem dice! :)
If it works, we will need an Igor to save us! (Score:1)
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I think that I saw this already, in the land of Malaria, an Evil Scientist (Why are they always Evil?) creates a rain machine (Fires pink beams into the sky) and causes it to rain ALL the time.......causing a situation where Evil science projects are the country's only source of income........and the Igor saves the day/country/his lot in life/, in the end by destroying it.
I saw that too. I thought it was a travel documentary about Scotland.
But here in the US... (Score:1)
hmmm (Score:1)
I'm not sure how the strippers are going to feel about this...
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Maybe they can use energy-collecting thongs that absorb the lasers and then they can sell the power back to the grid. Couple that with using the same material for the floor around the pole, the club sells that power back and repays the strippers based on how many watts were collected during their act.
Massively increases potential for droughts (Score:2)
... and the following famines and potential warfare.
We already see this with dams on rivers which are vital to the down streams countries and people. If it became realistically possible to control the rain, we would start to see countries affecting each others rain fall, especially due to fairly predictable overall wind patterns.
I'm not saying there aren't positive possibilities, but there is massive scope for negative consequences and if this became viable technology it is something the UN would have to b
Excellent choice (Score:2)
Still, I welcome our rain-making overlords.
How do they know? (Score:1)
Fascinating story but, my question is, what sensory apparatus are they using to measure "stable drops a few thousandths of a millimeter in diameter" in the resulting atmosphere?
They seem to have neglected to mention their prior discovery, The Star Trek Duotronic Sensor Array...
Energy Cost? (Score:2)
The inevitable legal question (Score:2)
So let's say we're in drought-stricken West Texas and you zap the clouds and make it rain. But that rain would have originally fallen on central or east Texas. To whom does the rain water belong?
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That's a real issue. Santa Clara County, CA, which used to be a major agricultural area before Silicon Valley took it over, had, for decades, a rain-making operation. [ametsoc.org] Several hundred silver-iodide generators were spread around the county, and, when conditions were right, the call went out to turn them on. This increased rain in the agricultural valley, while reducing it in the barren inland hills. The end result was about 10% more rain.
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To whom does the rain water belong?
Billy Bob.
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So let's say we're in drought-stricken West Texas and you zap the clouds and make it rain. But that rain would have originally fallen on central or east Texas. To whom does the rain water belong?
Stop being smart. You're ruining the stock values. :)
HUMOR, people. HUMOR.
Rain? (Score:2)
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I'm-a go out this evening and fire every damn laser pointer I gots into the air tonight...It may not work but it will drive the cats completely nuts.
That is stupid (Score:2)
It will never work. They need to have prayer meetings like we do here in Texas. That always works.
Oh wait.
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It will never work. They need to have prayer meetings like we do here in Texas. That always works.
Oh wait.
Well, it will eventually.
Maybe not today, maybe not this year.... but damnit, it will! :>
HUMOR, HUMOR.
Scale (Score:1)
stable drops a few thousandths of a millimeter in d
How many Olympic-sized swimming pools is that?
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About 10^-20?
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Right. Given that HAARP has nothing to do with weather control, nobody has made that comparison.
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