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Can "geoengineering" really induce rainfall? Are we able to manipulate the weather to the point of preventing hurricanes? And is building icebergs to refreeze the polar regions a viable prospect? Well, yes and no. Scientists have been studying methods of climate modification for several decades, and have reported encouraging results. But the question still remains: can we really control the weather?
Click through and find out more about history's rainmakers.
Humanity has been attempting to manipulate the weather for hundreds of years. Early tribal civilizations called on the spirits, for example Shalako Mana and Shalako Kachina, to bless them with rainfall.
Traditionally, Native American tribes, particularly those in the Southwestern United States, have engaged in so-called rain dances, elaborate rituals performed to induce moisture from cloudless skies.
The Pueblo, Hopi, and Zuni are especially associated with the rain dance ritual, their territory mostly comprising semiarid desert. Some of these weather modification ceremonies are still carried out today.
The late 1800s saw the appearance across the western United States of self-styled rainmakers. These often shady characters of dubious intent promised to coax rainfall and end droughts, all for a fee, of course.
Even the US government tried to make it rain. In 1891 in the first Congress-funded rain-making experiment, a rainmaker named Robert G. Dyrenforth suggested that clouds could be compelled to produce rain as a result of agitation from loud noise.
To prove his theory, Dyrenforth used dynamite to set off a series of explosions in parched Texas. Incredibly, rain did fall. But overall the tests were inconclusive, and expensive. The government spent an estimated US$19,000 procuring rainfall. That's around $474,000 in 2024.
Another notorious rainmaker was Charles Hatfield (1875–1958). Hatfield used a secret cocktail of 23 chemicals that he dropped into a large evaporating tank, the vapor rising into the air to supposedly induce rainfall.
Hatfield, though, was a canny meteorologist and used his knowledge of weather patterns to conduct his rainmaking when there was good chance of the heavens opening up. He claimed at least 500 "successes," making a small fortune along the way. And his secret formula? He took that to the grave.
The first real tests in what by now had become known as geoengineering began in the mid-1940s when Irving Langmuir and Vincent Schaefer, chemists working at the General Electric Research Laboratory in Schenectady, New York, unveiled a process they called glaciogenic cloud seeding.
Langmuir and Schaefer discovered that they could introduce ice crystals into a supercooled cloud and create snow. This was achieved by packing the crystals into hydroscopic flares attached to the underside of an aircraft's wings. At a prescribed altitude, the flares were fired, releasing the crystals into cloud cover.
Over time, the team at General Electric advanced their research to develop the basic science of cloud seeding, a weather modification technique, using silver iodide. Pictured is a ground-based silver iodide seeding apparatus raised to operating level.
Cloud seeding is a weather modification technique that works like this. When drops of moisture in clouds encounter silver iodide crystals they fasten onto the crystals and freeze.
As the process multiplies and the ice grows big enough, it breaks cloud cover to fall either as snow, or, if it passes through warmer air, as rain.
In 1967, the US Air Force implemented Operation Popeye, a military cloud seeding project that took place during the Vietnam War. This highly classified program attempted to extend the monsoon season over specific areas of the Ho Chi Minh Trail (pictured), the idea being to disrupt North Vietnamese military supply lines by softening road surfaces and causing landslides. Rainfall effectively became weaponized.
More recently, the Chinese government seeded clouds ahead of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games opening ceremony to create a downpour elsewhere and keep the stadium dry.
Despite skepticism and debate over its efficacy and environmental impact, cloud seeding continues to be explored and applied in regions worldwide as a tool for weather modification.
Various proposals have been put forward to further develop other weather modification techniques. One of these is marine geoengineering. The idea revolves around constructing huge cloud-whitening towers, the aim being to brighten clouds in order to reduce the warming of the planet. But how would this work?
The towers would be constructed on autonomous platforms floating on the ocean surface. Once built, water would then be pumped from the sea and sprayed into the sky through these giant masts.
This fine spray of seawater would reduce the average droplet size within the surrounding clouds. In turn, these droplets would refract light, making darker clouds appear white, thus reflecting more sunlight away from the Earth. At least, that's the theory.
Another idea put forward by climate scientists involves building icebergs. This would necessitate the use of specially designed iceberg-making submarines.
The submerged vessels would collect water in giant hexagonal tanks and then surface. After filtering the salt content, the frozen blocks of ice would be ejected from the vessels to merge with existing icebergs. If it was ever given the green light, the ultimate aim of this ambitious project is to refreeze melting polar region ice associated with global warming.
Ocean fertilization is a process by which carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere is transported to the bottom of the ocean.
Also called artificial upwelling, it works by pumping up cooler, nutrient-rich waters from the deep to stimulate phytoplankton activity, a process that in turn draws down CO₂.
Can geoengineering help prevent extreme weather events such as hurricanes? Well, perhaps. It would require a significant cooling of the oceans, though.
In theory, space geoengineering can make significant alterations to the Earth's weather patterns. One of the methods being discussed is sunlight manipulation. We've already looked at how brighter clouds can deflect sunlight, but what about blocking it out altogether?
One way of mitigating sunlight is by using a giant glass sheet several thousand kilometers in length. Constructed in space, it would serve as a barrier between the sun and Earth, reflecting sunlight back into space and reducing the radiation that enters Earth's atmosphere. However, costs and practicality have so far left this idea floating in the realms of science fiction.
Scientists have also toyed with the idea of deploying multiple small mirror satellites into space with the same aim of manipulating the sunlight that illuminates our planet.
While geoengineering is now commonplace in many parts of the world, it's left to some cultures to still rely on traditional methods to conjure up a downpour. Here, Aymara peasants dressed in typical ceremonial dance attire make offerings on the shores of Lake Titicaca in Peru with the intention of pleasing the spirits and bringing an end to a drought.
And in New Mexico they still perform the Danza de los Voladores (Dance of the Flyers), a ceremonial call for rain that first took place in 1922.
Sources: (Space) (Live Science) (American Meteorological Society) (Smithsonian Magazine) (Office of the Historian) (BBC)
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Can "geoengineering" really induce rainfall? Are we able to manipulate the weather to the point of preventing hurricanes? And is building icebergs to refreeze the polar regions a viable prospect? Well, yes and no. Scientists have been studying methods of climate modification for several decades, and have reported encouraging results. But the question still remains: can we really control the weather?
Click through and find out more about history's rainmakers.