Is Cloud Seeding Worth the Bet?

Pilots from Weather Modification, Inc., prepare the cloud seeding aircraft with seeding flares. (Credit: Derek Blestrud, Idaho Power Company) “Make mud, not war.” That was the slogan of the American 54th Weather Reconnaissance Squad, the first military force to engage in weather warfare. Throughout the Vietnam War, they flew 2,602 missions, releasing silver iodide, a compound that seeded clouds and exacerbated monsoons—or so the thinking went. Dubbed “Operation Popeye”, this rainy warfare would last from 1966-72, until banned under the 1977 Enmod Treaty on weather warfare. Popeye wasn’t the only attempt to weaponize seasonal events, but it was the most infamous. There was also, for example, an “exercise” aiming to make the Hồ Chí Minh trail muddier, named “Commando Lava”. The problem with infamy, however, is that the subjects of it rarely live up to the legend. Being that Vietnam was an active war zone with shifting targeting areas, it was difficult to get accurate data on how effective cloud-seeding really was.