Weather modification

Weather modding is the act of intentionally manipulating or altering the weather. The most common form of weather modification is cloud seeding to increase rain or snow, usually for the purpose of increasing the local water supply. Weather modification can also have the goal of preventing damaging weather, such as hail or hurricanes, from occurring; or of provoking damaging weather against the enemy, as a tactic of military or economic warfare. Weather modification in warfare has been banned by the United Nations.

History

Wilhelm Reich performed cloudbusting experiments in the 1950s to 1960s, the results of which are controversial and not widely accepted by mainstream science.

Dr Walter Russell wrote of weather control in Atomic Suicide 1956: "—give him complete power to cause rains, wherever he desires, on deserts or meadows and to dissipate cyclones while forming."

For the 2008 Olympics, China had plans to utilize 30 airplanes, 4,000 rocket launchers, and 7,000 anti-aircraft guns in an attempt to stop rain. Each system would shoot various chemicals into any threatening clouds in the hopes of shrinking rain drops before they reached the stadium.

Air force

An air force, also known in some countries as an air army, is in the broadest sense, the national military organization that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an army, navy, or a marine corps. Typically, air forces are responsible for gaining control of the air, carrying out strategic and tactical bombing missions, and providing support to land and naval forces.

The term "air force" may also refer to a tactical air force or numbered air force, which is an operational formation either within a national air force or comprising several air components from allied nations. Air forces typically consist of a combination of fighters, bombers, helicopters, transport planes and other aircraft.

Many air forces are also responsible for operations of the military space, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), and communications equipment. Some air forces may command and control other air defence assets such as anti-aircraft artillery, surface-to-air missiles, or anti-ballistic missile warning networks and defensive systems. Some nations, principally Russia, the former Soviet Union and countries who modelled their militaries along Soviet lines, have an air defence force which is organizationally separate from their air force.

Weather

Weather is the state of the atmosphere, to the degree that it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. Most weather phenomena occur in the troposphere, just below the stratosphere. Weather refers to day-to-day temperature and precipitation activity, whereas climate is the term for the statistics of atmospheric conditions over longer periods of time. When used without qualification, "weather" is generally understood to mean the weather of Earth.

Weather is driven by air pressure, temperature and moisture differences between one place and another. These differences can occur due to the sun's angle at any particular spot, which varies by latitude from the tropics. The strong temperature contrast between polar and tropical air gives rise to the jet stream. Weather systems in the mid-latitudes, such as extratropical cyclones, are caused by instabilities of the jet stream flow. Because the Earth's axis is tilted relative to its orbital plane, sunlight is incident at different angles at different times of the year. On Earth's surface, temperatures usually range ±40 °C (−40 °F to 100 °F) annually. Over thousands of years, changes in Earth's orbit can affect the amount and distribution of solar energy received by the Earth, thus influencing long-term climate and global climate change.

High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program

The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) was an ionospheric research program jointly funded by the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, the University of Alaska, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), designed and built by BAE Advanced Technologies (BAEAT).

Its purpose was to analyze the ionosphere and investigate the potential for developing ionospheric enhancement technology for radio communications and surveillance. The HAARP program operated a major sub-arctic facility, named the HAARP Research Station, on an Air Force-owned site near Gakona, Alaska.

The most prominent instrument at the HAARP Station is the Ionospheric Research Instrument (IRI), a high-power radio frequency transmitter facility operating in the high frequency (HF) band. The IRI is used to temporarily excite a limited area of the ionosphere. Other instruments, such as a VHF and a UHF radar, a fluxgate magnetometer, a digisonde (an ionospheric sounding device), and an induction magnetometer, were used to study the physical processes that occur in the excited region.

The Weather

The Weather is a collaboration album among rappers Busdriver and Radioinactive and record producer Daedelus. It was released on Mush Records in 2003.

Reception

The Weather received mixed reviews from critics. Julianne Shepherd of Pitchfork Media praised the album, commenting: "The Weather is smart but not pretentious, skeptical but not misanthropic, and it proves avant-hiphop doesn't have to be avant-crappy." Meanwhile, Fredrick Thomas of Stylus Magazine criticized the album's consistency, saying: "It’s not that any track on the album is actually bad when compared to artists doing similar work – it’s just that it does nothing to differentiate them from the pack."

Eric K. Arnold of East Bay Express felt that "Busdriver and Radioinactive's rhyming cadences owe a debt to both Freestyle Fellowship and Latyrx, while Daedelus' lo-fi Casio tones could qualify him for at least a charter membership in Anticon."

Track listing

References

External links