Fwd: [NLCBW] U.S. Military Wants to Own the Weather

Begin forwarded message:

> http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/051031_mystery_monday.html
>
> U.S. Military Wants to Own the Weather
> By Leonard David
> Senior Space Writer
> posted: 31 October 2005
> 06:24 am ET
>
> The one-two hurricane punch from Katrina and Wilma along with
> predictions of more severe weather in the future has scientists
> pondering ways to save lives, protect property and possibly even
> control the weather.
>
> While efforts to tame storms have so far been clouded by failure, some
> researchers aren't willing to give up the fight. And even if changing
> the weather proves overly challenging, residents and disaster
> officials can do a better job planning and reacting.
>
> In fact, military officials and weather modification experts could be
> on the verge of joining forces to better gauge, react to, and possibly
> nullify future hostile forces churned out by Mother Nature.
>
> While some consider the idea farfetched, some military tacticians have
> already pondered ways to turn weather into a weapon.
>
> Harbinger of things to come?
> The U.S. military reaction in the wake of Hurricane Katrina that
> slammed the U.S. Gulf coast might be viewed as a harbinger of things
> to come. While in this case it was joint air and space operations to
> deal with after-the-fact problems, perhaps the foundation for how to
> fend off disastrous weather may also be forming.
>
> Numbers of spaceborne assets were tapped, among them:
> *Navigation and timing signals from the Global Positioning System
> (GPS) of satellites;
> *The Global Broadcast Service, a one-way, space-based, high-capacity
> broadcast communication system;
> *The Army's Spectral Operations Resource Center to exploit
> commercial remote sensing satellite imagery and prepare
> high-resolution images to civilian and military responders to permit a
> better understanding of the devastated terrain;
> *U.S. Air Force Space Command's Space and Missile Systems Center
> Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites that
> compared "lights at night" images before and after the disaster to
> provide data on human activity.
>
> Is it far-fetched to see in this response the embryonic stages of an
> integrated military/civilian weather reaction and control system?
>
> Mandate to continually improve
> The use of space-based equipment to assist in clean-up operations –
> with a look toward future prospects – was recently noted by General
> Lance Lord, Commander, Air Force Space Command at an October 20th
> Pacific Space Leadership Forum in Hawaii.
>
> "We saw first hand the common need for space after the December 2004
> tsunami in the Indian Ocean," Lord said. "Natural disasters don't
> respect international boundaries. Space capabilities were leveraged
> immediately after the tsunami to help in the search and rescue
> effortSbut what about before the disaster?"
> Lord said that an even better situation is to have predicted the
> coming disaster and warned those in harm's way. "No matter what your
> flag or where you waive it from…the possibility of saving hundreds
> of thousands of people is a mandate to continually improve," he
> advised.
>
> The U.S. Air Force is also looking at ways to make satellites and
> satellite launches cheaper and also reduce the amount of time it takes
> to launch into space from months to weeks to days and hours, Lord
> said. Having that capability will increase responsiveness to
> international needs, he said, such as the ability to send up a
> satellite to help collect information and enhance communications when
> dealing with international disasters.
>
> Thunderbolts on demand
> What would a military strategist gain in having an "on-switch" to the
> weather?
> Clearly, it offers the ability to degrade the effectiveness of enemy
> forces. That could come from flooding an opponent's encampment or
> airfield to generating downright downpours that disrupt enemy troop
> comfort levels. On the flipside, sparking a drought that cuts off
> fresh water can stir up morale problems for warfighting foes.
>
> Even fooling around with fog and clouds can deny or create concealment
> - whichever weather manipulation does the needed job.
>
> In this regard, nanotechnology could be utilized to create clouds of
> tiny smart particles. Atmospherically buoyant, these ultra-small
> computer particles could navigate themselves to block optical sensors.
> Alternatively, they might be used to provide an atmospheric electrical
> potential difference – a way to precisely aim and time lightning
> strikes over the enemy's head - thereby concoct thunderbolts on
> demand.
>
> Perhaps that's too far out for some. But some blue sky thinkers have
> already looked into these and other scenarios in "Weather as a Force
> Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025" - a research paper written by
> a seven person team of military officers and presented in 1996 as part
> of a larger study dubbed Air Force 2025.
>
> Global stresses
> That report came with requisite disclaimers, such as the views
> expressed were those of the authors and didn't reflect the official
> policy or position of the United States Air Force, Department of
> Defense, or the United States government. Furthermore, the report was
> flagged as containing fictional representations of future situations
> and scenarios.
>
> On the other hand, Air Force 2025 was a study that complied with a
> directive from the chief of staff of the Air Force "to examine the
> concepts, capabilities, and technologies the United States will
> require to remain the dominant air and space force in the future."
>
> "Current technologies that will mature over the next 30 years will
> offer anyone who has the necessary resources the ability to modify
> weather patterns and their corresponding effects, at least on the
> local scale," the authors of the report explained. "Current
> demographic, economic, and environmental trends will create global
> stresses that provide the impetus necessary for many countries or
> groups to turn this weather-modification ability into a capability."
>
> Pulling it all together
> The report on weather-altering ideas underscored the capacity to
> harness such power in the not too distant future.
>
> "Assuming that in 2025 our national security strategy includes
> weather-modification, its use in our national military strategy will
> naturally follow. Besides the significant benefits an operational
> capability would provide, another motivation to pursue
> weather-modification is to deter and counter potential adversaries,"
> the report stated. "The technology is there, waiting for us to pull it
> all together," the authors noted.
>
> In 2025, the report summarized, U.S. aerospace forces can "own the
> weather" by capitalizing on emerging technologies and focusing
> development of those technologies to war-fighting applications.
>
> "Such a capability offers the war fighter tools to shape the
> battlespace in ways never before possible. It provides opportunities
> to impact operations across the full spectrum of conflict and is
> pertinent to all possible futures," the report concluded.
>
> But if whipping up weather can be part of a warfighter's tool kit,
> couldn't those talents be utilized to retarget or neutralize life,
> limb and property-destroying storms?
>
> All-weather worries
> "It is time to provide funds for application of the scientific method
> to weather modification and control," said Bernard Eastlund, chief
> technical officer and founder of Eastlund Scientific Enterprises
> Corporation in San Diego, California.
> Eastlund's background is in plasma physics and commercial applications
> of microwave plasmas. At a lecture early this month at Penn State
> Lehigh Campus in Fogelsville, Pennsylvania, he outlined new concepts
> for electromagnetic wave interactions with the atmosphere that, among
> a range of jobs, could be applied to weather modification research.
>
> "The technology of artificial ionospheric heating could be as
> important for weather modification research as accelerators have been
> for particle physics," Eastlund explained.
>
> In September, Eastland filed a patent on a way to create artificial
> ionized plasma patterns with megawatts of power using inexpensive
> microwave power sources. This all-weather technique, he noted, can be
> used to heat specific regions of the atmosphere.
>
> Eastlund's research is tuned to artificial generation of acoustic and
> gravitational waves in the atmosphere. The heating of steering winds
> to help shove around mesocyclones and hurricanes, as well as
> controlling electrical conductivity of the atmosphere is also on his
> investigative agenda.
>
> Carefully tailored program plan
> Eastlund said that the reduction in severity or impact of severe
> weather could be demonstrated as part of a carefully tailored program
> plan.
>
> "In my opinion, the new technology for use of artificial plasma layers
> in the atmosphere: as heater elements to modify steering winds, as a
> modifier of electrostatic potential to influence lightning
> distribution, and for generation of acoustic and gravitational waves,
> could ultimately provide a core technology for a science of severe
> weather modification," Eastlund told SPACE.com.
>
> The first experiments of a program, Eastlund emphasized, would be very
> small, and designed for safety. For example, a sample of air in a jet
> stream could be heated with a pilot experimental installation. Such
> experiments would utilize relatively small amounts of power, between
> one and ten megawatts, he pointed out.
>
> Both ground-based and space weather diagnostic instruments could
> measure the effect. Computer simulations could compare these results
> with predicted effects. This process can be iterated until reliable
> information is obtained on the effects of modifying the wind.
>
> Computer simulations of hurricanes, Eastlund continued, are designed
> to determine the most important wind fields in hurricane formation.
> Computer simulations of mesocyclones use steering wind input data to
> predict severe storm development.
>
> After about 5 years of such research, and further development of
> weather codes, a pilot experiment to modify the steering winds of a
> mesocylone might be safely attempted. Such an experiment would
> probably require 50 to 100 megawatts, Eastlund speculated.
>
> "I estimate this new science of weather modification will take 10 to
> 20 years to mature to the point where it is useful for controlling the
> severity and impact of severe weather systems as large as hurricanes,"
> Eastlund explained.
>
> Inadvertent effects?
> Another reason for embarking on this new science could be to make sure
> inadvertent effects of existing projects, such as the heating of the
> ionosphere and modifications of the polar electrojet, are not having
> effects on weather, Eastlund stated.
>
> As example, Eastlund pointed to the High frequency Active Auroral
> Research Program (HAARP). This is a major Arctic facility for upper
> atmospheric and solar-terrestrial research, being built on a
> Department of Defense-owned site near Gakona, Alaska.
>
> Eastlund wonders if HAARP does, in fact, generate gravity waves. If
> so, can those waves in turn influence severe weather systems?
>
> Started in 1990, the unclassified HAARP program is jointly managed by
> the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and the Office of Naval
> Research. Researchers at the site make use of a high-power ionospheric
> research instrument to temporarily excite a limited area of the
> ionosphere for scientific study, observing and measuring the excited
> region using a suite of devices.
>
> The fundamental goal of research conducted at the facility is to study
> and understand natural phenomena occurring in the Earth's ionosphere
> and near-space environment. According to the HAARP website, those
> scientific investigations will have major value in the design of
> future communication and navigation systems for both military and
> civilian use.
>
> Messing with Mother Nature
> Who best to have their hands on the weather control switches?
>
> The last large hurricane modification experiments – under Project
> Stormfury – were carried out by the U.S. Air Force, Eastlund said.
> "It is likely the Department of Defense would be the lead agency in
> any new efforts in severe storm modification."
>
> Additionally, federal laboratories with their extensive computational
> modeling skills would also play a lead role in the development of a
> science of weather modification. NASA and the National Oceanic and
> Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) would find their respective niches
> too. The satellite diagnostic capabilities in those agencies would
> play a strong role, Eastlund suggested.
> It appears that only modest amounts of government dollars have been
> spent on weather modification over the last five years.
>
> "Hurricane Katrina could cost $300 billion by itself," Eastlund said.
> "In my opinion, it is time for a serious scientific effort in weather
> modification."
> "Global warming appears to be a reality, and records could continue to
> fall in the hurricane severity sweepstakes," Eastlund said. "When I
> first suggested the use of space-based assets for the prevention of
> tornadoes, many people expressed their displeasure with 'messing with
> Mother Nature'. I still remember hiding in the closet of our house in
> Houston as a tornado passed overhead. It is time for serious,
> controlled research, with the emphasis on safety, for the good of
> mankind," he concluded.