Weather Modification, yea or nay?

[PrairieGhost]

SDMF your absolutely correct. Any surface water adds to the humidity. The only thing that adds more humidity than evaporation is transportation. Coattails and other aquatic will put a lot of water into the atmosphere. A large cottonwood can put hundreds of gallons a day into the atmosphere. One would think a few gallons, but cottonwood are real water pumps. Even the Little Missouri will run more water after frost without precipitation, because the cottonwood along the bank drop their leaves and stop photosynthesis.

 

[guywhofishes]

*transpiration

 

[Rowdie]

That's incredible, I didn't know cottonwoods released so much. So take the Missouri river valley. Its now flooded with huge reservoirs. Before that, it was full of huge cottonwoods. So which situation put more moisture in the air?

 

[Fly Carpin]

*transpiration

I don't know, those buses are pretty damp

 

[guywhofishes]

on calm day my money is on corn, cottonwoods, etc. over a flat cool flat water surface. it's all in the surface area, dark leaves (heat), the plants literally pumping water, etc.

on a windy day I go with the lake.

 

[Allen]

As the old saying goes, whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over.

I forget the name of it, but there was a reservoir in Wyoming (?) that got taken out a few years ago because the amount of evaporation from it was held against them in an interstate compact as part of their allocation of water from that river. So now they don't have a reservoir and are still allowed to take X amount of water out of the river. Makes perfect sense in a world where you get unreasonable people in the same room.


Roughly 800 million gallons of water evaporates from Lake Sak in a given day. Which is roughly equal to 5% of the water that passes by Bismarck in the Missouri River each day. So that being said, Sakakawea is roughly putting about the same amount of water into the atmosphere as 3.2 million cottonwoods.

Perhaps even more important isn't the big lake, but the increased acreage of smaller wetlands that are much shallower and warmer. I've no numbers on that, but we have definitely been at a recent geologic high in wetlands over the past 20 years.

Note: The effing willows around my dam scoff at your cottonwoods.

I don't know if a person could tease the effect of the lake out of the data because of natural variations and cycles though. Pretty complex problem to tackle and would be open to a lot of "expert" opinions.

 

[tikkalover]

They had a meeting on the cloud seeding in Minot this morning, and I heard through the grape vine that they are going to halt it for now to see what happens (don't know if this is true). If it is you guys better park your vehicles inside and buy hard hats.

 

[PrairieGhost]

*transpiration

;:;bowdown I have to watch my phone close because it changes words on me. I guess I don't watch close enough.

 

[Ericb]

I didn't think this even existed untill this thread. Doesn't seem trying to control mother nature would have a positive result. You'd think the surrounding counties would have a basis to file a law suite over loss of precip.

 

[PrairieGhost]

Good Post Allen. To get a handle on evaporation and transpiratioin you need to monitor long wave and short wave solar radiation. We did that at Cottonwood Lake Study Area for at least ten years. You may find that data at the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center library, or perhaps they have it on line now.

Yes willows are another one of the woody phreatophytes.

I get 1.6 million cottonwoods. I believe the number is 500 gallons per day from a large cottonwood.

If Lake Sak was solid cattails it would put out three times the amount of water. I too wonder if the cottonwoods that were flooded by the lake may not have put more water into the atmosphere than the lake does now?

 

[Allen]

Yeah, I assumed not all trees are large in nature. So I cut the transpiration number in half.

 

[wildeyes]

When it comes to cloud seeding I still think that the DAPL protest had 3 snow events that happen in the same area was man made. hey but what do I know.

 

[PrairieGhost]

Yeah, I assumed not all trees are large in nature. So I cut the transpiration number in half.

Good thinking.

 

[Brian Renville]

http://www.kfyrtv.com/content/news/...ing-following-farmer-criticism-435202093.html

 

[Reprobait]

I have a hard time believing that a twin engine piston powered plane with a little spray can influence a thunderstorm. I did a little looking online and there didn't seem to be anything out there that says that this definitely works.

Just another example of a gov't program that never goes away?

 

[Brian Renville]

I have a hard time believing that a twin engine piston powered plane with a little spray can influence a thunderstorm. I did a little looking online and there didn't seem to be anything out there that says that this definitely works.

Just another example of a gov't program that never goes away?

I can certainly get on board with the fact that we don't know if it works or not. I could care less if the program goes away, it's the idea that it's causing a drought all of a sudden that is ridiculous.

 

[WormWiggler]

My understanding when the program started it was supposed to suppress hail. Did it's function change or are persons only looking at a possible side effect?

 

[Brian Renville]

My understanding when the program started it was supposed to suppress hail. Did it's function change or are persons only looking at a possible side effect?

My understanding is the hail suppression is also in conjunction with added rainfall since the moisture can attach to the silver iodide causing it to fall rather than getting held up where it can freeze. Something like that. Silver iodide has a unique shape making it correct for the application. Hard to prove if it prevents something when we can't be sure if there was in fact going to be hail. Yet there is more evidence pointing to added moisture since the program started than there is pointing to drought.

 

[dean nelson]

So the last 24 hours they must have turned off the planes?:;:stirthepot

 

[sdwxman]

I can certainly get on board with the fact that we don't know if it works or not. I could care less if the program goes away, it's the idea that it's causing a drought all of a sudden that is ridiculous.

Exactly. The tin foil hat crowd really comes out of the wood work when you have a natural drought taking place. Some would have you believe that Weather Mod in a few western ND counties is the cause of the map below.

And for the record, I worked weather mod for 3 years in ND and California. It works for hail suppression and rainfall enhancement. I've seen it firsthand. The science supports it. When you have a drought like this, there are many other factors in place, including the evaportranspiration component that really suffers as discussed in this thread. Its easy to point fingers when things go bad. I live in SD, who can I blame for the drought down here? ND Cloud seeding? Laughable at best.

http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Home/RegionalDroughtMonitor.aspx?high_plains