A Review of the Israeli Cloud Seeding Experience in the Context of the 2023 Israel 4 Null Primary Result

PROLOGUE I have written an extensive,  “comment” and “enhancement” of an article by Benjamini et al.  published in the in J. Appl. Meteor.  in January 2023.  The article was about the results of a fourth randomized Israeli cloud seeding experiment, Israel-4.   My “comments” and “enhancement” of Benjamini et al. (2023) posted below would never be… Continue reading A Review of the Israeli Cloud Seeding Experience in the Context of the 2023 Israel 4 Null Primary Result

Cloud Seeding and the Journal Barriers to Faulty Claims: Closing the Gaps

This manuscript had a close call in being accepted into the American Meteorological Society’s  Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. in 1998-1999.  The key reviewer that I had to satisfy (according to journal Editor  I. Abrams)  insisted that I make it clear that the cloud seeding experimenters in Colorado  and Israel did the “best they could with… Continue reading Cloud Seeding and the Journal Barriers to Faulty Claims: Closing the Gaps

Review and Enhancement of “Literature Review and Scientific Synthesis on the Efficacy of Orographic Cloud Seeding”

PROLOGUE Dr. Reynolds, the sole author of this monumental review I critique  has done a masterful job of surveying an enormous amount of cloud seeding literature in his “draft” report to his former employer, the Bureau of Reclamation.  The BOR was  the primary sponsor of cloud seeding programs throughout the West in the 1960s to… Continue reading Review and Enhancement of “Literature Review and Scientific Synthesis on the Efficacy of Orographic Cloud Seeding”

A Review and Enhancement of Chapter 8 in the book, “Aerosol Pollution Impacts on Precipitation:  A Scientific Review” 

PROLOGUE Below is the impressive list of “Scientific Reviewers” of this volume before this belated review by yours truly happened, ones listed in the 2009 Springer book,  “Aerosol Pollution Impacts on Precipitation:  A Scientific Review.”  The authors of this book, including Chapter 8, had to review an enormous amount of literature which the reviewers also… Continue reading A Review and Enhancement of Chapter 8 in the book, “Aerosol Pollution Impacts on Precipitation:  A Scientific Review” 

The Nightmare before Banff: A Science Coming Out Saga

The story of a coming out science “party” for a young, under-credentialed worker who has found that his greatest expertise is finding fault in the work of others.  But he now, for the first time, must defend his work overturning that of the leading scientists in his field  “at conference.” STORY BOARD Not a horror… Continue reading The Nightmare before Banff: A Science Coming Out Saga

CHAPTER 5: GOT PUBLISHED! (I.E., “RAIN FROM CLOUDS WITH TOPS WARMER THAN -10°C IN ISRAEL”)

I was so excited…  My trip, and the analysis of the data that came out of it,  was the first published report that something was not right with Prof. Gagin’s cloud reports.  My publication appeared in the Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., Rangno 1988, “Rain from Clouds with Tops Warmer than -10°C in Israel,” hereafter,… Continue reading CHAPTER 5: GOT PUBLISHED! (I.E., “RAIN FROM CLOUDS WITH TOPS WARMER THAN -10°C IN ISRAEL”)

CHAPTER 4: THE TRIP TO ISRAEL TO SEE THE “RIPE FOR CLOUD SEEDING” CLOUDS

The trip to Israel My self-funded trip to Israel was one of 11 weeks, from January 4th  through March 11th, 1986.  I loved my time in Israel and would go back in a heartbeat any winter to see those beautiful Cumulus and Cumulonimbus clouds rolling in off the Mediterranean again! Following my return and for… Continue reading CHAPTER 4: THE TRIP TO ISRAEL TO SEE THE “RIPE FOR CLOUD SEEDING” CLOUDS

CHAPTER 3: THE REVIEW OF THE ISRAELI CLOUD SEEDING LITERATURE BEGINS

By the end of the 1970s, Prof. Gagin and his work had become of interest to me.  After all, as I learned in Durango, nothing could be taken at face value in the cloud seeding literature unless I had personally validated that literature by scrutinizing every detail of the published claims in it, looking for… Continue reading CHAPTER 3: THE REVIEW OF THE ISRAELI CLOUD SEEDING LITERATURE BEGINS

Chapter 2: A JOB IN DURANGO, COLORADO, THAT EVENTUALLY LED ME TO ISRAEL

This story begins with my first full-time job after graduating from San Jose State College.  I was hired as a weather forecaster by E. G. & G., Inc.,  in Durango, Colorado in support of a massive randomized cloud seeding experiment called the Colorado River Basin Pilot Project (CRBPP).  It was intended to prove that seeding… Continue reading Chapter 2: A JOB IN DURANGO, COLORADO, THAT EVENTUALLY LED ME TO ISRAEL

Chapter 1. JOANNE, ABE, AND ME: MY ONLY MEETING WITH JOANNE

This is a story about Joanne (Malkus) Simpson and our mutual study interest, Prof. Avraham “Abe” Gagin of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the leader of the world famed Israeli cloud seeding experiments that took place in the 1960s to 1970s.  This is a story having irony.  For more about Joanne Simpson and her major… Continue reading Chapter 1. JOANNE, ABE, AND ME: MY ONLY MEETING WITH JOANNE