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:
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 effort…but 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 (http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/051003_weather_control.html) -- 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.
This
article is part of SPACE.com's weekly Mystery Monday series.