# Can we control the weather? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 10, 2016, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-control-the-weather/748532 "2016-03-10T09:40:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2016, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-control-the-weather/748532/41 "2016-03-16T18:22:14Z")
> [@Enola\_Gay](#): > > Desalination plants suck in & destroy marine species, dump concentrated/toxic salt brine into the ocean & pollute by burning fossil fuels. Other than that, they’re a great solution to the drought. Desal doesn’t have to kill animals, you can put a filter on your intake. And even so, we kill millions of fish every year on purpose. The number of fish or plankton killed would be minuscule compared to other forms of pollution. Yes, concentrated brine would be toxic, so dump it deeper into the ocean and diffuse it so it isn’t concentrated anymore. And who says we have to use fossil fuels to run the desal plant? Any source of energy would work. The point is, if we want to move water from point A to point B it’s a heck of a lot more energy efficient and environmentally friendly to just pump water from point A to point B than it would be to try to move rainclouds from point A to point B. The energy needed isn’t just a lot less, it’s many orders of magnitude less. The amount of energy in a rainstorm is greater than a nuclear bomb. You can’t just flap a butterfly’s wing in South America and expect to move a raincloud from Louisiana to California. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2016, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-control-the-weather/748532/42 "2016-03-16T19:25:30Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > The amount of energy in a rainstorm is greater than a nuclear bomb. Indeed. In my air mass relocation example (see post #17), the required energy - 9 trillion kilojoules - is [equivalent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent) to about 2.2 megatons, which is near the [high end of the nuclear weapon yield chart on this page.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_yield) That’s just the kinetic energy required to get the air mass to move cross-country at a convenient speed; it doesn’t even consider the sensible/latent heat contained within that air mass. ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2016, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-control-the-weather/748532/43 "2016-03-16T21:27:36Z")
We have a means (admittedly poor) of cloud-seeding to make it rain. Do we have a means of preventing rain in a flooded area? Other than giant dehumidifiers mounted on jumbo-jets, all I can think of is seeding clouds in regions upwind of the target area, in hopes that they’ll dump their water early. Seems to me to be likely even less effective than seeding for rain. Any thoughts? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2016, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-control-the-weather/748532/44 "2016-03-17T05:34:12Z")
A story I once read and I’m wondering if anybody can confirm or refute it. Back in 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear plant released a bunch of radioactive particles into the atmosphere. The story I read was that the Soviet government began seeding clouds within a matter of hours. Their goal was to create artificial rainstorms. The reason for this is that they wanted the rain to deposit all the radioactive particles in Belarus and Ukraine rather than have them be carried into Russia. ---
**Author:** ![bomberswarm2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c37758/32.png) [@bomberswarm2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bomberswarm2)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2016, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-control-the-weather/748532/45 "2016-03-17T07:09:14Z")
> [@Enola\_Gay](#): > > We have put a man on the moon-incredible! So why haven’t we figured out how to make the Louisiana rain clouds relocate to southern California? If we could control the weather, we could change the world. Is it possible? We’re able to seed storms. We can break up most storms (but something like a cyclone/typhoon/hurricane (depending on where you are) is too big to seed. China did it during the 2008 Olympics, in the middle of the wet season, they ensured clear skies and no rain. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2016, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-control-the-weather/748532/46 "2016-03-17T12:02:20Z")
> [@bomberswarm2](#): > > We’re able to seed storms. We can break up most storms (but something like a cyclone/typhoon/hurricane (depending on where you are) is too big to seed. China did it during the 2008 Olympics, in the middle of the wet season, they ensured clear skies and no rain. “Most storms” is a bit optimistic. You can seed any rainclouds upwind of the target zone and cross your fingers that they will precipitate and disperse by the time they get there. It works for isolated showers but you would have a hard time making a “hole” in a decent sized rain-bearing front. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2016, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-control-the-weather/748532/47 "2016-03-17T12:27:22Z")
> [@bomberswarm2](#): > > We’re able to seed storms. We can break up most storms (but something like a cyclone/typhoon/hurricane (depending on where you are) is too big to seed. China did it during the 2008 Olympics, in the middle of the wet season, they ensured clear skies and no rain. Claims of the effectiveness of cloud seeding are very mixed. It appears to work to some degree, but the idea that we can break ups storms is so far unsupported and there’s a huge amount of anecdotal evidence without controls. > **[Cloud seeding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_seeding#Effectiveness)** > > Cloud seeding is a type of weather modification that aims to change the amount or type of precipitation, mitigate hail or disperse fog. The usual objective is to increase rain or snow, either for its own sake or to prevent precipitation from occurring in days afterward. > Cloud seeding is undertaken by dispersing substances into the air that serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei. Common agents include silver iodide, potassium iodide, and dry ice, with hygroscopic materials like table salt gain... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-control-the-weather/748532.md?page=2)