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 contributions to meteorology, see J. R. Fleming’s, “First Woman: Joanne Simpson and the Tropical Atmosphere”. She was a real superstar.
Following the untimely passing of Professor Abe Gagin[1], Joanne Simpson stated that, “statues will be raised in many towns and halls of fame” in his memory due to his contributions to cloud seeding. Her testimonial appeared in the 1988 memorial issue to A. Gagin of the J. Weather Modification and is shown at the end of this account. The memorial issue of that journal is here:
As a measure of Prof. Gagin’s stature when he passed and why statue building might be considered for him, the October 1989 J. of Appl. Meteor.also issued a memorial volume to Prof. Gagin in due to his work in cloud seeding. The preface to that memorial issue, written by Arnett S. Dennis, a former co-author of Joanne’s, is also shown at the end of this account. Hardly any scientists are tributed by memorial issues of journals, much less, two! Prof. Gagin’s frequent co-author in describing the results of the Israeli cloud seeding experiments, Prof. Jehuda Neumann, was ALSO tributed with a memorial issue of the J. Appl. Meteor. when he passed ten years later.
Prof. Gagin passed in September 1987 at the untimely age of 54, a few months after learning in a letter from Prof. Peter Hobbs that my manuscript, “Rain from clouds with tops warmer than -10°C in Israel,” had been accepted for publication by the Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc. This paper showed that the clouds of Israel were completely different than the ones Prof. Gagin was repeatedly describing in the literature and at conference.
At the same time of his passing, Prof. Gagin was also being pressured by his own chief meteorologist, Mr. Karl Rosner, to publish the previously omitted data for the south target of Israel-2. This was the 2nd randomized cloud seeding experiment that was conducted from the 1969/70 through 1974/75 Israeli rain seasons. The reporting of Israel-2 had been confined to the north target where there was an appearance that cloud there had pretty much replicated what had been reported in ALL of Israel-1.
The testimonials to A. Gagin by many leading scientists in the cloud seeding domain were omitted in the digital version of the 1988 JWM volume when digitizing was done many years later but can be found at the end of this story.
My one and only in-person interaction with Joanne Malkus Simpson: “Go into journalism not meteorology.”
I met with Joanne (Malkus) Simpson in January 1963 at UCLA. She had been brought to my attention when she had been named, Los Angeles Times “Woman of the Year.” I was meeting with her, a professor of meteorology, to try and convince her that as a 20-year old junior college student, I was worthy of getting into the UCLA meteorology program even though I did not have a high enough grade point average to do so. UCLA required a minimum of 2.4 and mine was barely above 2.0000x. And I had to repeat all but one of my calculus and physics classes at Pierce Junior College. I had spent too much time playing and practicing for intercollegiate baseball, but I also had no natural aptitude for physics and calculus.
UCLA was the only school offering courses for a degree in meteorology in California in 1963, and that’s why I went there to meet with Dr. Malkus, as she was known as then. It seemed like UCLA offered the only hope of achieving my dream to become a meteorologist. I thought explaining my fanaticism about weather would do the trick. For example I had gone to Louisiana and ended up near Galveston, Texas, chasing Hurricane Carla in September 1961, and chased numerous thunderstorms in the Southern California desert during the summers.
Some early background that if told to Joanne, would convince her I was worthy of UCLA’s program
I began collecting weather maps out of the Los Angeles Daily News when I was in the 4th grade. (Thank you, Mr. Borders and Mr. De la Gega, my 4th and 5th grade teachers, for encouraging my budding interest!). Below a sample of a real weather map with isobars from the Los Angeles Daily News for December 26, 1951. How exciting is this?
Too, I was subscribing to the “Daily Weather Map” by the time I was ten years old. By the time I was 13 years old, I was subscribing to the Monthly Weather Review and several states’ government, “Climatological Data” from NOAA. (Well, my mom subscribed for me.)
I crazily thought that telling Joanne about all this would get me in to UCLA sans the grade requirement.
“The Meeting”
The first thing Joanne Malkus asked me when she kindly took a minute out of her busy schedule (I had made no appointment) was how my grades were in math and physics. I told her I got “Cs” but did not reveal to her that those “Cs” were on the second try! She then asked me, “How are your grades in the humanities?” “B’s.” With my answers to but two questions, Prof. Malkus then advised me to give up the thought of becoming a meteorologist, and become, perhaps,, “a journalist and write about weather.” And that was the end of the meeting; in less than five minutes I was advised to give up a life-long dream.
Yes, I “held myself back,” to repeat courses in math and physics, and in doing so lost my collegiate baseball eligibility. Who would do this?But.. that stubbornness, to keep at it, not giving up my dream, turned out to be key to my whole life. But perhaps it could be seen as a character flaw, too?
Joanne Malkus assessment of my potential as a student in the UCLA meteorology program was, in fact, “spot on.”
Thank you, Joanne (Malkus) Simpson.
Why?
In retrospect, I never could have gotten through the highly theoretical program at UCLA in those days, a program that featured Morton Wurtele, Yale Mintz, Morris Neiburger, Jörgen Holmboe, Zdenek Sekera, James Edinger, and Jacob Bjerknes, the latter who had founded the Department in 1940. Fjørtoft, a visiting Norwegian professor of meteorology, or possibly Holmboe, was slinging vector equations across a blackboard as I walked down the hall following my meeting with Prof. Malkus. At UCLA in those days, one would have walked the halls with giants. A few years earlier I had tried to get the autograph of Prof. Bjerknes at UCLA since meteorologists like him were to me, like baseball superstars to other, “normal” kids. Prof. Bjerknes was not in his office that day, but rather there was a sign said he was, “emeritus,” which I took to mean he was especially good as a scientist, not that he was retired.
After my 1963 meeting with Joanne Malkus I was angry and hurt and promptly went to the UCLA bookstore and bought one of the books they were using in their meteorology program, I was that mad. The book? “Introduction to Theoretical Meteorology” by Seymour Hess. I stopped reading it after a day or two. It had too many equations.
It took me more than 25 years to realize that Joanne Malkus Simpson had saved me from myself. I wrote her a note thanking her for her keen assessment in the early 1990s. She did not reply.
Life After “The Meeting”
In the spring of 1963 I had lucked out and gotten a job as a “research analyst” at Rocketdyne in their H-1 rocket group in the Simi Hills above the San Fernando Valley. Rocketdyne was a division of North American Aviation. By mid-1964, I was “suddenly” married and had a son. Becoming a meteorologist was slowly slipping off the radar, but I loved my job at Rocketdyne (about Rocketdyne) and the young, great engineers that led my group, like Wayne Littles who later became the 8th director of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. They set great examples as engineers and leaders.
Rocketdyne’s Simi Hills test division where I worked, had a weather forecast office and I bugged the guys there, Joe Glantz (former State Climatologist for California) and Hank Weiss, virtually EVERY lunch time during the winter rain season. We talked “progs” such as they were then.
I also started on another path toward being a meteorologist while married, still not giving up on my goal. I took two correspondence courses in meteorology from Penn State University (graded by A. K. Blackadar and F. B. Stephens).
When my marriage was going on the rocks in the mid -1960s due to my immaturity, I learned that San José State College had started a program in meteorology. I applied and got accepted even with my crummy grade point average from junior college. It was an exciting time for me to meet, for the first time in my life, other weather-centric guys like me when I arrived at SJS in the spring of 1967. One of them, Bill Hall, was to become something of a modeling superstar at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Byron Marler, who ended up with PG&E, became a life long friend.
I also became friends with the chair of the Meteorology Department in those days, Dr. Albert Miller. He helped me tremendously by hiring me as a student assistant while I was an undergraduate, and later, as a graduate assistant in the synoptic lab. Dr. Miller was like a 2nd dad to me. Also key to being able to continue at San Jose State was my former Rocketdyne supervisor, A. Dan Lucci, who re-hired me as a summer employee at Rocketdyne in 1967 after my first semester at San Jose State.
Another person whom I became good friends with at SJS due to working together, was C. Donald Ahrens, who was to go on and write the most popular meteorology book for 101 college classes in the nation, “Meteorology Today” and several other books. His wife was to type the first chapter of his Meteorology Today book on my very own Hermes 3000 manual typewriter!
Don and I also worked together on tetroon (constant level balloon) paths in the Bay Area that disclosed where the onshore maritime air was going. We worked in a corrugated metal building next to the football stadium far from the meteorology department. To pass the otherwise tedious time, we had KGO-FM’s no commercials, top 40 radio station with DJ “Brother John” blaring. And, we would break into song! We really liked the Four Seasons, Western Union, by the Five Americans, and so many others that we sang to many of them, harmonizing, while our heads were down plotting tetroon paths. I still smile thinking of those days.
In the summer of 1968, I worked for non-other than North American Weather Consultants under CEO, Robert D. Elliott. That summer Tor Bergeron came to visit! For those readers who remember NAWC in Goleta, California, here’s the photo I took of the whole gang, Elliott, Bergeron, Keith Brown, Russ and Elona Shaefer, John Walter and others whose names I can’t bring to the “surface:”
I’ve never had a job I loved as much as that summer one at NAWC, or people I had so much in common with there. I also had a chance to meet the head of NAWC, the famous Robert D. Elliott, whom I came to admire so much while at NAWC. My assignment at NAWC was mainly to draw weather maps of frontal systems coming into southern California and “lake effects” for the Great Salt Lake in winter. I was in heaven.
Back at San Jose State in the fall of 1968, I started a tiny forecast blurb on the front page of the Spartan Daily. It devolved into political satire at the suggestion of the Daily’s editor after one my forecasts, “…with the stratus, not the campus, burning off by noon.” There had been some fires set in trash cans by protestors the day before on the San Jose State campus. The Daily editor said I should do more of that, and off I went into some pretty lame stuff. Oh, well; “let’s move along now, nothing to see here.”
I also began to write opinion pieces in the San Jose State Daily, mostly due to the encouragement of Prof. Phil Wander, my speech teacher. I deem him one of the most important influences in my life. He thought I had something to say, such as this from a talk I gave in his class:
I was also writing articles for the college paper on ending student funding of intercollegiate athletics due to Governor Reagan’s budget cuts, pollution and the effects on minorities (above), suggesting parking costs be based on the number of people in the car, and on the war in Vietnam, the latter as many others were. My SJS experience is pretty much reprised in the “friendly” article below, miniaturized for the sake of humility, of which, I probably don’t have enough of:
I graduated from modest San José State College, as it was known then, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in meteorology in January 1969. My grades, for so much effort I put into my meteorology classes with lots of math were, nevertheless, mostly mediocre except in synoptic classes. However, I was a good weather map drawer and getting A’s in synoptic classes really helped raise my grade point average.
Perhaps due to writing topical articles in the SJS Spartan Daily, I received the Meteorology Department’s Achievement Award when I graduated in January 1969. Egad. I was never sure I deserved it with big hitters and great students like future NCAR cloud modeler, Bill Hall, and other top students like Norm Hoffman, Chris Fontana, in my class getting “A’s.”
An example of over valuing my satirical talent that were on display in the Spartan Daily weather forecasts, in the summer of 1969, I went to KRLA-AM in Los Angeles to suggest that I could be a weather forecaster for them. KRLA was a top 40 station whose news team suddenly began doing news satire in 1968, and they dared to offend. What they did was astounding to me and was even noted in Time magazine!
I wondered if I could be their weather forecaster, and maybe chip in to the their comedy team, later called, “The Credibility Gap”. I showed a page of my Spartan Daily forecasts to a young Harry Shearer, a member of the KRLA satirical news team. He quickly glanced across them and summarized his thoughts on them like this; “They’re not that funny, are they?” End of interview.
I hung around San Jose State attending graduate classes until the spring of 1970. At that time I was offered a job as an assistant weather forecaster with the nation’s largest ever randomized mountain cloud seeding experiment headquartered in Durango, CO,. Funded by the Bureau of Reclamation, it was called the Colorado River Basin Pilot Project (CRBPP). I was hired after being interviewed by J. Owen Rhea of E. G. & G, Inc. in San Jose! E. G. & G., Inc. had just been selected over North American Weather Consultants (NAWC) as the seeding contractor for the CRBPP. Owen was going to be the lead forecaster under Paul T. Willis, the E. G. & G., Inc., Project Manager.
I really didn’t belong in grad school, either; too many equations. Nevertheless, it was hard to leave the excitement of SJS of those days. SJS track stars, Tommy Smith and John Carlos had just drawn national attention to SJS, that season’s NCAA track champion, at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City with their raised, “black power” fists.
I also received a job offer from NAWC in Goleta, CA, at that time, too. I did not know until decades later that they were finalists in bidding on the same contract that E. G. & G., Inc. had won from the Bureau of Reclamation for the seeding and forecasting operations for the Colorado River Basin Pilot Project.
But the job in Durango seemed so important and exciting; I was going to be a part of a giant scientific experiment to see if cloud seeding worked and so that’s where I went. The thought that it was exciting that I would also be living in a new climate after a lifetime in California’s.
1970: It was now seven years since Joanne had advised me to give up the idea of being a meteorologist. And now I was going to enter a field that she was a top expert in; weather modification by cloud seeding.
A modern-day story with elements similar to that of American physicist R. W. Wood and his exposé of non-existent “N-Ray” radiation in 1904. R. W. Wood went to France to expose “N-rays” as the product of experimenter delusion at the turn of the century (Broad and Wade 1982); our protagonist1 went to Israel in 1986 to expose faulty cloud reports by possibly deluded scientists.
The underlying message in this life story chapter?
“Hold on Tight to Your Dreams“, one of the greatest-ever song messages. You just might make something out of yourself even when it appears you don’t have the grey matter to do it, as in my case (the “protagonist” in the outline below.) “EOM”–skip the rest if busy.
Story board
A young, “weather centric” student in junior college, the protagonist in this story, meets with Prof. Joanne Malkus, a famous woman scientist and faculty member at UCLA in meteorology in 1963. He is there because her university is the only one in his state of California that offers courses leading to a degree in meteorology. She has come to his attention because she had just been named, Los Angeles Times “Woman of the Year.”
Though he has loved clouds, weather and forecasting since he was a little kid, he tells her he is struggling in junior college with the courses that future meteorologists are required to take, ones heavy in calculus and physics, and doesn’t have the grade point average to get into UCLA from junior college. He is hoping to convince her he is worthy of a shot in their meteorology program anyway due to his enthusiasm about becoming a meteorologist.
Malkus, after hearing about our protagonist’s poor grades in math and physics, suggests it would be best for him to give up his dream of being a meteorologist and to go into something less rigorous, perhaps “go into journalism and write about weather.”
Eventually, and holding himself back by repeating courses in math and physics to get “C’s,” the stubborn young man becomes a meteorologist, anyway, matriculating at San Jose State College, one that starts a meteorology program a few years after his 1963 visit to UCLA.
By chance, our protagonist eventually ends up being an expert in the same specialty as Prof. Malkus (now Joanne Simpson) whom he had met with many years earlier; rainmaking by cloud seeding and Cumulus cloud structure at the University of Washington under Prof. Peter V. Hobbs.
Simpson is particularly enamored of the work of a leading rainmaking scientist in Israel, Prof. Abe Gagin. When Prof. Gagin passes in 1987 at the age of 54, she proclaims that, “…statues will be raised in many towns and halls of fame to his memory.” Her view about that rainmaker is shared by many others around the world.
Through the rigorous execution of two well designed rainmaking experiments in Israel, each with similar increases in rain, in turn supported by repeated descriptions of Cumulus clouds plump with rainmaking potential, the experiments in Israel, by the 1980s, are deemed to be the one true rainmaking success in the world among all those undertaken.
Our protagonist, who on his own initiative, has exposed mistaken or fraudulent claims of “successes” in the peer-reviewed rainmaking literature since the late 1970s, comes to doubt the validity of the published work of that very same scientist for whom “statues will be raised.”
In the late 1970s after exposing ersatz seeding successes in Colorado and Washington State, our protagonist’s lab chief, Prof. Peter V. Hobbs, challenges our protagonist, a mere staff member in his group, to investigate the famous experiments in Israel, advising him, “if he wanted to have a greater impact” in his specialty of unraveling false cloud seeding claims.
Our protagonist begins to do so, and supplies a list of questions, at the request of Prof. Hobbs, to ask Prof. Gagin about his experiments when Prof. Gagin reports on them at a 1980 international conference in France.
In 1983, while Prof. Hobbs is on sabbatical in Europe, our protagonist submits a paper to a journal that asserts that the clouds in Israel are not ripe for rainmaking, but rather quite the opposite, and that too little seeding was carried out in the Israel-1 cloud seeding experiment was not enough to have affected rainfall. Israel-1 was the first of the two famous experiments.
The paper is rejected by three of four reviewers. One of the “reject” reviewers he later learns, is Prof. Gagin himself.
Our protagonist is undaunted by the rejection of his paper, and begins to contemplate going to Israel after he also reads about American physicist, R. W. Woods’ trip to France to expose N-Rays.
Our protagonist resigns at the end of 1985 from the job he has loved over credit issues with Prof. Hobbs and goes to Israel on 4 January 1986.
Prof. Hobbs is not onboard with our protagonist’s views on the clouds of Israel before he leaves. He describes our protagonist as “arrogant” for thinking he knows more about the clouds in Israel than those “who have studied them in their own backyard.”
Our protagonist eventually exposes the famed rainmaker’s faulty work on several fronts beginning with his self-initiated and self-funded cloud investigation to Israel in 1986, a science excursion that resembles the historic trip by R. W. Wood to France. During the first storm in Israel he finds that the cloud descriptions by Prof. Gagin are, indeed, in error.
Our protagonist is welcomed by the Israel Meteorological Service (IMS) and given a tiny amount of desk space where he collects historical data concerning Israel’s clouds and rains, data that will be used in a journal paper.
Not surprisingly, he finds that all the IMS forecasters know that it rains from clouds that are contrary to those described by Prof. Gagin’s descriptions in the journal literature. They are much shallower than those described as necessary to develop rain by Prof. Gagin, making them appear necessary for seeding to take place to make them rain.
Following a first cordial meeting at Prof. Gagin’s office following a week of dry weather, a second meeting occurs after several days with rain. Our protagonist discusses his observations with Prof. Gagin, which are sharply at odds with his journal cloud descriptions of Israeli clouds. Gagin, understandably at the end of our protagonist’s discussion, asks him to leave and never come back; “do your own thing.”
Despite what happened in the second meeting, a third and final meeting is arranged with Prof. Gagin on 2 February 1986. It occurs at the offices of his rainmaking headquarters on the grounds of Ben Gurion International Airport. Our protagonist asks if he can visit this headquarters to observe radar cloud top heights during storms. His request is declined by Prof. Gagin, who insists that his cloud descriptions are correct.
In mid-February 1986 our protagonist meets with the “Chief Meteorologist” of the Israeli cloud seeding experiments, Mr. Karl Rosner. He is informed by Mr. Rosner that a large amount of data was omitted in the reporting of the 2nd “confirmatory” rainmaking experiment whose results were published in 1981. As it was published without that data, Israel-2 appeared to be a strong confirmation of the results of Israel-1 in the eyes of the world. Mr. Rosner, he tells our protagonist, is now trying to get Prof. Gagin to publish the missing data.
The weather fails to deliver any more significant storms through 10 March, and our protagonist departs Israel after 11 weeks of cloud studies and data thanks to the IMS.
In June 1986, in a letter to Prof. Gagin, our protagonist summarizes his cloud findings; his letter is copied to several leading scientists. In this letter, our protagonist vows that he will leave the field of meteorology altogether if his observations concerning the clouds of Israel are wrong; that high concentrations of ice crystals occur in clouds with tops >-12°C. He challenges Prof. Gagin to leave the field if he is right.
Gagin, just 54 years old, passes in 1987 a few months after being notified in a letter by Prof. Hobbs that our protagonist’s cloud investigation has been accepted for publication in the Quart J. Roy. Meteor. Soc.
Two journals issue separate memorial issues to Prof. Gagin’s memory in 1988 and 1989, an exceptionally rare tribute that testifies to his standing. Joanne Simpson’s testimonial to Abe Gagin is published along with several others in the 1988 issue of the J. Wea. Mod.
The results of our protagonist’s cloud investigation are also published in 1988. It concludes that the clouds aren’t plump with cloud seeding potential as they have been repeatedly described by Prof. Gagin, but are quite the opposite of those descriptions, repeating the conclusions in his rejected 1983 journal submission to the J. Appl. Meteor. The paper questions how cloud seeding could be effective given the actual nature of Israel’s precipitating clouds.
Like N-rays, it is eventually it is revealed in multiple reports that the clouds ripe with rainmaking potential that were described by Prof. Gagin do not exist.
1990: the “full” results of the Israel-2 cloud seeding experiment are reported as urged by Mr. Rosner. It is now found that the “full” Israel-2 experiment, incorporating previously omitted data, had a null result contravening the previous view of Israel-2 as unambiguous rainmaking success.
However, it was also hypothesized in the 1990 journal article that there could have been increases and decreases in rain separately in each of the two targets in Israel-2. Thus, when these differing results were combined as the design of Israel-2 called for, they canceled each other out, thus causing the null result of the whole experiment and leaving an enigma.
1992: Our protagonist’s 1988 cloud reports are first corroborated in airborne measurements by Tel Aviv University scientists unaffiliated with seeding activities. The Israeli clouds, indeed, appear to have little rainmaking potential due to having high concentrations (10s to hundreds per liter) of natural ice crystals in them at cloud top temperatures >-13°C. These airborne reports are reiterated in separate publications in 1994 and in 1996. More research supporting our protagonist’s cloud investigation appears over the next 20 years.
1992: a journal paper by the promoters of rainmaking, one a protégé of Prof. Gagin, claim that dust interfered with Israel-2; that actual increases in rain occurred when there was no dust and decreases in rain occurred when there was dust. Thus, a “dust hypothesis” is put forth to explain possible real increases and decreases in rain that were suggested in the full result of the 2nd experiment in the north and south targets.
Joanne Simpson, who advised our protagonist to give up the thought of being a meteorologist, finds the “dust hypothesis” highly credible. Our protagonist and Prof. Simpson are now on a collision course in opinions again.
Our protagonist finds the 1992 dust claim ludicrous due to his 11-week cloud investigation in Israel in 1986. He decides that something must be done about the dust claim. He begins working at home on his own time in 1992 on the daunting task of reanalyzing Israel-1 and Israel-2.
Our protagonist’s reanalyses of the two statistical experiments in Israel are published in 1995 in the J. Appl. Meteor. Prof. Hobbs is a co-author. The reanalyses conclude that rainmaking activities did not increase rain in either Israel-1 or in Israel-2. The clouds are also shown to form precipitation rapidly, leaving little opportunity for rainmaking.
1997: Critical commentaries of the 1995 paper are published. The number of pages of criticism of the 1995 paper sets a record for the pages of “Comments” on a paper ever published in an Amer. Meteor Soc. journal. An ox has been gored. In effect, our protagonist and Prof. Hobbs have become the most “criticized” meteorologists in the history of the Amer. Meteor. Soc.
However, the 1995 reanalyses and the 1997 journal exchanges trigger the first major independent review of rainmaking in Israel by the Israel National Water Authority (INWA). This organization had previously relied on the reports of the rainmaking promoters and other rainmaking partisans that rainmaking was working to increase runoff into the country’s largest freshwater lake, the Sea of Galilee, aka, Lake Kinneret.
1998: The results of 19 winter seasons of randomized cloud seeding in Israel-3 in the southern part of Israel are reported. There has been no effect on rainfall due to seeding. The results again indicate that the clouds of Israel are unsuitable for cloud seeding.
2006: After several years of study, the independent Israeli review panel reports that they can find no viable evidence that rainfall has been increased in 27 years of rainmaking (1975-2002) targeting the Sea of Galilee watersheds.
The independent panel’s finding corroborates the conclusions in the 1995 reanalyses by our protagonist and Prof. Hobbs, and supports the findings of our protagonist’s cloud investigation published in 1988: the clouds in Israel are not viable for rainmaking.
Once again, this rainmaking story seems to have reached a conclusion when rainmaking is terminated in 2007 or 2013. But it is not so.
The promoters of rainmaking in Israel argue that air pollution has suddenly canceled increases in rain due to rainmaking activities during the last decade of the program . They argue that the review panel’s findings of no viable increases in rain are faulty because they do not include air pollution effects.
The independent review panel, and several other scientists in Israel find the air pollution argument by the promoters of rainmaking unconvincing and cloud seeding of the Sea of Galilee watersheds does not resume.
In 2010 Tel Aviv University scientists find that the supposed rain increases in the Israel-2’s north target days lacking in “dust,” were bogus. The seeding partisans had been misled in their conclusion because stronger storms happened on days when rainmaking took place in the “dust-free” target.
Once again, the story seems to have reached a conclusion in 2010 due to the new independent reanalysis described above. But again, it is not so.
2012: The Israel National Water Authority is convinced to try once again to see if rain can be increased by cloud seeding in a new, sophisticated, randomized experiment, Israel-4. This time the experiment targets the mountainous, northern extremity of Israel.
The conduct of a new experiment is supported by airborne reports by the rainmaking partisans who conclude that the clouds have a lot of rainmaking potential in northern Israel.
Importantly, instead of being carried out by seeding partisans, the new experiment is carried out by independent Israeli scientists.
Israel-4 ends in 2020 after seven winter seasons. There is no indication that a viable amount of rain has been increased by rainmaking. The official null “primary” result has since been published by Benjamini et al. 2023, J. Appl. Meteor.
This result of Israel-4 parallels the several prior conclusions by external skeptics concerning all the rainmaking activities in Israel, including those by our protagonist and Prof. Hobbs concerning Israel-1 and -2.
The null results of Israel-4 experiment also reiterate those of our protagonist in 1988 concerning the clouds of Israel; they are not conducive to rainmaking.
This time, in 2023, our “story” finally seems to have reached an end.
But how can the “story” end? Think of the courage it would take for those who promoted seeding in Israel for so many decades and who have cost their own country so much in wasted seeding programs to walk away from repeated faulty analyses and descriptions of non-existent, ripe for seeding clouds? They won’t. Count on it!
1Art and Prof. Peter V. Hobbs, the Director of his group, were honored by the UN partly for the work reported here. The 2005 monetary prize was adjudicated by the World Meteorological Organization.
If anyone has gotten this far, you can go even deeper in these posts:
First, turned the big Eight-Oh last year. Truly bad; time running out. The Grim Reaper can’t be far behind me. Let us calm down by listening to some content about death from the Swedish band, Ghost:
Still doing science as best I can with this ancient brain! Lots still to do. Why even right now, a history of the Colorado River Basin Pilot Project, conducted in the early 1970s, still the nation’s largest, most costly randomized mountain cloud seeding experiment, is in review at the J. Appl. Meteor. and Climate. My co-author is Dave “Eloquent Science” Schultz! Will it get published? I dunno. It’s not the best science story due to major oversights, failed peer-review of the prior work on which it was based, the usual stuff.
Some recent “contributions” posted in the past two years at cloud-maven.com:
The above was submitted to the Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. (BAMS) as an “essay” but was rejected by J. Rosenfeld, Chief Ed., in 2019. This version has been rewritten and expanded from the submitted one and the word “misconduct” removed from the original title which asked the question if one-sided citing should be considered so. I have a low threshold of scientific misconduct…
One sided citing is a plague, not only in science where controversy exists, but also in the media. It is a phenomenon that doesn’t tell the full story but misleads readers. Please read Sharyl Attkisson’s book, “Slanted” for media examples.
The Rise and Fall of Cloud Seeding in Israel
A special interest of mine began in 1979 or so when Prof. Peter Hobbs, the director of my group, challenged me to look into the Israeli cloud seeding experiments after I had outed faulty cloud seeding work in Colorado and Washington State. The history alluded to in the title above has been updated after the seven season Israel-4 randomized experiment ended in 2020 with a null result. Wow.
I had previously published on the clouds of Israel in 1988, and performed extensive reanalyses of the first two Israeli experiments in 1995 with Prof. Hobbs as a co-author/editor. Both these pubs were on my own initiative, and considerable time and dime. (My poor wife!) You can get the “skinny” here though the piece is pretty “fat” being a full history of the Israeli seeding experience:
A shorter version of the above article, lacking the result of Israel-4, was rejected in 2019 by BAMS Special Ed, James Rodgers Fleming, a former member of Peter Hobbs’ group (my former group)! I got two reviews; an anonymous, “accept, important paper, minor revisions”, and a “reject” by a promoter of cloud seeding at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Dr. Daniel Rosenfeld, who signed his review.
BAMS would not let me respond to the comments of the reviewers (Special Ed. Rodgers kindly asked BAMS “higher ups”) , so I could make those few necessary revisions to my manuscript. I thought this refusal was unheard of, especially due to the disingenuous comments of the seeding partisan.
When I queried BAMS last year after the Israel-4 null result became known, BAMS officials indicated that they were not interested in this history. Amazing.
I think the long and winding road of the Israeli cloud seeding experience is a science story that every organization from states to local water districts that have paid for cloud seeding should read. You probably aren’t getting what you think IMO, as the Israeli’s found out when they got independent evaluations of their seeding efforts.
The Israeli story is pretty incredible because as much as $100 million in 2022 dollars was wasted on ineffectual cloud seeding due to seeding partisans who missed faults in their evaluations in reporting statistical seeding successes (or omitted data to make them look that way) and described imaginary, “ripe-for-seeding” clouds that buttressed those ersatz statistical results. I am hoping to get a science medal from Israel for all my volunteer work. :), sort of.
If you want the “big kahuna,” a full book length autobio about how a young, idealistic weather forecaster saw his idealism about science dissipated and then got into questioning the most highly regarded cloud seeding successes after he entered the murky domain of cloud seeding, its all here, in fact, too much. But “hey” there are embedded slide shows!
Also am assembling “life stories,” a kind of “memoirs,” if you will, a writing task that was inspired by those of my neighbors, Big Bill Cotton, and Big Roger Pielke, Sr. , both former faculty at Colorado State University, who have written their own fascinating stories. Prof. Pielke had his own Amer. Meteor. Soc. Symposium Day last January! Prof. Cotton got a medal given out only once every four years last year from the International Committee on Cloud Physics. Wow. While I am a pop gun compared to these science howitzers, I do think I have some interesting tales to tell.
Here are some chapter titles:
“Joanne, Abe, and Me
(Malkus/Simpson, Gagin)”
Contains irony.
Joanne, then at UCLA, advised me to give up the idea of being a meteorologist in 1963, and with good reason; my poor grades in math and physics. But I became an expert in her field of cloud seeding and cloud microstructure and ended up on opposite sides on the cloud seeding reports of success emanating from Israel. Irony+. I was eventually proved correct in doubting those reports. But Joanne was right in one sense; I could have never have made it through the highly theoretical UCLA program and, instead, matriculated at San Jose State, in a meteorology program that emphasized weather and forecasting along with the “hard stuff.” I only wanted to be a weather forecaster. Period.
“Peter Hobbs and Me: Conflict Followed by Reconciliation.”
I went from seeing misconduct in a journal while working in Colorado in the early 1970s to another kind of science conflict when arriving at the University of Washington; the misappropriation of credit that had embittered some members of the group I had just joined in 1976. I got sensitized to this issue immediately by professors and staff members. I eventually resigned from a job I loved in December 1985 in protest over this issue submitting a 27 page tome to Peter about it. But, by December 1987, I was rehired by Peter Hobbs! There were no further credit issues! What a story. I’m still amazed! I could not have done what I did without him.
“The Nightmare Before Banff”
A Science ‘Coming Out Party’ for a Cloud Seeding Activist Who Had Never Before Presented at a Conference.”
I saw months in advance in the Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. program for Banff that it was going to be reviewed by the seeding experimenters whose work I had reanalyzed before I gave it! “WTF.” I had months of palpitations concerning my upcoming and sure humiliation at Banff. But the evening before my presentation, the lead professor of the experiment I showed was due to a natural storm bias he told me they weren’t going to talk about my paper.
“The Trials and Travesties of a Seattle Mariners Batting Practice Pitcher.”
Yeah, I did that for a couple of years inn the Kingdome in the early 1980s before I was fired for throwing balls that had “movement” (cutting the ball) a backup catcher said. Maybe, too, for beaning Joe Simpson in the knee, the Mariners’ center fielder…
And maybe one entire life chapter about that 1960 baseball game in which I got my third hit, a walk off single in the 10th inning to defeat the hated L. A. Dodger Rookies. The Rookies was a premier baseball team that no one on my White Front Redlegs team was good enough to make. Let us review that historic game here as I do everyday:
Once having proved to the world that cloud seeding works, Israel no longer seeds to add water to the Sea of Galilee, its primary source of fresh water. This is a scientific story that has taken almost 60 years to play out.
Arthur L. Rangno, retiree, Research Scientist IV, Cloud and Aerosol Research Group, University of Washington, Seattle. Recipient in 2005 with Prof. Peter V. Hobbs of a small monetary award adjudicated by the World Meteorological Organization for studies in weather modification/cloud seeding.
ABSTRACT
The Israeli seeding program is traced from its modern inception in 1961 to the pinnacle of success it achieved after the statistically-significant results of the first two randomized experiments, Israel-1 and Israel-2, had been reported and how the early “ripe for-seeding” cloud reports laid the foundation for the virtually unanimous view that those experiments had provided proof that cloud seeding had significantly increased rainfall.
The peak was followed by an erosion of status that began with a cloud reports at variance with those of the experimenters in 1988 followed by the full reporting of Israel-2 crossover result in 1990 which revealed a null result. It had not repeated the apparent crossover success of the Israel-1 experiment. Moreover, reports for a third, 20 year long randomized experiment, Israel-3, in the early1990s suggested rain had been decreased due to seeding by 9%. This fall in status was accelerated when independent re-analyses of Israel-1 and 2 appeared in 1995 and a second independent reanalysis for the north target of Israel-2 in 2010 all of which found strong evidence of null results in these experiments.
Two independent evaluations of the operational seeding program that began for Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) in 1975, found no indications that runoff had been increased by seeding. The program was terminated as a new randomized experiment, Israel-4 began.
The null results reported in these experiments and the operational seeding are supported by cloud studies over the past 30 years indicating that the clouds of Israel are generally unsuitable for seeding due to their high precipitating efficiency and the high temperatures (>-10°C) at which ice onsets in them.
A final seven season randomized experiment, Israel-4, conducted in the mountainous regions of the Golan Heights, ended in 2020 with a null result; no viable increase in rainfall had occurred on seeded days.
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The impact of the first two Israeli randomized cloud seeding experiments: cloud seeding proved.
“Almost every review of the status of weather modification published since 1970 has described the Israeli experiments as providing the most convincing evidence available anywhere that cloud seeding can, in fact, increase average rainfall over an area. The credibility of the reported rainfall increases from Israel I and Israel II is due to impressive compilations of statistics and to Dr. Gagin ‘s cloud physics studies, which provided a plausible explanationfor the rainfall increases suggested by the statistical analyses.” ————–A. S. Dennis (1989), part of his preface to the Memorial Issue of the J. Appl. Meteor.
No experiments in the history of cloud seeding have had more impact on the world of cloud seeding than the first two long-term randomized experiments conducted in Israel between 1961 and 1975 by scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJ). The apparently successful results of these experiments, Israel-1 and Israel-2[1], were cited in numerous meteorology textbooks as singular successes in cloud seeding from introductory ones (e.g., Neiburger et al. 1982; Moran et al. 1991; Lutgens and Tarbuck 1995) to those at graduate levels (e.g., Wallace and Hobbs 1977; Dennis 1980; Young 1993). Moreover, it led to attempts at transferring the Israeli results to Spain (Vali 1988) and Italy (List et al. 1999) and influenced nearby Arab countries to try cloud seeding.
These two experiments were also hailed in reviews by expert scientific panels, organizations and by leading individual scientists in the field as cloud seeding successes (e.g., Sax et al. 1975; Tukey et al. 1978a; b; Simpson 1979; Grant and Cotton 1979; List 1980; Mason 1980; 1982; Amer. Meteor Soc. 1984; Silverman 1986; Cotton (1986); World Meteorological Organization 1986; 1988; 1992; Dennis 1989, Cotton and Pielke 1995). Typical of media reports was a summary of cloud seeding by Kerr (1982), who described the first two Israeli experiments in this way: “Cloud Seeding: One Success in 35 years[2].”
But should they have been that “one success”? Could all the glowing statistical results from the first two experiments, supported by seemingly solid cloud microstructure studies, in fact, be “scientific mirages”, as Foster and Huber (1997) termed faulty literature? And, as faulty literature, could it still be published in our peer-reviewed journals and be accepted as valid by our best scientists, national and international panels?
The answer to this question is, “yes.”
The story told here is one of the most compelling chapters in the field of cloud seeding, one that has taken almost 60 years to play out. And, as many findings are within the domain of cloud seeding (e.g., Changnon and Lambright 1990), it has been steeped in controversy until recently when the “dust” seems to have settled due to the recent null outcome of a fourth long term randomized experiment. In this case, the controversy has been between those from the institution from which the reports of seeding successes and cloud descriptions originated and the external skeptics who investigated those claims and found them lacking.
However, as of Freud et al. 2015, there is general agreement that the clouds of Israel exhibit a high precipitation efficiency with the onset of precipitation in clouds with tops between -3°C and -5°C, making them generally unsuitable for glaciogenic seeding. A hoped-for exception to this was in the mountainous Golan Heights of Israel where “Israel-4″ was carried out with disappointing results after seven seasons of randomized seeding.
I am well-acquainted with these experiments. As a skeptic of the experimenters’ many cloud descriptions, I traveled to Israel for an 11-week cloud investigation[3], from January through mid-March 1986. The results were published in Rangno 1988 (hereafter, R88). I also carried out re-analyses of the Israel-1 and 2 experiments (Rangno and Hobbs 1995a, hereafter, RH95a), the latter subject to numerous “Comments[4]” (Rosenfeld 1997; Dennis and Orville 1997; Woodley 1997; Ben-Zvi 1997 and “Replies” (Rangno and Hobbs 1997a, b, c, d, e).
This review begins with descriptions of the first two experiments, their initial convincing results followed by the associated “ripe-for-seeding” cloud descriptions. Overall, this review supports the views of Bruintjes (1999) and Silverman’s (2001) that the confidence that the Israel-1 and Israel-2 experiments had proven cloud seeding has waned due to later published work. Most of the material here was not included in Bruintjes (1999) or Silverman’s (2001) reviews these experiments which included cursory reviews of several other experiments[5].
The rain season climate of Israel
The rain season in Israel runs from about mid-October through April and consists of about 50-70 days, the greater number in the north (Goldreich 2003). Showers form in cumuliform clouds as cold polar air masses exiting the European Continent move onto the warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea, enhanced into clusters or bands by traveling upper air troughs in the westerlies but are more scattered in coverage behind troughs as subsidence occurs. These events produce about 120 hours of measurable rainfall at each site (Goldreich 2003).
The air masses that move onto the Mediterranean from Europe contain considerable aerosol content as the pass over the Mediterranean Sea. However, as the clouds gain in stature much like lake-effect Cumulus clouds do, the increased mixing depth downstream helps reduce the impact of European aerosols; the initial high aerosol concentrations are dispersed over greater depths. In addition, these clouds also take up marine aerosols (Levin et al. 1996, Freud et al. 2015).
Descriptions of Israel-1 and 2 randomized cloud seeding experiments.
a) About Israel-1
This first of three two daily[6]randomized cloud seeding experiments, begun in the late winter of 1961 had two targets, one of which was designated in advance to be seeded each day during the rain season of mid-October through April. The Israel-1 experiment of six and a half rain seasons was a “crossover” experiment in which the results of seeding are combined from the two target areas (e.g., Neumann et al. 1967; Gabriel 1967a; b). In a crossover experiment, one of the two targets is seeded every day; experimental data builds twice as fast compared to single target experiments (e.g., Neumann and Shimbursky 1972; Gabriel 1999).
The two seeding targets in Israel-1 were called, “north” and “center”, and were separated by a small “buffer zone” (BZ) that was left unseeded (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Map of Israel showing the north and center target areas (shaded) and the buffer zone for Israel-1. (after Gabriel 1967a). Thewind rose shows the percentage of the time that the 850-hPa wind was from a particular direction when rain was falling at the time of or within 90 min of, the rawinsonde launch time and at, or within 60 km of, the rawinsonde launch site.
Due to the proximity of the targets, significant correlation (~0.8) in rainfall existed between each one as established in historical comparisons (e.g., Gabriel 1967a).It is also assumed in crossover experiments that the natural cloud microstructure in the two targets is virtually identical and will respond to seeding in the same way.
The seeding in Israel-1 was carried out by a single DC-3 aircraft flying at about 50 m s-1parallel to and within about 10 km of the coastline releasing silver iodide (AgI) at or just below cloud bases. Cloud bases average about 700-800 m above sea level (Gabriel 1967a, Gagin and Neumann 1974, hereafter GN74a).
The line-seeding legs conducted upwind of each target at cloud base were 65-75 km each way. This required about 20-25 min to complete one roundtrip seeding cycle[7]. AgI released by the aircraft was expected to be ingested in updrafts to form the ice crystals needed to initiate precipitation by the Wegener-Bergeron-Findeisen (WBF) mechanism. In the WBF mechanism, ice particles grow in clouds containing supercooled liquid water or they grow where ice supersaturation exists even without the liquid phase. It was generally believed in the 1960s that within the cloud top temperature range of -10° C to -20° C, that there would be few if any ice crystals along with abundant supercooled liquid water in such clouds (e. g., Fletcher 1962; Mason 1971). The lower part of this temperature range is where AgI that was used in both Israeli experiments was highly active in forming ice crystals. Cloud tops during storms in the temperature range above were reported to be common from radar data accumulated in Israel-2 (e.g, Gagin and Neumann 1976, hereafter GN76).
Aircraft line-seeding was carried out for an average of 4 h per rain day for a total of about 70 h upwind of each target per entire rain season in Israel-1 (Gabriel 1967a, Table I). Of these hours, an average of 42 h was carried out in the daytime and 28 h at night (Gabriel and Neumann 1978)[8].
Seeding was conducted when a “cloud seeding officer” (Gabriel 1967a) determined that cloud tops were colder than -5°C, generally above 3 km MSL in Israel. At night, it was assumed cloud tops were colder than -5°C if rain was observed.
Israel-1 ended with the 1966-67 rain season with 378[9]experimental days (e.g., Wurtele 1971). The days culled were those that had measurable rain in the BZ in an effort to minimize the number of completely dry days in the targets[10].
b) Results of Israel-1
Interim results from Israel-1 were first reported by Gabriel (1967a, b; Neumann et al. 1967), followed by a report of the full experiment in a non-peer-reviewed, Final Report by Gabriel and Baras (1970). The complete Israel-1 experiment description first appeared in the peer-reviewed literature by Wurtele (1971). These reports indicated that a 15% increase in rainfall had been produced by seeding when the rainfall data from both the “north” and “center” targets were combined as the design specified. Larger rainfall increases on seeded days were noted in the center target compared to the north target (e.g., Gabriel 1967a), and the suggested increases in rain due to seeding were larger farther inland from the aircraft seeding line (e.g., Gabriel and Baras 1970; Wurtele 1971, Gagin and Neumann 1974a, and Gagin and Neumann 1974b, hereafter, GN74a and GN74b). This latter finding was compatible with seeding logistics and the time of formation of rain once the AgI reached the low cloud temperatures (<-10° C) required for appreciable activation, that level generally above 4 km ASL.
However, a discrepancy arose in the analysis by Wurtele (1971) that had not been noted in the analyses prior to 1970: the greatest of all the apparent increases in rainfall due to seeding was in BZ between the two targets on center seeded days. This discovery was later inferred by the experimenters as an unintended effect of seeding of the BZ on center seeded days (e.g., Gabriel and Baras 1970; GN74a). Wurtele (1971), however, had quoted the Chief Meteorologist of Israel-1, who stated that seeding could only have affected the BZ, “5-10% of the time” and “most likely less than 5%” of the hours that the center had been seeded.
In the meantime, Brier et al. 1974, in an independent re-analysis, expanded the apparent increases in rainfall due to seeding into Lebanon and Jordan, while Sharon (1978) in a study comparing the size of rain systems on seeded days in Israel-1, concluded that they were 10 km larger in area than on non-seeded days.
Except for the discrepancy in the BZ, Israel-1 was a very convincing outcome for a well-designed experiment. However, at this time, little was known about the clouds of Israel. This was to change during Israel-2 when descriptions of Israeli clouds began to appear in the literature, ones highly supportive of potential for seeding (e.g., Patrich and Gagin, 1970; Gagin 1971, Gagin and Steinhorn 1974, Gagin and Neumann 1974).
c) About Israel 2
Israel-2 was carried out from 1969-70 through 1974-75 rain seasons. It was also designed as a crossover experiment patterned after Israel-1 in which random seeding took place in two target areas, this time called “north” and “south” (e.g., GN74a, Silverman 2001). The north target was shifted inland from Israel-1, as was the aircraft line seeding path to improve targeting of the Sea of Galilee (a.k.a., Lake Kinneret) watershed, Israel’s primary natural fresh water source. The south target area included the area of the “center” target of Israel-1 as well as a large area to the south of the former “center” target (e.g., GN74a). The same BZ as in Israel-1 was used in Israel-2 (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Map of Israel showing the two target areas and the buffer zone for Israel-2. The solid. lines with arrows denote the flight tracks along which artificial seeding was carried out. The circles show locations of IMS rain gauges. The triangle shows the location of the IMS 3-cm radar and rawinsonde launch site at Bet Dagan. The light shading shows terrain between 300 and 600 m MSL, and the darker shading terrain above 600 m MSL. The wind rose shows the per-centage of the time that the 850-hPa wind was from a particular direction when rain was falling at the time, or within 90 min, of the rawinsonde launch time and at, or within 60 km, of the rawinsonde launch site.
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A narrow coastal region located upwind of the north target area, one that exhibited a high correlation (r≈0.9) in historical rainfall with the north target, was designated as a control area at least as early as 1972, adding another evaluation dimension for that target in addition to the primary crossover one (GN74a[11]).
The amount of seeding was significantly increased from Israel-1 to Israel-2. A second line-seeding aircraft was added, and a network of 42 generators was installed (National Academy of Sciences 1973, Appendix). The ground generators were added for more effective seeding of the inland hill regions of Israel than had been the case in Israel-1 where only four ground generators were used, and those were in the far northeast corner of the country (GN74a).
The Israel-2 experiment had several design/evaluation elements from which statistical results could be derived: a crossover design using the combined data from both targets; a target/control design for the north target; single area evaluations for each target using the rainfall on their respective seeded and unseeded days; and one using the alternate target’s rainfall on a target’s seeded day as the control rainfall. One of the key advantages of the crossover method, as was described in GN74a, is to reduce storm bias on experimental days when the alternate target’s non-seeded rainfall is used as a control.
The experimenters also had radar coverage during Israel-2 from the Israeli Meteorological Service’s (IMS) 3-cm wavelength radar from which to examine the echo tops of showers. The radar data were to prove critical in illuminating results of seeding on various categories of modal echo top temperatures in conjunction with IMS rawinsonde data.
d) The results of Israel-2
Preliminary results were reported for Israel-2 by GN74a and GN74b. GN74a reported that the target/control evaluation of the first two years had produced statistically-significant indications of rain increases in the north target of about 20% (single area ratio of 1.2) in the north target while in the south target using the same statistic was “less than 1,” suggesting rain had been decreased (GN74a). GN74a noted that cloud tops were appreciably lower and warmer by an average of about 4°C in the south target than in the north target, and that seeding was likely going to be less effective there due to those higher cloud top temperatures.
GN74b[12]reported the results of Israel-2 after three and four seasons, respectively. They reported results for the north target only, noting that rainfall in the south target was highly variable, and that it would take longer to determine any seeding results. The results of seeding in the north target remained virtually the same from season three to season four, with indicated rainfall increases of 13 and 14 %, respectively.
The greatest effect of seeding (statistically-significant) found by GN74b, was concentrated in the radar echo top temperature range of -15°C to -20°C, where prior calculations had suggested the greatest seeding effect should be contained given the belief that such clouds would be deficient in natural ice (e.g., Gagin and Steinhorn 1974).
The results of the completed Israel-2 experiment were first reported by GN76, and later by Gagin and Neumann (1981, hereafter, GN81); and in a series of reports by Gagin 1981; Gagin 1986, hereafter, G81 and G86 respectively), and also by Gagin and Gabriel 1987, hereafter GG87). All these reports that suggested a 13% increase in rainfall due to seeding were confined to the north target using only the target/control evaluation method. Larger increases were noted farther downwind from the cloud-base seeding line. The results of seeding using the other evaluation methodologies were not reported.
Radar top height measurements combined with rawinsonde data reinforced the earlier GN74b findings that the peak increase in rainfall on seeded days (46%) in the north target occurred when modal radar tops were between -16° and -21°C. Much smaller increases were indicated when modal tops were between -12°C and -16°C. No increases in rain were found for those tops outside of the -12° to -21°C partition. Radar top temperatures with seeding results were not reported for the south target.
Benjamini and Harpaz (1986) found evidence that the daily randomized experiment had increased runoff in streams and from springs over entire rain seasons. However, none were statistically significant. Ben-Zvi et al. (1987); Ben-Zvi (1988); and Ben-Zvi and Fanar (1996) followed with evaluations that found more robust indications of runoff and spring flow increases, some of which were statistically significant. Sharon (1990) combined the results of the studies mentioned above by grouping them all together and found still more statistically-significant runoff or flow increases from springs over whole rain seasons that he attributed to seeding. The increased spring emissions when compared to historical data (15 years prior to Israel-2) was about 10% and confined to a central target zone northeast of the aircraft line seeding path.
The results reported for Israel-2 north target appeared to offer an unambiguous confirmation of the rain increases due to seeding reported in Israel-1 for a wide scientific audience and as a stand-alone experiment (e.g., Tukey et al. 1978).
The first two Israeli experiments, as they had been reported, constituted formidable statistical evidence for a cloud seeding success in well-designed experiments having an exploratory phase followed by a confirmatory one. Now, with reports of rain increases confined to modal echo top temperatures that ranged from -12° to -21°C, the experiments seemed complete as an unambiguous testimony to the positive effect of random seeding with AgI.
4. The experimenters’ cloud microstructure reports
“The body of inferred physical evidence appears to support the claims of physical plausibility for-the positive statistical results of the replicated Israeli experiments I and·II (Gagin and Neumann, 1981) and helps to explain, in retrospect why these experiments were so successful, and others were not (Tukey et al., 1978; Kerr, 1982).”
——B. A. Silverman (1986)
A key ingredient buttressing the virtually unanimous acceptance of the statistical results of the Israeli experiments as proof of seeding efficacy were reports that the clouds of Israel were filled with great cloud seeding potential.
Why did the clouds of Israel appear so ripe for cloud seeding?
The experimenters reported on many occasions that ice crystal concentrations were quite low in Israeli clouds until their tops became colder than -21° C (e.g., Patrich and Gagin 1970; Gagin 1971; GN74a, b; Gagin 1975, hereafter G75, Gagin 1980, G81, G86. These reports meant that most of the cumuliform clouds rolled into Israel from the Mediterranean Sea with bases averaging 8°C-9°C, were 3-5 km deep with tops >-21°C produced little or no rain; that is, until they were seeded. According to these reports it took deeper, colder-topped natural clouds than these to produce significantnatural rain (e.g., G75; GN76; GG87). The lower part of this temperature range, from -16° to -21°C was also where the AgI used in Israel-2 was highly active in nucleating activity, another point adding credibility to the statistical results.
The wintertime cumuliform clouds of Israel were being described by the experimenters’ as mirror images of the microstructure that had been reported for the wintertime stratiform clouds in Colorado. In both locales it was reported that there was a relative dearth of ice crystals until cloud tops were colder than -21°C (e.g., Grant 1968; G75). Moreover, the reports from Colorado and Israel were also in agreement with summary reports like those of Fletcher (1962), Grant and Elliott (1974) and Cotton (1986) the latter two articles in particular purporting that a cloud top seeding “window” of opportunity existed for clouds with tops between -10°C and -25°C due to the belief that such supercooled clouds would be lacking in natural ice crystals. Thus, the Israeli experimenters’ reports of very low ice concentrations in clouds with tops >-21°C, and no ice in clouds with tops >-12°C to -14°C, fit the existing paradigm of ice in clouds and were widely accepted (e.g., Mossop 1985).
It was also reported by the experimenters, as it had been in Colorado, that the cloud seeding scourge of “ice multiplication” (Hobbs 1969, Dennis 1980) did not occur in Israeli clouds (e.g., G75; G81: G86; Figure 1]3, black dots).
Figure 3.
Figure 3. Ice crystal concentrations vs. cloud top temperature (dots), including the least squares regression (dashed line) for these data (after Gagin 1975). In the original equation shown, the letter “C” denotes ice crystal concentration and the letter “T”, the cloud top temperature. The solid line with the open triangles denotes average ice nucleus spectrum. The “X’s” are ice crystal concentrations measured by Levin et al. (1996); the squares are one-half those values reported by Levin et al. (1996) to take in possible shattering artifacts. The upper dashed line represents a criteria suggested by Hobbs (1969) above which the observed concentrations of ice crystals qualify as a case of “ice multiplication.”
“Ice multiplication” is where 100’s to 1000’s more ice crystals are found in clouds than can be accounted for by standard ice nuclei concentrations as summarized by Fletcher (1962) from world studies. Ice multiplication is thought to severely reduce or eliminate cloud seeding potential in the kind of cloud seeding experiments carried out in Israel where small amounts of AgI are released (e.g., Dennis 1980).
In both the exact temperature range in which seeding appeared to have produced the greatest results, and in the magnitude of the response to seeding (about 50% increases in precipitation), Israel-2 was also a mirror image of the results of cloud seeding that had been reported by Colorado scientists (e.g., Mielke et al. 1970; 1971; 1981). It was a remarkable confluence of reports considering the different types of cloud systems seeded (cold stratiform vs. cumuliform).
Further parallels in these sets of experiments in Colorado and Israel-2 which added to the credibility of both, were that no viable seeding effects occurred at “cloud top” temperatures above -12° C or below -21°C. The high temperature cutoff was attributed to the low nucleating activity of the silver iodide nuclei used to seed their respective clouds, low crystal growth rates, and the shallowness of clouds having those warmer tops. The low temperature cutoff of seeding effects was thought to be due to the high natural concentrations of ice believed to exist at cloud top temperatures <-21°C where AgI would have little impact (amplifying the importance of not having ice multiplication occur).
The final parallel reported between the experiments in Colorado and Israel, and one that was also critical to the credibility of the statistical results, was that the effect of seeding had been to create more hours of precipitation; it had not increased its intensity (e.g., Chappell et al. 1971, in Colorado; G86; GG87 in Israel-2)[1]. The duration finding was again compatible with the kind of seeding carried out in each experiment, termed, “static seeding”, where relatively low concentrations of AgI are released into the clouds to initiate precipitation that otherwise would not have occurred (Dennis 1980; National Academy of Sciences 2003).
Thus, in every way, despite the differences in the clouds seeded, the reports from the experiments in Colorado and in Israel “cross pollinated” one another, helping to increase their mutual credibility.
5. The Fall
a. The erosion of the experimenters’ cloud reports, and ultimately, the foundation for the belief that cloud seeding had increased rainfall
Reversals of the descriptions of the “ripe-for-seeding” Israeli clouds began to appear in 1988 when it was reported that rain fell from clouds with tops >-10°C (R88), contrary to the experimenters’ many cloud reports. In six flights on shower days a few years later by Levin (1992; 1994; Levin et al 1996, Table 4), high concentrations (10’s to 100’s per liter) of ice particles were encountered near the tops of clouds ranging from just -6°C to -13°C (Figure 3, crosses). The values reported by Levin et al. (1996) indicated that ice multiplication is rampant in Israeli clouds and supported the conclusions in R88.[2] Radar observations by Rosenfeld and Gagin (1989) showed that rain initiates in Israeli cumuliform clouds between -5°C and -10°C when temperatures, estimated by using pseudo-adiabatic lapse rates, are added to their Figure 1. This is precisely what was reported in a similar figure using the IMS radar by GN74 but went unnoticed.
Ramanathan et al. (2001) using satellite-derived effective radius measurements confirmed the above results that precipitation onset in Israeli clouds with tops between -5°C and -8°C, typically when cloud depth is between 2.5 and 3.5 km. Ramanthan et al. however, attributed their finding to the presence of dust aerosols rather than reporting that it was a general characteristic of Israeli clouds. That was to be found later.
Freud et al. 2015, however, attributed the early formation of precipitation in Israeli clouds that they observed in tops ascending through -3°C to -5°C, to a “sea spray cleansing” of pollution aerosols from clouds by the Mediterranean Sea. This “cleansing” they asserted, allowed large droplets to form in clouds as they moved over the Mediterranean Sea toward and into Israel. The presence of large droplets made them conducive to early precipitation formation (and ice multiplication), “even before AgI can take effect,” Freud et al. wrote.
The early idea Israeli clouds are solelycontinental in character as had been reported by the original experimenters, that is, that they are characterized by very high droplet concentrations (500-1500 cm-3) and a narrow droplet spectrum throughout, has been revised due to these later reports. Cloud droplet concentrations in Israeli clouds are only moderately high, from 200-500 cm-3, or “semi-continental,” with exceptions that concern shallow boundary layer clouds in light winds in polluted conditions, almost always on non-storm days.
When these new reports of ice and precipitation onset in Israeli clouds are integrated into the nomogram of Rangno and Hobbs (1988, Figure 3[3]), the clouds of Israel are compatible in the onset of ice to similar clouds having similar base temperatures. They no longer standout as having to be significantly colder than similar clouds as had been indicated in the early cloud studies by the experimenters (e.g., G75). Moreover, with the lower droplet concentrations (e.g., Levin et al. 1996) and with cloud base temperatures averaging 8°C to 9°C, (GN74, G75), the Israeli clouds now also fall where Mossop’s (1978) nomogram predicts that ice multiplication will occur.
As with other clouds, dust is not required for enhanced ice concentrations; rather, just a broad droplet spectrum is required for Cumulus cloud tops that ascend to below freezing temperatures. With their relatively warm cloud bases, ranging from 5°C to 12°C (RH95a), modest droplet concentrations and a broad droplet spectrum, the clouds of Israel are indeed, “ripe”, but not for cloud seeding, but rather for ice multiplication and high ice particle concentrations, conditions that make them unsuitable for cloud seeding.[4]
b. The effectiveness of airborne line cloud seeding in Israel-1 and Israel-2
The line-seeding by a single aircraft used in Israel-1 was evaluated in RH95a. They concluded that the line-seeding method only could have affected a small fraction of all those that produce rain in Israel. It should be emphasized that the aircraft did not “orbit” in updrafts under promising cloud bases, but merely flew in a line under clouds and showers, whatever their stages (growing or dissipating), and in the clear spaces between them, releasing AgI nuclei all the while. The long seeding path resulted in untreated clouds going by before the seeding aircraft could return to its starting point.
Levin et al. (1997) also evaluated the aircraft line-seeding method, but for Israel-2, using the Colorado State University RAMS model with a 0.5 km mesh. They concluded, using rawinsonde profiles on typical shower days in Israel to initialize the model, that the aircraft line-seeding method could only have affected a very few clouds under which the aircraft flew. Their conclusion, using much more sophisticated calculations than in RH95a, was virtually identical to it.
c. The erosion of the statistical results of the first two Israeli cloud seeding experiments.
“Experiments with ‘unsuccessful’ results in the first season or two may often not be reported at all. As a result the experiments whose results are published would be those with initial ‘successes’ which are usually followed, sooner or later, by less ‘successful’ seasons.”—–K. R. Gabriel (1967a), quoting a personal communication from fellow statistician, W. Kruskal.
Israel-1
Re-analyses of both Israel-1 and Israel-2 were carried out by RH95a. Considerable evidence was found for Type I statistical errors or “lucky draws” in each experiment[5]. Ironically, the RH95a findings for Israel-1 and Israel-2 replicated what had happened in the Climax I and II experiments where each of those experiments was found to have suffered from “lucky draws” (Mielke 1979), thus continuing a theme of these experiments mirroring each other’s experimental sequence of events in an unexpected way.
For Israel-1, Brier et al. (1974) had earlier interpreted regional cloud seeding statistics in Lebanon and Jordan as evidence of massive downwind and side wind seeding effects on center and north target seeded days. RH95a, on the other hand, saw the Brier et al. plots and statistics, in view of how little seeding that was carried out in Israel-1 in largely unsuitable-for-seeding clouds, as equally massive counter evidence of a bias in the random draws. RH95a also calculated that it was untenable that the small amount of AgI released in Israel-1 created the amount of rain over the vast area that Brier et al. had concluded that rain had been increased.
Sharon’s (1978) study that indicated that rainfall areas were larger on seeded days than on control days can be seen as compatible with a Type I statistical error or a “lucky draw.” Stronger storms on seeded days, rather than seeding effects, are more likely to have produced the larger areas of rain that Sharon (1978) attributed to seeding.
Another “red flag” in Israel-1 indicating something was likely amiss was that the little seeded BZ between the “center” and the “north” targets exhibited the greatest statistical significance of either north or center targets (e.g., Wurtele 1971; GN74a). As noted, the Chief Meteorologist of the Israeli experiments, (quoted by Wurtele 1971) in his own wind analysis, concluded that the BZ could only have been inadvertently seeded a miniscule amount of the time that seeding took place.
RH95a in their own low-level wind analysis reached a conclusion similar to that of the “Chief Meteorologist” quoted by Wurtele. RH95a focused on those times when rain was falling in Israel at within 90 min of the time of the Bet Dagan, Israel, rawinsonde launch, replicating those times when seeding would have been expected to be taking place. The very narrow wind direction envelope with rain falling (see wind rose in Figure 1) suggests that it would have taken a fairly negligent pilot to have inadvertently seeded the BZ on center-seeded days if he had been instructed not to seed it.
Adding to this picture of an uneven draw that favored heavier natural rain in the BZ on center seeded days was greater rainfall on those same days at coastline locations too close to have been affected by a fallout of rain from cloud base seeding (RH95a). This same conclusion about the coastal zone having been unaffected by seeding had been reached earlier on several occasions by the experimenters (Neumann et al. 1967 N[6]; Gabriel 1967a; Gabriel and Baras 1970 N; Gabriel 1979).
Thus, the totality of evidence above for Israel-1 best supports the “lucky draw” hypothesis (Type I statistical error) that created the misperception of increased rainfall due to seeding. This conclusion is compatible with too little seeding in Israel-1 and one also compatible with today’s knowledge that the clouds of Israel are unreceptive to producing significant rain through glaciogenic seeding with AgI (e.g., R88, Levin et al. 1996).
Moreover, the findings of Freud et al. (2015) have undercut the multi-faceted hypothesis of Rosenfeld (1997) who tried to the explain the high seed/no seed ratios in the immediate coastal zone of Israel-1 as due to a “blowback” of cloud seeding material released by the seeding aircraft. Rosenfeld posited that a portion of the seeding material released in westerly or southwesterly flow at cloud base offshore eventually dispersed downward, got caught in low-level, offshore-flowing easterlies near the surface as the AgI diffused downward and eastward into Israel. At that point a portion of the seeding plume reversed course and headed to the west or northwest. It not only went offshore, he surmised, but offshore far enough that it got ingested into the bases of ripe-for-seeding clouds at locations far enough upwind so that when the AgI rose up the several km required to where the errant AgI could activate, it then triggered ice crystals that grew and fell out as rain on the coastal zone. These many-linked conjectures “explained” the high seed/no seed ratios on seeded days along the coast according to Rosenfeld (1997).
The ripe-for-seeding clouds hypothesized by Rosenfeld (1997), ones awaiting the errant seeding plume moving westward and offshore, however, have been shown to be mirages in the many cloud-related citations above, among other unrealistic aspects of this hypothesis critical of the RH95a reanalysis. Rosenfeld’s long 1997 commentary was comprehensively addressed in RH97b.
Israel-2
The convincing results for the north target of Israel-2 with so many supporting arguments, were compromised when the full results of the experiment were reported (Gabriel and Rosenfeld 1990). Gabriel and Rosenfeld found that the mandated crossover analysis of Israel-2 resulted in no apparent seeding effect (-2%), reversing the former “optimistic results” of seeding, they wrote.
The major culprit?
Unusually heavy rain on north target seeded days also fell in the unseeded south target, the north’s control area in the crossover design. How heavy were those rains in the south target on north target seeded days?
Quoting Gabriel and Rosenfeld (1990) on their extraordinary discovery in this regard: the south target rainfall was “several standard errors above the normal daily amount” and it was “clearly statistically significant[7].” Any real seeding effect in the north may have been canceled out in a crossover type of evaluation. Gabriel and Rosenfeld (1990) were not able to clarify whether there had been real increases in rain the north target area (13%) and decreases in the south (-15% or more), as their results suggested, or whether there had been no seeding effects at all in both targets.
However, the statistically significant results using one of the several evaluation methods, the target/control scheme, held out hope that cloud seeding had nevertheless increased rainfall.
Rosenfeld and Farbstein (1992, hereafter, RF92) capitalized on the possibility of actual “divergent” effects due to seeding suggested by Gabriel and Rosenfeld (1990). They hypothesized that the increases and decreases suggested in rainfall due to seeding in the two targets were real and were were due to the presence or absence of dust. Surface weather observations for the presence of dust or haze were examined by RF92 and those days where one or more Israeli surface stations reported “dust-haze” were separated from days without dust-haze and the results of seeding re-evaluated. The elimination of numerous “dust-haze” days led to improved seeding results in the north target (RF92).
There were several assumptions in the dust-haze hypothesis of RF92: 1) a report of dust-haze at the ground meant that the clouds aloft had been seriously impacted by dust-haze, 2) the kind of dust that the clouds ingested led to large cloud droplets, 3) the large cloud droplets led to both the formation of rain through an all liquid process (collisions of droplets with coalescence), and, if cool enough at cloud top, to high ice particle concentrations.
They further hypothesized that when seeded, such clouds affected by dust-haze developed too many natural ice crystals for effective rain at the ground. The more numerous, smaller ice crystals in clouds due to seeding with dust in them resulted in less rain at the ground because the smaller, more numerous ice crystals evaporated on the way down before they could become raindrops.
In this “divergent effects” hypothesis by RF92, it was recognized that most of the clouds of Israel have naturally high ice particle concentrations, but solely due to dust-haze, except for a portion of those clouds which, by inference, RF92 still deemed as “ripe-for-seeding” when dust-haze was not affecting them. RF92’s findings also meant that the clouds of Israel generally did not contain modest droplet concentrations with a broad droplet spectrum without dust. The latter combination would stillmake such clouds ready to produce high ice particle concentrations at slight to modest supercooled cloud top temperatures and unsuitable for producing appreciable results from cloud seeding. There were no in-cloud measurements to support the RF92 hypothesis concerning the effect of dust beyond ground ice nuclei measurements (Gagin 1965) and soil particles in rainwater (Levi and Rosenfeld 1996).
RH95a, inspired by the RF92 re-analysis of Israel-2 and the “dust-haze” hypothesis, carried out another, but wider re-analysis of Israel-2, one that incorporated data from Lebanon[8]and Jordan. RH95a concluded that a Type 1 statistical error (lucky draw) had occurred in Israel-2 north target seeded days and that it had produced the misperceptions of increased rain in the north target area (Type I statistical error, or “lucky draw”) and one of decreased rain in the south target area (Type II statistical error, or “unlucky draw”.) Namely, there were no “divergent” effects of seeding, as hypothesized by RF92. The RH95a conclusion was reached because not only did the south target experience unusually heavy rain on north target seeded days (the south’s control day for the single area seed/no seed ratio), but sites in Lebanon and Jordan also experienced heavier rain on north target seeded days. Thus, rain wasn’t decreased on south target seeded days as hypothesized by RF92, but rather excessive rain on the south’s control days produced an appearance of decreases due to seeding when only average rain fell on its seeded days.
Furthermore, since cloud tops are warmer and lower as a rule in the South target in Israel than in northern Israel (GN74a; RH95a) it is difficult to accept the proposition by RF92, and later by Rosenfeld and Nirel (1996), that clouds in southern Israel could have been “overseeded” due to dust combined with AgI.
It was also observed in the wider analysis by RH95a that the rain gauges used by the experimenters in the small coastal control zone as a control for the north target constituted an anomaly in the regional pattern of heavier rainfall on the north target’s seeded days. The narrow coastal control zone did not reflect the regionally wide heavier rainfall. This enigma was not resolved by RH95a but was resolved later by Levin et al. (2010).
Levin et al. (2010) addressed the question of synoptic bias in Israel-2 and found that synoptic factors had, indeed, compromised Israel-2. Stronger upper low centers were in the eastern Mediterranean accompanied by stronger low-level winds on the north target’s seeded days. These stronger storms “drove” the Israel-2 statistical results when the coastal control zone was used. The stronger lower level winds created a pseudo-seeding effect by intensifying the maximum rainfall from the coastal control zone toward the hilly regions of the target, the rain amplified by orographic effects. Under stronger onshore winds, the coastal convergence zone that leads to heavy coastal rains is not active.
The re-analyses by Levin et al. (2010) of the Israel-2 north target and of operational seeding, as did that of RH95a, drew vigorous commentary from seeding partisans (Ben-Zvi et al. 2011), with a comprehensive “Reply” by Levin et al. (2011). The INWA was not inspired to resume operational seeding based on the arguments of Ben-Zvi et al. 2011. Instead, the INWA moved on to a new experiment, Israel-4, to test whether cloud seeding can increase rainfall in Israel. The results of this experiment are discussed later.
3. The Israel-3 randomized experiment; the longest, least known cloud seeding experiment ever carried out.
While operational seeding began in northern Israel in 1975[9]triggered by reports of rain increases due to seeding in Israel-2 for its north target (GN76), a new daily randomized seeding experiment, called Israel-3, began in an expanded region of the former south target of Israel-2. This larger target required a longer line-seeding path by the aircraft. Changes in the ground seeding network in Israel-3 from Israel-2, if any, have not been reported.
The results of this experiment began to appear in the literature in 1992, 17 years after it began in RF92[10]. RF92 reported that there was a non-statistically significant indication that rain had been decreased by about 8% due to cloud seeding. A similar interim report was presented by Nirel and Rosenfeld (1994). The final result of cloud seeding in Israeli 3 was reported at conference by Rosenfeld (1998). After 20 winter seasons and 936 daily random decisions, there was an indication of a 9% decreasein rainfall (non-statistically significant) due to seeding. Several exploratory analyses were put forward by Rosenfeld (1998), however, that suggested might have been increased in some situations.
The suggestion of appreciable decreases in rain on seeded days in Israel-3 constituted a discouraging blow to the daily randomization of cloud seeding experiments as did Israel-2. It would not be expected in an experiment of so many daily randomizations over 20 winter seasons, with no effect on rainfall due to seeding (as concluded by Rosenfeld 1998), that a statistical result could drift as far as -9% from an expected null result. An unbiased random draw of rain days would have been expected to have produced a result near zero indicated effect.
There are four major conclusions that can be drawn from Israel-3: 1) the result corroborates the lack of increased rain due to seeding in Israel-1 and Israel-2; 2) the results of all of these experiments, en toto, might be ascribed to a poor seeding methodology that led to ineffective coverage and cloud treatment; 3) dailyrandomization has not proved to be the panacea leading to unbiased natural storm distributions in cloud seeding experiments that it was hoped to be; 4) and probably the most important factor impacting all of these results; the clouds of Israel are, overall, unreceptive for the production of meaningful increases in rain through AgI seeding due to their naturally high precipitating efficiency and readiness for early natural ice formation at slightly supercooled temperatures.
6. Evaluations of operational cloud seeding, 1975-2002.
Due to the RH95 re-analyses of the Israeli cloud seeding experiments, the ensuing exhaustive commentaries and replies in 1997, and Levin et al.’s 1997 modeling study that indicated airborne seeding at cloud base was ineffective, the Israel National Water Authority (INWA) formed an independent panel of experts to evaluate the results of operational seeding to increase runoff into Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee). The final evaluation by Kessler et al. (2006, in Hebrew with an English abstract), distilled by Sharon et al. (2008), did not find evidence that cloud seeding had been increasing runoff (Figure 4).
Figure 4. The results of the independent evaluation of operational cloud seeding on rainfall in the Sea of Galilee watershed by Kessler et al. (2006) are shown by the rightmost three columns for the periods shown. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem evaluation published by Nirel and Rosenfeld (1995) is the leftmost column.
Kessler et al’s result was contrary to seeding expectations based on many earlier reports suggesting runoff increases in streams and springs over whole seeding seasons (Benjamini and Harpaz 1986; Ben-Zvi et al. 1987; 1988; Ben-Zvi and Fanhar (1996); Sharon 1990; and in an updated report on operational seeding results through 1990 by Nirel and Rosenfeld (1995). A second independent analysis of the operational seeding program by Levin et al. 2010 corroborated the findings of Kessler et al (2006) and Sharon et al. (2008).
Due to the findings in Kessler (2006), operational seeding, in Israel was terminated at the end of the 2007 winter season (Sharon et al. 2008). These results meant that millions of dollars might have been wasted on operational cloud seeding in Israel for over 30 years, findings that weighed heavily on the HUJ experimenters whose work the operational seeding had begun under. This was not to go unchallenged.
The first HUJ response to interim findings of Kessler et al (2002) of no seeding results was by Givati and Rosenfeld (2005). While agreeing that no additional runoff due to seeding was occurring in the operational seeding program after 1990, they argued that air pollution was masking seeding increases in rain. In fact, they claimed, it was decreasing rain exactly as much seeding was increasing it, leading to a null seeding result in rainfall.
The air pollution claims, while superficially credible except for their sudden hypothesized appearance, were evaluated by several independent groups and scientists besides Kessler et al. (2006) who did not find them credible: Alpert et al. (2008); Halfon et al. (2009); Levin 2009; and addressed in a review by Ayers and Levin (2009). All these independent re-analyses and reviews of the hypothesized effect of air pollution on rainfall found the argument that air pollution had canceled seeding-induced increases in rain unconvincing.
Givati and Rosenfeld (2009) contested the findings of Alpert et al. 2008 and submitted a wider analysis that used more gauges than they had previously. Alpert et al. (2009) responded to the new data presented by Givati and Rosenfeld (2009) showing that the new data of Givati and Rosenfeld (2009) had inadvertently strengthened the original Alpert et al. (2008) conclusions.
The bottom line was that rain gauges could be found that could support either a pollution effect or a no effect of pollution claim, thus it was not a robust claim having much veracity. Thom (1957) first noted that virtually any result can be found via cherry-picking of control gauges amid many candidates to prove a seeding effect. There are more than 500 standard gauges and 82 recording gauges in Israel from which to extract seeding effects (A. Vardi, Deputy Director, the IMS, 1987, private correspondence).
More than any words here can demonstrate, it was the INWA’s decision to terminate and not resume operational seeding of the Sea of Galilee catchment that was the final arbiter in settling which of the above arguments were the most convincing to them, the funder of cloud seeding activities.
7. About Israel-4
The INWA began a new, long-term randomized cloud seeding experiment in the 2012-2013 rain season in the Golan Heights, termed Israel-4. The experiment was based on the findings of 27 research flights carried out by the HUJ in the search for the best location in Israel to have the best chance of proving that cloud seeding can add measurably to Israel’s water needs. The results of these flights, summarized by Freud et al. 2015, was that the region of the Golan Heights would make the best site for a new cloud seeding experiment based on airborne observations of “abundant” supercooled water. The experiment concluded after seven seasons of random seeding in 2020 with a null result, a suggested non-viable 1.8% increase in rain (Benjamini et al. 2023). So far, the INWA has decided not to pursue further cloud seeding based on this result.
It is noteworthy that Israel-4 was not conducted by the HUJ scientists, but rather by a collection of other independent Israeli scientists, statisticians, and hydrologists. Whether this result will be challenged by HUJ scientists has yet to be determined, but one would expect a challenged based on the past.
Summary
The reader may wonder at this point how so many flawed cloud reports and only the partial statistical results of a major, benchmark cloud seeding experiment could be cleared for the peer-reviewed literature, literature that led to a scientific consensus that cloud seeding had been proved in Israel–a consensus that affected a wide range of stakeholders, including Israel’s own government?
There is a multi-pronged answer to this question: 1) the cloak of daily randomization likely misled experimenters who expected a neutral random draw, considering the length of the Israeli experiments and dismissed the possibilities of natural bias; 2) inadequate and/or conflicted (“friendly”) peer reviews of manuscripts that, in retrospect, demanded too little of the experimenters; 3) a lack of full reporting of experimental results by the experimenters (i. e., all of Israel-2 when it was concluded, and those from Israel-3 in a “timely manner” as suggested by the AMS in its “Guidelines” for Professional Conduct[11]).
But perhaps the most important element of all, was the experimenters’ failure to discern the natural character of their efficiently precipitating clouds which ultimately cost them and the Israeli people so much. Moreover, the original experimenters rebuffed independent airborne research efforts to measure the interesting properties of their clouds over the years (G. Vali, personal communication, 30 January 1986)[12].
Why?
It’s clear that outside researchers would have quickly discovered the true nature of Israeli clouds and informed the world and the HUJ experimenters about them.
And why did it take the HUJ experimenters 35 years after they monitored their clouds with two radars, one that was vertically pointed and over flown by their aircraft to validate cloud tops (G80, Rosenfeld 1980) to discover that the clouds entering Israel had been “sea spray cleansed” and formed precipitation at modest cloud top heights and temperatures as was finally reported by Freud et al. 2015?
Too, the absence of efforts by the original experimenters to examine the natural weather patterns, uneven storm draws, leaving it to outsiders, speaks volumes to entrenched confirmation and desirability biases.
8. Reflections on the rise and fall of Israeli cloud seeding.
Given this account, one cannot help but ask if the full results of Israel-2 had been reported in a timely manner, as well as those from Israel-3, as it proceeded, and if the experimenters had gotten the Israeli cloud microstructure correct from the outset, would the Israeli government have pursued operational seeding of the Sea of Galilee watershed with no viable result at a cost of $20 million or more over the 32 years following the conclusion of Israel-2?
It is also evident that it is unwise to have the same scientists who carried out a seeding experiment, or personnel within their home institutions, evaluate its results or report on the potential of clouds for seeding purposes. Independent evaluations by those not having vested interests (operational or otherwise) in cloud seeding should have beenmandatory. The Israeli’s showed us the way with the INWA’s brave move to have an independent panel of experts evaluate their long-term operational cloud seeding effort.
Moreover, the HUJ cloud seeding experimenters have been stymied for more than 25 years in their airborne most recent efforts to measure a critical parameter necessary to fully evaluate the seeding potential of their clouds: ice particle concentrations and the rapidity of their development.
It is urgent for the people of Israel and the INWA that extensive, independent airborne measurements of Israeli clouds carried out soon by groups not relying on cloud seeding funding, and whose aircraft instrumentation can measure ice particle concentrations reliably in Israeli clouds.
Acknowledgements. Thanks to Prof. Bart Geerts for his many suggestions on an early draft. I also thank environmental writer, Maria Mudd Ruth, for an encouraging assessment of an early draft. I thank Prof. David Schultz for a late, highly valuable review. I also thank the two official reviewers, Dr. Daniel Rosenfeld (the “reject” reviewer) and the anonymous Reviewer 2 (“important paper, accept, minor revisions”) for their many insights that resulted in some corrections. Figures 1-3 were improved from original versions by Tully Graphics.
Author disclosure: I have no funding sources but my own. I have worked on both sides of the seeding “fence”; in operational seeding programs in South Dakota (twice), in the Sierras, in Washington State, and in India. I have participated in seeding research at the University of Washington and with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Saudi Arabia. I was the Assistant Project Forecaster with the Colorado River Basin Pilot Project, a large randomized orographic cloud seeding experiment, 1970-1975.
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________, 1994: The effects of aerosol composition on the development of rain in the eastern Mediterranean. WMO Workshop on Cloud Microstructure and Applications to Global Change, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. World Meteor. Org., 115-120. No doi.
_________., 2009: On the State of Cloud Seeding for Rain Enhancement. Report to the Energy, Environment and Water Research Center, The Cyprus Institute, Nicosia, Cyprus. 18pp. No doi.
_________., N. Halfon, and P. Alpert: 2011: Reply to the Comment by Ben-Zvi on the paper “Reassessment of rain experiments and operations in Israel including synoptic considerations” Atmos. Res., 99, 593-596. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2010.06.011
_________., N. Halfon, and P. Alpert, 2010: Reassessment of rain enhancement experiments and operations in Israel including synoptic considerations. Atmos. Res., 97, 513-525. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2010.06.011
Lutgens, F. K., and E. J. Tarbuck, 1995: The Atmosphere. Prentice-Hall, 462pp. No doi.
Mason, B. J., 1971: The Physics of Clouds. Clarendon Press, Oxford. 671pp. No doi.
__________, 1980: A review of three long-term cloud-seeding experiments. Meteor. Mag., 109, 335-344. No doi.
__________, 1982: Personal Reflections on 35 Years of Cloud Seeding. Contemp. Phys., 23, 311-327. No doi.
Mielke, P. W., Jr., 1979: Comment on field experimentation in weather modification. J. Amer. Statist. Assoc., 74, 87-88. https://doi.org/10.2307/2286729
_____________., Brier, G. W., Grant, L. O., Mulvey, G. J., and P. N. Rosenweig, 1981: A statistical reanalysis of the replicated Climax I and II wintertime orographic cloud seeding experiments. J. Appl. Meteor., 20, 643-659. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1981)020%3C0643:ASROTR%3E2.0.CO;2
Moran, J. M., M. D. Morgan, and P. M. Pauley, 1991: The Essentials of Weather,Prentice-Hall, 351pp. No doi available.
National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council, 1973: Weather and Climate Modification: Progress and Problems, T. F. Malone, Ed., Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., 258 pp. No doi.
________________________________________________, 2003: Critical Issues in Weather Modification Research. Committee on the Status of and Future Directions in U.S. Weather Modification Research and Operations, M. Garstang, Chairman. 123pp. No doi.
Neiburger, M., J. G. Edinger, W. D. Bonner, 1982: Understanding Our Atmospheric Environment. W. H. Freeman and Company. No doi.
___________, K. R. Gabriel, and A. Gagin, 1967: Cloud seeding and cloud physics in Israel: results and problems. Proc. Intern. Conf. on Water for Peace. Water for Peace, Vol. 2, 375-388. No doi.
Nirel, R., and D. Rosenfeld, 1994: The third Israeli rain enhancement experiment-An intermediate analysis. Proc. Sixth WMO Scientific Conf. on Weather Modification, Paestum, Italy, World Meteor. Org., 569-572. No doi.
Patrich, J., and A. Gagin, 1970: Ice crystals in cumulus clouds—preliminary results. Preprints, Int. Conf. Meteor., Tel Aviv. No doi available.
Ramanathan, V., P. J. Crutzen, J. T. Kiehl, and D. Rosenfeld, 2001: Aerosols, climate and the hydrological cycle. Science, 294, 2119-2124. https://doi-org/10.1126/science.1064034
Rangno, A. L., 1988: Rain from clouds with tops warmer than -10 C in Israel. Quart J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., 114, 495-513. https://doi-org/10.1002/qj.49711448011
__________, 2000: Comment on “A review of cloud seeding experiments to enhance precipitation and some new prospects.” Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 81, 583-585. No doi
_________, and Hobbs, P. V., 1988: Criteria for the development of significant concentrations of ice particles in cumulus clouds. Atmos. Res., 22, 1-13. No doi.
___________., and ___________, 1997b: ComprehensiveReply to Rosenfeld, Cloud and Aerosol Research Group, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington, 25pp. (http://carg.atmos.washington.edu/sys/research/archive/1997_comments_seeding.pdf)
Rosenfeld, D., 1980: Characteristics of rain cloud systems in Israel as derived from radar data and satellite images. Ms. Thesis, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (in Hebrew) 129pp.
___________, 1998: The third Israeli randomized cloud seeding experiment in the south: evaluation of the results and review of all three experiments. Preprints, 14th Conf. on Planned and Inadvertent Wea. Modif., Everett, Amer. Meteor. Soc. 565-568. No doi.
Sax, R. I., S. A. Changnon, L. O. Grant, W. F. Hitchfield, P. V. Hobbs, A. M. Kahan, and J. Simpson, 1975: Weather modification: Where are we now and where are we going? An editorial overview. J. Appl. Meteor., 14, 652-672. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1975)014%3C0652:WMWAWN%3E2.0.CO;2
_________, A. Kessler, A. Cohen, and E. Doveh, 2008: The history and recent revision of Israel’s cloud seeding program. Isr. J. Earth Sci., 57, 65-69. https://DOI.org/10.1560/IJES.57.1.65.
Silverman, B. A., 1986: Static mode seeding of summer cumuli–a review. In Precipitation Enhancement–A Scientific Challenge, Meteor. Monog., 21, No. 43, 7-20. https://doi.org/10.1175/0065-9401-21.43.7
Simpson, J. S., 1979: Comment on “Field experimentation in weather modification.” J. Amer. Statist. Assoc., 74, 95-97. https://doi.org/10.2307/2286732
Tukey, J. W., Jones, L. V., and D. R. Brillinger, 1978a: The Management of Weather Resources, Vol. I, Proposals for a National Policy and Program. Report of the Statistical Task Force to the Weather Modification Advisory Board, Government Printing Office. 118pp. No doi.
__________., D. R. Brillinger, and L. V. Jones, 1978b: Report of the Statistical Task Force to the Weather Modification Advisory Board,Vol. II. U. S. Government Printing Office, pE-3. No doi.
Young, K. C., 1993: Microphysical Processes in Clouds. Oxford University Press, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016, 427pp. No doi.
———————————————————————————Endnotes
1Ben-Zvi and Fanar (1996) contradicted the results of Gagin and Gabriel (1987) reporting that rainfall intensities had been increased on seeded days in Israel-2, contrary to expectations due to kind of seeding (termed, “static”) that had been conducted.
[2]Due to the likely contribution of probe shattering artifacts in the Levin measurements, values half those reported by Levin are also plotted in Figure 3, an overestimate of artifact contributions.
[4]The HUJ experimenters have conducted many flights into Israeli clouds since 1990 to determine their microstructural nature and cloud seeding potential but, in spite of their critical importance for cloud seeding, have not been able to report ice particle concentrations or the rapidity at which they develop due to carrying imaging probes on their aircraft that are not capable of measuring them accurately (Freud et al. 2015; D. Rosenfeld, 2019, private communication in his review of this manuscript).
[5]The HUJ experimenters changed evaluation techniques from Israel-1 to Israel-2 in reporting a second seeding success and did not pursue the several methods of evaluation outlined in GN74 and here.
[6]“Aftersome 2 ½ seasons of operational seeding (i. e.,“randomized”—author’s insertion for clarity)experience, it was noticed that flying was effectively limited in such a way as to affect only the interior parts of the two areas.” This was repeated by Gabriel (1979).
[7]The random draw sequence for Israel-2 was markedly different from than the one for Israel-1. In Israel-2 long strings of the same random decision occurred whereas in Israel-1 they did not.
[8]In 1969 the Israel Rain Committee, formed by Mekorot, Israel’s national water company, was responsible for overseeing the design of the Israel-2 experiment. They recommended that rainfall data from Lebanon be incorporated in the evaluations of Israel-2 when it was completed. This did not take place in the experimenters’ many published evaluations; such data may not have been available to them.
[9]Goldreich (2003) reported that operational seeding took place during the 1968-69 rain season that fell between Israel-1 and 2.
[10]The lack of timely reporting of indications of decreased rain on seeded days in Israel-3 made Gabriel’s (1967a) statement appear as “prophesy” for his own experiments; that negative seeding results may not be reported at all.
[11]In 1988 the AMS dropped its “Code of Ethics” that described the requirements and attributes of professional conduct as a member, downgrading those elements to, “guidelines”, a word synonymous with “suggestions.”
[12]G. Vali, 1986; Mason, Sir B. J., 1997, personal communications, available on request or go here: https://cloud-maven.com/my-life-in-cloud-seeding-1970-2020/
[1]Retiree, Research Scientist IV, Cloud and Aerosol Research Group, University of Washington, Seattle (1976-2006). Co-winner in 2005 with the late Prof. Peter V. Hobbs of a monetary prize adjudicated by the World Meteorological Organization concerning our work in cloud seeding/weather modification.
Target journal: Research Integrity and Peer Review (?)
ABSTRACT
This study surveys the citing practices in the literature of cloud seeding experiments. In particular, 90 peer-reviewed journal articles that cite experiments in Colorado and Israel are of particular interest because both went through almost identical rise and fall cycles. Both sets of these experiments were once deemed by our highest scientific organizations and many individual scientists as ones that had proved “cloud seeding works” (e.g., National Research Council-National Academy of Sciences 1973 for the Colorado orographic experiments; Kerr (1982, Dennis 1989) and in numerous places for the first two experiments in Israel.
But what happens in the journal peer-reviewed literature when such esteemed sets of experiments are shown to be ersatz “successes,” as happened later to each set of these experiments? It will be shown in this review of those 90 peer-reviewed publications in several journals that there is an appreciable fraction of researchers who continue to cite only the successful phases of these experiments, thus demonstrating, “one-sided” citing that misled their readers. These instances, first and foremost, represent failures in the peer-review process.
It is recommended that explicit wording that condemns one-sided citing be placed in our AMS professional “guidelines[1]” The Weather Modification Association, too, should add a similar explicit wording that condemns one-sided citing in its still extant, “Code of Ethics.” (The AMS eliminated its “Code of Ethics” many years ago in favor of less stringent, “Guidelines.”)
Introduction.
The purpose of citing in journal articles is to give the reader an accurate, balanced, and up to date background on the area of science being discussed, and to support various assertions in articles so that the reader can see that what is being stated has been shown to have support or needs further research. Our science ideals mandate that we do this as best we can. Selective or “one-sided citing” is defined as when an author or authors cite only one side of an issue that is multifaceted; only part of the “story” is revealed to the journal reader, the side that the authors, and by inference, the reviewers of such manuscripts, only wish them to know about.
However, in controversial domains where strong differences of opinion, vested (funding) interests and a priori beliefs (confirmation and desirability bias) abound, we may fall short of this ideal. But by how much, if any?
We answer this question by examining citations in articles that concern two sets of once highly regarded cloud seeding experiments, those conducted by Colorado State University scientists at Climax and Wolf Creek Pass, Colorado, and those conducted in Israel by scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This test of evenhandedness in our science literature comes by examining the citations in the peer-reviewed literature one-year or more (final accepted date is used) after significant flaws were reported for these experiments to see if the reports that compromised them were also cited, presumably for the purpose of alerting the reader to the discovery of problems.
We used the “advanced search” option of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) journal web site using author names to find the articles that have been associated with these experiments. The author names used were those associated with the original reports of cloud seeding successes.
Citations in the 1986 AMS Monograph, 43, No. 21, “Precipitation Enhancement—A Scientific Challenge” were also inspected and were included if they met the search criteria.
Peer-reviewed articles in the J. Wea. Mod., published annually by the Weather Modification Association (WMA) were also examined. The non-peer reviewed articles within that journal were ignored.
The Isr. J. of Earth Sci.was also examined from 1980 through 2011 when the journal discontinued publishing. Two articles were found that met the citing criteria.
Search year initializations for the experiments: For the Climax and Wolf Creek Pass experiments in Colorado, compromising literature began to appear with Meltesen et al. (1978), Rangno (1979a, b) Hobbs and Rangno (1979a, b), and Mielke (1979). Therefore, our scrutiny of citing practices in peer-reviewed cloud seeding articles for these experiments begins in 1980.
For the Israeli experiments, the first flaw casting doubt on seeding efficacy was reported in January 1988 (Rangno) concerning the clouds of Israel, and was followed by Gabriel and Rosenfeld (1990) who reported a null statistical result for the “full” Israel-2 crossover experiment. The a priori designed crossover result of this experiment (Silverman 2001), completed in 1975, had not been previously reported. The scrutiny of the citations regarding these two experiments, Israel-1 and 2, therefore begins in 1989.
In essence, the null hypothesis of this survey based on the ideals of science is that there will be no differences in citation practices following the appearance of the compromising literature; i. e., both the flaws in these sets of experiments and the successful phases will be reported in the articles that cite them after the starting dates above to give the reader a full view of what happened to them.
If only the “success” phase of the Colorado and/or Israeli experiments have been cited in a journal article after the dates that compromising literature appeared, that publication is deemed as having exhibited, “selective” or “one-sided” citing (Schultz 2009).
Conference preprints or “grey” literature, such as “Final Reports,” are included in this study if they provided key information that was not published elsewhere, such as ice particle concentrations vs. cloud top temperature (e.g., Grant 1968, Vardiman and Hartzell 1976, Grant et al. 1982). These types of literature appear in a blue font with a gray background in the references. They often revealed problems in these experiments that did not reach the peer-reviewed literature. Many “grey literature” reports that were cited in journal publications were not available for this purpose.
This survey, in effect, also answers the question, “How exactly does the scientific community react to those who tear down established scientific consensuses rather than building them up?” “Are they welcomed or shunned?” despite our ideals that mandate us to tell the ‘full story’ to journal readers.
2. Defining contrary or compromising literature
In one type of literature that can be regarded as “contrary” or “adverse” to a cloud seeding success are cloud reports that go counter to the reports of the experimenters who often reported lower ice particle concentrations in the natural clouds. That is, they described clouds that were ripe for seeding that explained a result where seeding had appeared to increase precipitation. When literature appears that contradicts the “ripe for seeding” cloud reports, that in fact, the clouds that were targeted had much higher natural ice particle concentrations, these later findings are considered “adverse” or “contrary” literature. Findings like the latter cast doubt that a claimed statistically significant success due to seeding actually happened. Assertions by the experimenters that cloud top temperatures indexed ice particle concentrations are also assayed and if found unreliable in later research, the later findings are also considered “adverse” to the original reports.
Both the Colorado and Israeli experiments suffered from these kinds of “adverse” published cloud seeding literature where the true nature of the clouds in each locale does not support the idea that significant increases in precipitation could have been produced by cloud seeding.
The most obvious “contrary” literature is that where a reanalysis of the original experiments has taken place that demonstrates that a natural distribution of storms (“storm types”) on seeded days created the misperception of seeding effects or a Type I statistical error (e. g., Neyman 1977). For maximum credibility, however, re-analyses should not be wide searches through many variables (i.e, “fishing expeditions”) but far simpler; those, for example, that only expand the original reports to regional views using the same data and experimental dates as did the experimenters. This type of analysis is one that should have been conducted by the original experimenters in the first place, but is often overlooked as they focused on small target areas, as in the Climax and Wolf Creek Pass experiments in Colorado (e.g., Mielke et al. 1970, Morel-Seytoux and Saheli 1973).
Results.
Ninety peer-reviewed cloud seeding articles referenced the two benchmark sets of experiments after the dates that compromising literature began to appear in journals or in “grey” literature. Of the 90 peer-reviewed articles examined, 38, or 42% did not cite literature that compromised the successful phase of the experiments in Colorado or Israel; they only cited the successful phase for the reader. These 38 articles are deemed to have exhibited “one-sided” or “selective” citing.
Twenty-six of 76 articles, or 34%, that exhibited one-sided citing were in American Meteorological Society publications. Twelve of 13 articles in the peer-reviewed segment of the J. Wea. Mod. exhibited “one-sided” citing, or 92%, of those articles that cited the Israeli or Colorado experiments only cited the successful phase.
The three peer-reviewed articles not under the AMS “tent” or in the JWMA, one in Atmos. Res., and two in the journal, Israel J. Earth Sci., did not exhibit one-sided citing but gave the reader a second view.
The NRC-NAS 2003 volume, “Critical Issues in Weather Modification,” was also reviewed for citing balance, and was found to be skewed toward leaving out important references to publications that compromised those experiments that they had deemed successful in their prior review in 1973. The NRC-NAS 2003 review does not compare in depth to that of the 1973 review. A total of 18 relevant cloud seeding reports or peer-reviewed publications went uncited in this volume (see Appendix 3 for the extant adverse literature that went uncited in the NRC-NAS volume: Fur67, AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, VH76, V78, R79, HR79, Rh83, R86, RoG89, L92, L94, LGG96, LKR97, RH97a, b, ROS98. Abbreviations are explained in Table 3.
For those few wishing to go farther, a comprehensive review of the NRC-NAS 2003 document by the present writer can be found here.
The articles examined for citing tendencies are listed in Tables 1-3 below the reference section. Table 1 is for AMS publications, including the AMS monograph on cloud seeding, and other journals, including a list of citations within NRC-NAS, “Critical Issues in Weather Modification Research.” Table 2 is for those articles in the J. Wea. Mod. A key to the many abbreviations of relevant literature cited in each article that met the search criteria is found in Table 3.
The table linked to below is a list of those authors that led or participated in one-sided citing and their institutions. In cases where the author name appears once, it was probably a “peccadillo” due to careless citing or possibly ignorance of the full literature on the experiments in Colorado and Israel. Where an author’s name appears repeatedly, it can be surmised that there was an agenda that meant included not informing readers of the full story, thus misleading them.
Breed et al. (2014) in the context of the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s (NCAR) involvement in cloud seeding in Wyoming, mention the Climax randomized experiments by only citing a single publication, Mielke et al. (1981). In Mielke et al. (1981), the journal reader will find the story of a robust cloud seeding success. Breed et al. (2014) deflected the reader from the voluminous contrary journal trail that preceded and followed Mielke et al. (1981), a trail that began with Meltesen et al. (1978), Hobbs and Rangno (1979), Mielke 1979, Rhea (1983) and several more re-analyses and commentaries (Rangno and Hobbs 1987; 1993; 1995, Rangno (2000).
Hobbs and Rangno (1979a, b) found that the underlying physical foundations for a seeding success at Climax, the stratifications of experimental days by 500 mb temperatures, claimed to have had cloud microstructure implications, was unreliable, as did several other researchers, including Mielke (1979), Cooper and Saunders (1980).
This contrary literature goes uncited by Breed et al. (2014). Why? Was it because the authors wished their journal readers to view only one side of the Climax literature to convince readers that a cloud seeding success had been attained in the Rockies? This as the State of Wyoming inexplicably considers cloud seeding after the sophisticated Wyoming randomized orographic cloud seeding experiment, designed and evaluated by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, “failed to deliver” (they got a null result after six seasons of winter seeding).
In fact, the Climax experiments have no remaining credibility as having produced reliable evidence of increases in snowfall due to seeding, as a read of the abundant contrary literature listed above will show. Thus, the single citation to Mielke et al (1981) by Breed et al. was tantamount to solely citing Fleishmann and Pons (1989) as evidence of “cold fusion.”
Another example of omitted contrary literature was seen in in Freud et al. (2015—hereafter, F15) study of Israeli clouds. F15 discovered the high precipitating efficiency of Israeli clouds 27 years after Rangno (1988) and Levin (1992, 1994) deduced the same ready formation of precipitation in Israeli clouds. But F15 does not cite that 1988 breakthrough paper.
F15 also cite Givati and Rosenfeld (2005) who asserted that Israeli operational seeding-induced increases in rain were completely masked by air pollution. But F15 did not cite those articles by Kessler et al. (2006), Alpert et al 2008; Halfon et al. 2009; Levin (2009); Ayers and Levin (2009), all of whom reviewed the Givati and Rosenfeld claims and found them unconvincing.
The final arbiter for this dispute was the Israeli National Water Authority that also found the pollution claims of Givati and Rosenfeld unconvincing after weighing all the evidence. Operational seeding of the Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) watershed was therefore terminated in 2007 (Sharon et al. 2008). There is some question whether the programs was terminated then or in 2013. Nevertheless, it was terminated.
Instead of operationally seeding all storms, instead the Israeli government undertook a new randomized cloud seeding experiment in the hilly north of Israel. The results of this new experiment, called Israel-4, has just been published by Benjamini et al. 2023. The result of randomized seeding was a null result on rainfall. Benjamini et al. 2023 also performed “one-sided” citing by only citing the success phase of the first two Israeli experiments and did not cite the considerable contrary literature that followed the success phase. These authors should have cited Rangno (1988), and Rangno and Hobbs (1995), the latter a reanalysis of those experiments that showed convincingly that they were the product of favorable draws on randomly chosen seeded days. This would have given the readers a “heads up” that Israel-1 and Israel-2 were straight forward successes as Benjamini et al. (2023) claim in multiple places.
Moreover, Levin et al. (2010), which was cited, corroborated Rangno and Hobbs (1995) concluding that Israel-2 was compromised due to natural storms that favored the misperception of a cloud seeding effect. Both publications, that by Rangno and Hobbs (1995) and that by Levin et al. (2010) were subject to considerable comments mostly by those who carried out the experiments.
5. Discussion.
One-sided, or selective citing in our journal literature has been demonstrated as a frequently occurring phenomenon in the cloud seeding literature. From a standpoint of our ideals of science, it should never occur. Readers should never be misled. One-sided citing can be seen as having been encompassed by the Federal Trade Commission’s statement on consumer fraud, adjusted below for the science reader:
“Certain elements undergird all deception cases. First, there must be a representation, omissionor practice that is likely to mislead the consumer [journal reader].”
To mislead, to truncate truth, as one-sided citing is, by any reasonable definition, a form of “scientific misconduct.” It is, alternately, to use the phrasing of the NRC-NAS (e.g., 1995, 2009), “cooking and trimming” the truth. One-sided citing, to this author, is the same as eliminating a data point.
The issue of one-sided citing has been called out by Schultz (2009): “One-sided reviews of the literature that ignore alternative points of view, however, can be easily recognized by the audience, leading to discrediting of your work as being biased and offending neglected authors…”
Not surprisingly, selective citing has been noted in other science domains (Urlings et al. 2019).
The damage caused by one-sided citing is not just to authors who are seen as biased, it also causes material damage to authors whose work goes inappropriately uncited; they may lose ground in promotions, awards, and without doubt, in the perceived impact that his/her work has had on his/her field since impact is measured by citation metrics. From the Council of Science Editors:
“Most metrics of scholarly performance, including the Journal Impact Factor (JIF), are based on citations to published articles.”
The less you are cited, the less impact you are perceived to have had in your field.
The question for us then becomes, “Is it OK to have even just a single one-sided reference to one side of the ‘coin’ in our journal articles?”
We think not.
It was also clear that even though there was an abundance of contrary literature, the successful phase citations to cloud seeding experiments far outweighed the citations to contrary literature. It was also observed that some (unnamed) authors never refer to compromising literature suggesting personal agendas.
5. The institutional and co-author ramifications of one-sided citing
It can be argued that authors who practice one-sided citing damage their own institutions. Authors who have performed “one-sided citing” have been associated with such highly regarded institutions such as the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Those authors have shown little regard for the implicit damage done to their home institutions by “easily recognized” one-sided citing. Moreover, responsibility for such acts is shared among of all the co-authors who are co-authors of publications that contain this act.
What one-sided citing says about peer-review.
One-sided citing is also an “LED signpost” of inadequate peer-review of manuscripts. Reviews by knowledgeable, objectivereviewers would never allow one-sided citing to take place in manuscripts destined for publication. This could only happen if journal editors assigned reviews to those ignorant of the full body of literature that a manuscript addresses, or to seeding partisans that allow one-sided citing to reach journals. The J. Wea. Mod. results are particularly suggestive of editor/reviewer bias.
Inadequate or partisan reviews have cost the public and our science cloud community much pain over the entire history of weather modification as long-time observers know. The nation’s most costly randomized orographic experiment, the Colorado River Basin Pilot Project, 1970-75, was based on prior, published cloud seeding “successes” that never happened in the first place. But those ersatz reports of successes got into our peer-reviewed literature anyway and convinced our best scientists that they were successes due to weak reviews of manuscripts.
The sad aspect of these one-sided journal articles is that a single sentence or even a footnote following the report of the original “success” stating, “These results have been questioned or overturned”, followed by a reference or two, would have made this survey unnecessary. The recent review of orographic cloud seeding by Rauber et al. (2019) fulfills this simple requirement.
What to do about one-sided citing?
Explicit wording that condemns one-sided citing is required in our AMS professional “guidelines[1]” The Weather Modification Association, too, should add a similar explicit wording that condemns one-sided citing in its still extant, “Code of Ethics.”
Integrating the language of the FTC quoted above at the beginning of this essay (with the applicable word changes) into our AMS “Code of Ethics” would be the responsible course to follow to stop what could be seen as fraudulent acts (no matter how minor they might seem) that mislead readers to false conclusions and harms uncited researchers. Moreover, such acts denigrate the institutions from which “one-sided citing” emanates.
[1]Also, restore the original AMS label for our professional responsibilities, our stronger label, “Code of Ethics” from the current, mere, “Guidelines” label.
Conclusions.
We have shown that there is a credibility “inertia” that is not easily reversed; that the authors of numerous cloud seeding papers ignored contrary evidence concerning the successful phase of cloud seeding experiments they cited; nearly all of these adverse reports were in the same journal that they themselves had published one-sided articles in.
One can also posit a strong argument that “one-sided” or “selective” citing that gives only one side of the “coin” should never appear in a peer-reviewed journal. But authors who are not aware of the full body of literature, or have agendas can’t be completely blamed; the reviewers of those 38 articles exhibiting one-sided citing were also unfit to review the articles that they did, or also had agendas in allowing only one side of the story to be told.
While the reasons that authors frequently snub publications that overturn prior work may not be exactly known, it is has been shown that “one-sided citing” exists (some might say is “rampant”) in the cloud seeding literature.
REFERENCESCONTAINED IN THE ABOVE SECTIONS
Thereferences below are limited to those in the preceding discussions. References in a blue font and a gray background are those in preprint volumes or other “grey literature” that did not undergo peer review. In this survey we have tried to avoid those citations since many are also hard to find. We only use them when critical information has been reported that did not make it into the formal literature. The survey literature references are found in Tables 1 and 2. The key to the abbreviations used at the end of each reference in Tables 1 and 2 are found in Table 3.
Alpert, P., N. Halfon, and Z. Levin, 2008: Does air pollution really suppress precipitation in Israel? J. Appl. Meteor. Climatology, 47, 943-948. https://doi.org/10.1175/2007JAMC1803.1
Ayers, G., and Z. Levin, 2009: Air pollution and precipitation. In Clouds in the Perturbed Climate System. Their Relationship to Energy Balance, Atmospheric Dynamics, and Precipitation.J. Heintzenberg and R. J. Charlson, Eds. MIT Press, 369-399.
Benjamini, Y, A. Givati, P. Khain, Y. Levi, D. Rosenfeld, U. Shamir, A. Siegel, A. Zipori, B. Ziv, and D. M. Steinberg, 2023: The Israel 4 Cloud Seeding Experiment: Primary Results. J. Appl. Meteor. Climate, 62, 317-327. https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-22-0077.1
Breed, D., R. Rasmussen, C. Weeks, B. Boe., T. Deshler, 2014: Evaluating winter orographic cloud seeding: design of the Wyoming weather modification pilot project (WWMPP). J. Appl. Meteor. Climate, 53, 282-299.
Cooper, W. A., and C. P. R. Saunders, 1980: Winter storms over the San Juan mountains. Part II: Microphysical processes. J. Appl. Meteor., 19, 927-941.
Dennis, A. S., 1980: Weather Modification by Cloud Seeding. Academic Press, NY, 145.
__________, 1989: Editorial to the A. Gagin Memorial Issue of the J. Appl. Meteor.,28, 1013.
Fleischmann, M., and S. Pons, 1989: Electrochemically induced nuclear fusion of 1262deuterium. J. Electroanalytical Chem., 261, 301-308. No doi.
Freud, E., H. Koussevitsky, T. Goren and D. Rosenfeld, 2015: Cloud microphysical background for the Israeli-4 cloud seeding experiment. Atmos. Res., 158-159, 122-138.
Gabriel, K. R., and Rosenfeld, D., 1990: The second Israeli rainfall stimulation experiment: analysis of precipitation on both targets. J. Appl. Meteor., 29, 1055-1067. Givati, A., and D. Rosenfeld, 2005:Separation between cloud-seeding and air-pollution effects. Appl. Meteor., 44, 1298-1314.
Givati, A., and D. Rosenfeld, 2005:Separation between cloud-seeding and air-pollution effects. Appl. Meteor., 44, 1298-1314.
Grant, L. O., 1968: The role of ice nuclei in the formation of precipitation. Proc. Intern. Conf. Cloud Phys.,Toronto, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 305-310.
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Halfon, N., Z. Levin, P. Alpert, 2009: Temporal rainfall fluctuations in Israel and their possible link to urban and air pollution effects. Environ, Res. Lett., 4, 12pp. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/4/2/025001
Hobbs, P. V., and A. L. Rangno, 1979a: Comments on the Climax randomized cloud seeding experiments. J. Appl. Meteor., 18,1233-1237.
_____________, and _______________, 1979b: A reevaluation of the physical hypotheses for the Climax, Wolf Creek Pass, and Colorado River Basin Pilot Project cloud seeding experiments. Preprints, Seventh Conference on Planned and Inadvertent Weather Modification, Banff, Alberta, Canada.
Kerr, R. A., 1982: Cloud seeding: one success in 35 years. Science,217, 519–522. No doi.
Kessler, A., A. Cohen, D. Sharon, 2006: Analysis of the cloud seeding in northern Israel. Areport submitted to the Israel Hydrology Institute and the Israel Water Management of the Ministry of Infrastructure, In Hebrew with an English abstract, 117pp. No doi available.
Levin, Z., 2009: On the State of Cloud Seeding for Rain Enhancement. Report to the Energy, Environment and Water Research Center, The Cyprus Institute, Nicosia, Cyprus. 18pp. No doi available.
Meltesen, G. T., J. O. Rhea, G. J. Mulvey, and L. O. Grant, 1978: Certain problems in post hoc analysis of samples from heterogeneous populations and skewed distributions. Preprints.,9th National Conf. on Wea. Mod., Amer. Meteor. Soc., 388-391. No doi.
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_____________, L. O. Grant, and C. F. Chappell, 1970: Elevation and spatial variation effects of wintertime orographic cloud seeding. J. Appl. Meteor., 9,476-488. Corrigenda, 10, 842, 15,801.
Mielke, P. W., Jr., Brier, G. W., Grant, L. O., Mulvey, G. J., and P. N. Rosenweig, 1981 (February 1981): A statistical reanalysis of the replicated Climax I and II wintertime orographic cloud seeding experiments. J. Appl. Meteor.,20, 643-659.
Morel-Seytoux, H. J., and F. Saheli, 1973: Test of runoff increase due to precipitation management for the Colorado River Basin Pilot Project. J. Appl. Meteor., 12, 322-337.
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_____________, 1979b: A reanalysis of the Wolf Creek Pass experiment. Preprints, Seventh Conference on Planned and Inadvertent Weather Modification, Banff, Alberta, Canada, 3.1 to 3.2.
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Supplemental Material
APPENDIX 1. PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS IN JOURNALS UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY, IN THE JOURNALS ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH (ELSEVIER), AND THE ISRAEL JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCES THAT WERE EXAMINED IN THIS CITATION SURVEY .
The list of the peer-reviewed cloud seeding papers examined for “one-sided” citing concerning experiments in Colorado and Israel. The papers are confined to those that cited the cloud seeding experiments that were accepted for publication at least one year afterthe appearance of adverse literature had appeared. A reference in a red font indicates a paper that only cited the successful phase of these experiments and ignored the adverse literature (namely, the authors practiced one-sided citing). At the end of each article that met these referencing criteria, the papers cited in them that indicated a cloud seeding success are abbreviated in red. Articles that cited both the successful phase and adverse literature of these experiments are in a black font. Adverse literature also includes cloud reports at odds with those by the experimenters that provided a foundation for beliefs that cloud seeding had been successful. These supporting early cloud reports by the original experimenters generally indicated lower than actual ice particle concentrations in the seeded clouds compared to later independent measurements.
Appendix 2 lists those 13 peer-reviewed publications from the J. Wea. Mod. that were examined.
Appendix 3 is a key to the abbreviations used at the end of each journal article in Appendices 1 and 2 for the seeding success and adverse literature that was contained in them, if any.
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Alpert, P, N. Halfon, and Z. Levin, 2009:Reply to Givati and Rosenfeld. Appl. Meteor. Climatology, 48, 1751-1754. Cited cloud seeding success literature: GivR09. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: AHL08. https://doi.org/10.1175/2009JAMC1943.1
Blumenstein, R. R., Rauber, R. M., Grant, L. O., W. G. Finnegan, 1987: Application of ice nucleation kinetics in orographic clouds. Climate Appl. Meteor., 26, 1363-1376. Cited cloud seeding success literature: Metal81. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, V78, Melt78, M79, HR79, R79 VH76,GrDR82, Rh83, MAR80, CS80, CV81.
Braham, R. R., Jr., 1981: Designing cloud seeding experiments for physical understanding. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 62, 55-62. Cited cloud seeding success literature:GaN74, Ga75, Tukey et al. 1978, GrE74. Extant adverse cloud seedingliterature that went uncited: Fur67, AVM69, , VGr72a, b, V74, Hobal75, VH76, V78, Melt78, M79, R79, HR79. (This article was based on his October 1979 presentation at the Banff 7thConference on Weather Modification. It is presumed that all of the literature in 1979 was available to him when he framed this article for the Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc.)
Braham, R. R., Jr., 1986: Precipitation enhancement–a scientific challenge. In Precipitation Enhancement–A Scientific Challenge, R. Braham, ed., Meteor. Monog. 21, No. 43, 1-5. Cloud seeding success literature cited: GaN74, GaN81, NAS73, Tuk I and II.
Breed, D., R. Rasmussen, C. Weeks, B. Boe., T. Deshler, 2014: Evaluating winter orographic cloud seeding: design of the Wyoming weather modification pilot project (WWMPP). Appl. Meteor. Climate, 53, 282-299. Cited cloud seeding success literature: Metal81, MBM82, G86, Rn88. Adverse cloud seedingliterature that went uncited: AVM69, VGr72a,b, V74, V78, Melt78, R79, HR79, M79, GrDR82, Rh83, RH87, RH93, RH95a.
Bruintjes, R. T, 1999: A review of cloud seeding experiments to enhance precipitation and some new prospects. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 80, 805-820. Cited cloud seeding success literature: GrM67, MGC71, NAS73, GaN74, Brahm79, Metal81, GaN81, Cot86, ELL86, Ga86, Rn88, BZ97, DO97, ROS97, RF92, Sil86, Wood97. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: Brahm86, R86, RH87, L92, RH93, RH95b, Gb95. Additional adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: Fur67, AVM69, VGr72a,b, V74, V78, Melt78, R79, HR79, M79, Gretal79, Hill80a, Ro_retra80, GrDR82, Rh83, R88,RoG89, LGG96, RH97a, b, LTR97, ROS98.
Chu, B. Geerts, L. Xue, and R. Rasmussen, 2015: Large-Eddy Simulations of the Impact of Ground-Based Glaciogenic Seeding on Shallow Orographic Convection: A Case Study. Appl. Meteor. Climate, 56, 69-84. Cited cloud seeding literature: GaN81. Adverse cloud seedingliterature that went uncited: R88, RoGa89, GbR90, RH95, RH97a, b,SKCD08, LHA2010.
Cotton, W. R., 1986: Testing, implementation, and evolution of seeding concepts–a review. In Precipitation Enhancement–A Scientific Challenge, R. R. Braham, Jr., Ed., Monographs, 43, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 139-149. Cited cloud seeding success literature: Fur67, GrM67, CHAP70, MGC71, Metal81, GrE74, GrK74, C-MAR80, GaN74, Ga81, GN81. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: Hobal75, HR79, CS80. Additional adverse cloud seedingliterature that went uncited: Fur67, AVM69, VGr72a,b, V74, V78, Melt78, R79, HR79, M79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, GrDR82, Rh83.
Elliott, R. D., 1986: Review of wintertime orographic cloud seeding. Precipitation Enhancement–A Scientific Challenge, R. R. Braham, Jr., Ed., Monogr., 43, 87-103. Successful cloud seeding literature cited: GrM67, Gretal69, MGC70, MGC71, C71, Mor-Sey73, GrE74, ELL78, TukII, VM78, ELL80, CM80, RVM81, Metal81, MBM82, MM83, Gretal83, ELL84. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: R79 HR79,Melt77(sic), Gretal79, Rot_retra80, MAR80, CS80, Hill80a, RH80a, b, RH81, Rh83. Additional adverse cloud seedingliterature that went uncited: AVM69, VGr72a,b, V74, V78, M79, Hobal75, Hill80a, C-MAR80, CV81,GrDR82.
Elliott, R. D., Shaffer, R. W., Court, A., and J. F. Hannaford, 1980: Reply to Rangno and Hobbs. Appl. Meteor., 19, 350-355. Cited cloud seeding success literature: Gr_etal69, Gr_etal74,Tuk78, ELL76, ELL78. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: Ho_etal75, HR78, R79. Additional adverse cloud seedingliterature that went uncited: R79, was published withinthe year that this Reply appeared: M79, RH79, Fur67, VGr72a,b, V74, VH76, V78.
Cotton, W. R., 1986: Testing, implementation, and evolution of seeding concepts–a review. In Precipitation Enhancement–A Scientific Challenge, R. R. Braham, Jr., Ed., Monographs, 43, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 139-149. Cited cloud seeding success literature: Fur67, GrM67, CHAP70, MGC71, Metal81, GrE74, GrK74, C-MAR80, GaN74, Ga81, GN81. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: Hobal75, HR79, CS80. Additional adverse cloud seedingliterature that went uncited: Fur67, AVM69, VGr72a,b, V74, V78, Melt78, R79, HR79, M79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, GrDR82, Rh83.
Reynolds, D. W., and A. S. Dennis, 1986: A review of the Sierra cooperative pilot project. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 513-523. Cited cloud seeding success literature: MGC70, NAS73.
Farley, R. D., Price, P. E., Orville, H. D., and J. H. Hirsch, 1989: On the numerical simulation of graupel/hail initiation via the riming of snow in bulk water microphysical cloud models. Appl. Meteor., 28,1128-1131. Cited cloud seeding success literature: Ga81. Adverse cloud seedingliterature that went uncited: R88.
Flueck, J. A., W. L. Woodley, A. G. Barnston, and T. J. Brown, 1986: A further assessment of treatment effects in the Florida Area Cumulus Experiment through guided linear modeling. Climate Appl. Meteor., 25, 546-564. Cited cloud seeding success literature: Metal81. Adverse cloud seedingliterature that went uncited: AVM69, VGr72a,b, V74, V78, Melt78, R79, HR79, M79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, GrDR82, Rh83.
Flueck, J. A., 1986: Principles and prescriptions for improved experimentation in precipitation augmentation research. Precipitation Enhancement–A Scientific Challenge, R. R. Braham, Jr., Ed., Monographs, 43, No. 21, Amer. Meteor. Soc., Boston, 02108, 155-171. Cited cloud seeding success literature: CHAP70, NAS73, TukII78, MM83, MGC70, MGC71, Metal81. Extant adverse literature that went uncited:AVM69, VGr72a,b, V74, V78, Melt78, R79, HR79, M79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, GrDR82, Rh83.
Freud, E., H. Koussevitsky, T. Goren and D. Rosenfeld, 2015: Cloud microphysical background for the Israeli-4 cloud seeding experiment. Res., 158-159, 122-138. Cited cloud seeding success literature: GaN74, GaN81, RF92, RoN96, GivD05, GivD09, BZ11, RoG11. Cited adverse cloud seeding literature: GbR90, RH95b, LGG96, LHA2010. Additional adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: R88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2015.02.007
Gabriel, K. R., 1981: On the roles of physicists and statisticians in weather modification experimentation. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 62, 62-69. Cited cloud seeding success literature: Gb67a,b, GbB70, W71, GrE74, Tuk78, GbNu78. Cited adverse to cloud seeding literature:HR78, M79. Additional extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: AVM69, VGr72a,b, V74, V78, Melt78, R79, HR79, M79, MAR80, CS80. (KRG misconstrued the HR78 3-day effort as more than that which unraveled the Skagit Project as one due to extensive searching. KRG had mistaken it with the extensive search by the original experimenters through 29 variables.)
Gabriel, K. R., 2000: Parallels between statistical issues in medical and meteorological experimentation.J. Appl. Meteor., 39, 1822–1236. Cited cloud seeding success literature: Gb67, GbB70,M95, RoN96, ROS97. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: Gb95, GbR90, RH93, RH95a, List99. Additional extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited:AVM69, VGr72a,b, V74, V78, Melt78, R79, HR79, M79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, GrDR82, Rh83, RH87, R88, L92, L94, RH95b, RH97a, b, LGG96, ROS98, Br99.
Gabriel, K. R., 2002: Confidence regions and pooling—some statistics for weather experimentation. Appl. Meteor., 41, 505-518. Cited cloud seeding success literature: GbB70, GaN81,RF92, RoNi96. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: GbR90. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: R88, RoG89, L92, L94, RH95b, LGG96, RH97a, b, LKR97, ROS98.
Gabriel, K. R., and Rosenfeld, D., 1990: The second Israeli rainfall stimulation experiment: analysis of precipitation on both targets. Appl. Meteor., 29, 1055-1067. Cited cloud seeding success literature: Gb67, GbB70, GaN74, GaN81, GaA85, GaGb87, ROS89. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: R88, RH88, RoG89.https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1990)029%3C1055:TSIRSE%3E2.0.CO;
Gagin, A., and K. R. Gabriel, 1987: Analysis of recording gage data for the Israeli II experiment Part I: Effects of cloud seeding on the components of daily rainfall. Appl. Meteor., 26, 913-926. Cloud seeding success literature cited: Gb67, NuGbGa67, GbB70, Ga70, MGC70, CGM71, GaS74, GaN74, Ga75, GaN81, Metal81, , , , , GbF69, , , TukII78, Ga81, GaN81. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: Fur67, AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, VH76,V78, Melt78, Gretal79, M79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, GrDR82, Rh83. (Colo only)
Givati, A., and D. Rosenfeld, 2005:Separation between cloud-seeding and air-pollution effects. Appl. Meteor., 44, 1298-1314. Cited cloud seeding success literature: G67, GaN74, GaN81, ROS97. Cited adverse cloud seeding literature: GbR90, RH95b, Sil2001. Additional extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: R88, L92, L94, LGG96, RH97a, b,LKT97, Br99. https://doi.org/10.1175/JAM2276.1
Grant, L. O., 1986: Hypotheses for the Climax wintertime orographic cloud seeding experiments. InPrecipitation Enhancement–A Scientific Challenge, R. R. Braham, Jr., Ed., Meteor. Monographs, 43, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 105-108. Cited cloud seeding success literature: CHAP67, CHAP70, GrM67, MGC70, MGC71, Metal81. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: Fur67, AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, VH76,V78, Melt78, Gretal79, M79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, GrDR82, Rh83.
Heimbach, J. B., Jr., A. B. Super, 1996: Simulating the influence of type II error on the outcome of past statistical experiments. Appl. Meteor., 35, 1551-1567. Cited cloud seeding success literature: M95, MM83, Metal81. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: Fur67, AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, VH76,V78, Melt78, Gretal79, M79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, GrDR82, Rh83. RH87, RH93, RH95a.
Hill, G. E., 1980a: Reexamination of cloud-top temperatures used as criteria of cloud seeding effects in experiments on winter orographic clouds (July 1980). Climate Appl. Meteor., 19, 1167-1175. Cited cloud seeding success literature cited: GM67, CHAP70, MGC71, GE74, VM78. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: R79, HR79. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: Fur67, AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, VH76, V78, Melt78, Gretal79, M79.
Hill, G. E., 1980b:Seeding-opportunity recognition in winter orographic clouds. Climate Appl. Meteor., 22, 1371-1381. Cited cloud seeding success literature: GrM67, MGC70, MGC71, CGM71, GrE74, ELL78, VM78. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: R79, HR79. Additional extant adverse literature that went uncited:Fur67, AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, VH76,V78, Melt78, Gretal79, M79, R79, HR79.
Hill, G. E., 1986:Seedability of winter orographic clouds. Monogr., 43, No. 21, 127-137. Cited cloud seeding success literature: GrM67, GrE74, MGC70, MGC71, VM78, Hill80b. Adverse cloud seeding literature that was cited: Rotal75, Hobal75, CS80, MAR80, Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: Fur67, AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, VH76, V78, Melt78, Gretal79, M79, R79, HR79, RH80b, RH81, CV81, GrDR82, Rh83.
Jing, X., and B. Geerts, 2015: Dual-Polarization Radar Data Analysis of the Impact of Ground-Based Glaciogenic Seeding on Winter Orographic Clouds. Part II: Convective Clouds. Appl. Meteor. Climate, 54, 2099-2117. Cited cloud seeding success literature: GaN81, GrE74, Br99, Fetal15, Gb99. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: RH95b.Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: Fur67, AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, VH76, V78, Melt78, Gretal79, M79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, Ro_retra80, RH80b, RH81, CV81, GrDR82, Rh83. RH87, RH93, RH95a, R88, RH88, RF92, L92, L94, LGG96,ROS98, LHA2010.
Levi, Y., and D. Rosenfeld, 1996: Ice nuclei, rainwater chemical composition, and static cloud seeding effects in Israel. Appl. Meteor., 35, 1494-1501. Cited cloud seeding success literature: Ga75, NiRo95, RF92, RoNi96. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: R88, RH88, RoG89, L92,94,RH95b.https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1996)035%3C1494:INRCCA%3E2.0.CO;2
Levin, Z., E. Ganor, and V. Gladstein, 1996 (June 1995): The effects of desert particles coated with sulfate on rain formation in the eastern Mediterranean. Appl. Meteor., 35, 1511-1523. Cited cloud seeding success literature: GaN74, GaN81, Ga75. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: R88. Extant adverse literature to that went uncited: L92, L94, RH88, GbR90, RF92.
Levin, Z., S 0. Kirchak, and T. Reisen, 1997 (September 1996): Numerical simulation of dispersal of inert seeding material in Israel using a three-dimensional mesoscale model. Appl. Meteor., 36, 474-484. Cited cloud seeding success literature: GaN74, GaN81, GaA85. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: GbR90, L94. Additionalextant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: R88, RoG89, RH88, RH95b. https://doi.org/10.1175/15200450(1997)036%3C0474:NSODOI%3E2.0.CO;2
List, R., 2004 (August 2003): Weather modification—a scenario for the future. Amer. Meteor. Soc.,85, 51-63. Cited cloud seeding success literature: Gb67 Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: GbR90. Additional adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: R88, RH88, RoG89, L92, L94, RH95b, MGG96, RH97a, b, LKR97, ROS98, Br99, Sil2001, NAS03.
Manton, M. J., L. Warren, S. L. Kenyon, A. D. Peace, S. D. Bilish, and K. Kemsley, 2011: A Confirmatory Snowfall Enhancement Project in the Snowy Mountains of Australia. Part I: Project Design and Response Variables. Appl. Meteor. Climate, 50, 1432-1447. Cited cloud seeding success literature: MBM82, Br99, Cot_Piel92, NAS03. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: Fur67, AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, VH76,V78, Melt78, Gretal79, M79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, GrDR82, Rh83, RH87, RH93, RH95a M95, Gb95.
Marwitz, J., 1980 (January 1980): Winter storms over the San Juan mountains. Part I. Dynamical processes (January 1980). Appl. Meteor., 19, 913-926. Cited cloud seeding success literature: GrM67. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: Hobal1975. Several cited conference preprints were not available. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: Fur67, AVM69,VGr72a, b, V74, VH76,Melt78, V78.
Mather, G., M. J. Dixon, J. M. de Jager, 1996 (June 1995):Assessing the Potential for Rain Augmentation-The Nelspruit Randomized Convective Cloud Seeding Experiment. Appl. Meteor., 35, 1465-1482. Cited cloud seeding success literature: GaN81, Brillinger et al. 1978. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: R88, RoG89, GbR90, RF92, L92, L94, RH95b.https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1996)035%3C1511:TEODPC%3E2.0.CO;2
Mielke, P. W., Jr., 1985: Geometric concerns pertaining to applications of statistical tests in the atmospheric sciences. Atmos, Sci., 42,1209-1212. Cited cloud seeding success literature: Metal81, MGC71, MBM82. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: Fur67, AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, VH76, V78, Melt78, Gretal79, M79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, Ro_retra80, RH80b, RH81, CV81, GrDR82, Rh83.
Mielke, P. W., Jr., and J. G. Medina, 1983: A new covariate procedure for estimating treatment differences with application to Climax I and II experiments. Climate Appl. Meteor., 22,1290-1295. Cited cloud seeding success literature: MGC71, Metal81, MBM82. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, VH76,V78, Melt78, Gretal79, M79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, Ro_retra80, RH80b, RH81, CV81, GrDR82.
Mielke, P. W., Jr., Berry, K., and J. G. Medina, 1982:Climax I and Climax II: distortion resistant residuals. Climate and Appl. Meteor., 21, 788-792. Cited cloud seeding success literature cited: MGC70, MGC71, Metal81. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: M79. Extant adverse literature that went uncited: Fur67, AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, VH76,V78, Melt78, Gretal79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, Ro_retra80, RH80b, RH81, CV81.
Mielke, P. W. Jr., K. J. Berry, A. S. Dennis, P. L. Smith, J. R. Miller, Jr., B. A. Silverman, 1984: HIPLEX-1: Statistical Evaluation (October 1983). Clim. Appl. Meteor., 23, 513-522. Cited cloud seeding success literature:MBM82, MM83. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited:Fur67, AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, VH76,V78, Melt78, Gretal79, M79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, Ro_retra80, RH80b, RH81, CV81, GrDR82, Rh83.
Mielke, P. W., Jr., Brier, G. W., Grant, L. O., Mulvey, G. J., and P. N. Rosenweig, 1981 (February 1981): A statistical reanalysis of the replicated Climax I and II wintertime orographic cloud seeding experiments. Appl. Meteor.,20, 643-659. Cited cloud seeding success literature cited: Gretal69, Chap70, MGC70, MGC71, Tukey et al. 1978. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: M79. Additional adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: Fur67,AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, VH76, V78, Melt78, Gretal79, M79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80.
Morrison, A. E., S. J. Siems, and M. J. Manton, 2013: On a natural environment for glaciogenic cloud seeding. Appl. Meteor. Climate,52, 1097-1104.Cited cloud seeding success literature: Metal81. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited:AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, VH76, V78, Melt78, Gretal79, M79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, RH80b, Ro_retra80, RH81, CV81, GrDR82, Rh83. RH87, RH93, RH95a, Gb95, NAS03.
National Research Council-National Academy of Sciences, 2003:Critical issues in weather modification research. Garstang, Ed., 123pp. Cloud seeding success literature cited: GrM67, Metal81, Gb67, GaN74, GaN81, RF92, RoNi96. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: RH87, GbR90, RH93, RH95b, Sil01. Extant adverse literature that went uncited: Fur67, AVM69, VGr72a,b, V74, VH76, V78, , R79, HR79, Rh83, R86, RoG89, L92, L94, LGG96, LKR97, RH97a, b, ROS98.
Nirel, R., and D. Rosenfeld, 1995: Estimation of the effect of operational seeding on rain amounts in Israel. Appl. Meteor., 34, 2220-2229. Cited cloud seeding success literature: Gb67, GbB70, Tukey et al. 1978, GaN81. Cited adverse cloud seeding literature: GbR90. Additional extant adverse cloud seeding literature: R88, L92, L94, RF92. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1995)034%3C2220:EOTEOO%3E2.0.CO;2
Parkin, D. A., W. D. King, and D. E. Shaw, 1982: An automatic recording raingage network for a cloud-seeding experiment. Appl. Meteor., 21, 227-236. Cited cloud seeding success literature: GrM67, Gb67, C-Mar80. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: Fur67, AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, VH76, V78, Melt78, Gretal79, M79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, Ro_retra80, RH80b, RH81, CV81.
Rangno, A. L., 1986: How good are our conceptual models of orographic clouds? InPrecipitation Enhancement–A Scientific Challenge, R. R. Braham, Jr., Ed., Monographs, 43, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 115-124. Cited cloud seeding success literature: RDW69,CGM71, ELL76, ELL78, Gr68, Gretal69, Metal81. Cited adverse cloud seeding literature: AVM69,MedR73, Hobal75, VH76, MCS76, V78, R79, Hill80a, Hill80b, CS80, MAR80, CV81, GrDR82.
Rangno, A. L., and P. V. Hobbs, 1980a: Comments on “Randomized seeding in the San Juan mountains of Colorado.” Appl. Meteor., 19, 346-350. Cited cloud seeding success literature: GrM67, RDW69, MGC70, MGC71, CGM71, ELL76, MWW77, ELL78. Cited adverse cloud seeding literature: AVM69, VGr72a, b, Hobal75, MCS76,HR78, HR79, R79. Additional adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: Fur67, V74, VH76, V78,Melt78, M79, Gretal79. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1980)019%3C0346:COCSIT%3E2.0.CO;2
Rangno, A. L., and P. V. Hobbs, 1980b (February 1980): Comments on “Generalized criteria for seeding winter orographic clouds”. Appl. Meteor., 19, 906-907. Cited cloud seeding success literature: GrM67, MCG71, VM78. Cited adverse cloud seeding literature: VH76, M79. Additional extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: Fur67, AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, Melt78, V78, M79, Gretal79. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1980)019%3C0906:COCFSW%3E2.0.CO;2
Rangno, A. L., and P. V. Hobbs, 1981: Comments on “Reanalysis of ‘Generalized criteria for seeding winter orographic clouds,’” Appl. Meteor., 20, 216.Cited cloud seeding success literature: VM78Cited adverse cloud seeding literature: RH80, Ro_retrac80. Additional adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: Fur67, AVM69, VGr72a,b, V74, VH76, MCH76, Melt78, R79, HR79, Hill80a, CS80, MAR80.
Rangno, A. L., and P. V. Hobbs, 1993: Further analyses of the Climax cloud-seeding experiments. Appl. Meteor., 32, 1837-1847. Cited cloud seeding success literature: GrM67, CHAP67, G68, RDW69, Gretal69, CHAP70, CGM71, M-SS73, NAS73,Gretal74, ELL76,ELL78, Metal81, MBM82, G86, GrE74,HILL86, Rn88. Cited adverse cloud seeding literature: Fur67,AVM69, Hobal75, VH76, Melt78, HR79, R79, Maret80, Hill80a, MAR80, RH80a, CV81, Rh83, R86, RH87. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1993)032%3C1837:FAOTCC%3E2.0.CO;2
Rangno, A. L., and P. V. Hobbs, 1995a: Reply to Gabriel and Mielke. Appl. Meteor., 34, 1233-1238. Cited cloud seeding success literature: CHAP67, GrM67, Gr68, Gretal69, CHAP70, MGC70, MGC71, CGM71, Gretal71, GK74, Metal81, Gr86, Rn88. Cited adverse cloud seeding literature: VH76, MCS76, Gretal79, M79, HR79, C-MAR80, Hob80,Rh83, RH87, RH93. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1995)034%3C1233:R%3E2.0.CO;2
Rangno, A. L., and P. V. Hobbs, 1995b: A new look at the Israeli cloud seeding experiments. Appl. Meteor., 34, 1169-1193. Cited cloud seeding success literature:Gb67a, Gb67b, GbB70, Ga71, W71, Bret73, GS73, GaN74, Ga75, GaN76, GbN78, Ga80, Ga81, Kerr82, Ga86, Sil86, GGb87, B-Z88, RF92, Y93. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: HR78, R79, BHarp86, R88, RH88, RoG89, GbR90, L92. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1995)034%3C1169:ANLATI%3E2.0.CO;2
Rangno, A. L., and P. V. Hobbs, 1997a: Reply to Rosenfeld (July 1996). Appl. Meteor., 36, 272-276. Cited cloud seeding success literature: W71, Ga71, Ga75, Ga80, Ga81, GaN74, GaN76, GaN81, Ga86, GaG87, B-Z88, RF92, Y93, ROS97. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: HR79, R88, GbR90, L94, RH93, RH95a, b, RH97a, b. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1997)036%3C0272:R%3E2.0.CO;2
Rangno, A. L., and P. V. Hobbs, 1997c: Reply to Ben-Zvi. Appl. Meteor., 36, 257-259. Cloud seeding success literature cited: GaN76, D80, Ga80, Ga81, GaN81, Ga86, GaG87, B-Z88,Sh90, RF92. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: B-Harp86, RoG89, GbR90, L92, L94, R88, RH95b.https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1997)036%3C0257:R%3E2.0.CO;2
Rangno, A. L., and P. V. Hobbs, 1997d: Reply to Dennis and Orville. Appl. Meteor., 36, 279. Cloud seeding success literature cited: D89. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: DO97, RH95b. Additional extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: R88, GbR90, L92, L94, LGGC96.https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1997)036%3C0279:R%3E2.0.CO;2
Rangno, A. L., and P. V. Hobbs, 1997e: Reply to Woodley. Appl. Meteor., 36, 253. Cloud seeding success literature cited: Ga75, Ga81, Ga86. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: RH88, RH95. Additional extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: R88, GbR90, L92, L94, LGGC96. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1997)036%3C0253:R%3E2.0.CO;2
Rangno, A. L., and P. V. Hobbs, 1987: A re-evaluation of the Climax cloud seeding experiments using NOAA published data. Climate Appl. Meteor., 26,757-762. Cited cloud seeding success literature: GrM67,Gretal69, MGC70, MGC71, Gretal74, Metal81, MM83, MBM82, NAS73. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: R79, HR79, M79. Additional extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: Fur67, AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, VH76, Melt78, V78, Gretal79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, Rh83. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1987)026%3C0757:AROTCC%3E2.0.CO;2
Reisen, T, Z. Levin, S. Tzivion, 1996: Rain production in convective clouds as simulated in an axisymmetric model with detailed microphysics. Part II: Effects of varying drops and ice Initiation. J Atmos. Sci., 53, 1815-1837. Cited cloud seeding success literature: Ga75. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: L94, Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: R88, RH88, RoG89, RF92, RH95b.
Reisen, T, Z. Levin, S. Tzivion, 1996: Seeding convective clouds with ice nuclei or hygroscopic particles: A numerical study using a model with detailed microphysics. Appl. Meteor., 35, 1416-1434. Cited cloud seeding success literature: Ga75, GaN81, Sil86. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: L94. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: R88, RoG89,RF92.
Reynolds, D. W., 1988: A report on winter snowpack-augmentation. Bull Amer. Meteor. Soc., 69, 1290-1300. Cited cloud seeding success literature: W71, CGM71, GrK74, Metal81, ELL86Su. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: R86, RH87. Additional extant adverse literature that went uncited: Fur67,AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, Hobal75, VH76, Melt78, V78, M79,Gretal79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, Rh83
Reynolds, D. W., and A. S. Dennis, 1986: A review of the Sierra Cooperative Project. Bull Amer. Meteor. Soc., 67, 513-523. Cited cloud seeding success literature: MGC70, NAS73. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited:Fur67,AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, Hobal75, VH76, Melt78, V78, M79, Gretal79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, Rh83
Rhea, J. O., 1983: “Comments on ‘A statistical reanalysis of the replicated Climax I and II wintertime orographic cloud seeding experiments.'” Climate Appl. Meteor.,22, 1475-1481. Cited cloud seeding success literature: GrM67, MGC70, Metal81, MBM82. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: Gretal79. Additional extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: Fur67,AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, Hobal75, VH76, Melt78, V78, M79, Gretal79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, CV81.
Rosenfeld, D., 1997 (July 1996): Comment on “Reanalysis of the Israeli Cloud Seeding Experiments” Appl. Meteor., 36, 260-271. Cited cloud seeding success literature: W71, Bret73, Gb66(sic), GbB70, Ga75, GaN74, GaN81, GaA85, RF92, NiRo95, LevRo96, TukII, Wood97. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: R88, RH88, GbR90 L92, RH95b, Ro89. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: RH97b.https://doi.org/10.1175/15200450(1997)036%3C0260:COANLA%3E2.0.CO;2
Rosenfeld, D., 1998: The third Israeli randomized cloud seeding experiment in the south: evaluation of the results and review of all three experiments.Preprints, 14th on Planned and Inadvertent Wea. Modif.,Everett, Amer. Meteor. Soc. 565-568. Cited cloud seeding success literature: W71, GaN74, GaN81, Ga81, RF92, RoNi96, LevRo96. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: GbR90, LGG96. Additional extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: R88, RH88, L92, L94, RH95b, RH97a, b, LKR97.
Rosenfeld, D., and H. Farbstein, 1992: Possible influence of desert dust on seedability of clouds in Israel. Appl. Meteor., 31, 722-731. Cited cloud seeding success literature: NuGbGa67, GbB70, GaN74, GaS74, Ga75, GaN81, GaA85. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: GbR90. Additionalextant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: R88 (appears in references but is not discussed in the text).https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1992)031%3C0722:PIODDO%3E2.0.CO;2
Rosenfeld, D., and R. Nirel, 1996: Seeding effectiveness—the interaction of desert dust and the southern margins of rain cloud systems in Israel. Appl. Meteor., 35, 1502-1510. Cited cloud seeding success literature cited: NuGbGa67, GbB70, GaN74, Ga75, GaN81, RF92, NiRo95. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: GbR90. Additional extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: R88, RH88, RoG89,L92, L94, NiRo94, RH95b. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0450(1996)035%3C1502:SEIODD%3E2.0.CO;2
Ryan, B. F., 1996: On the Global Variation of Precipitating Layer Clouds. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 77, 53-70. Cited cloud seeding success literature: Ga75, GaN74, Ga81, GaN81. Adverse extant literature that went uncited: R88, RH88,RoG89, GbR90, L92, L94, RH95b,
Ryan, B. F., and King, W. D., 1997 (August 1996): A critical review of the Australian experience in cloud seeding. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 78, 239-254. Cited cloud seeding success literature: GrM67,MGC71, CGM71, GaN74, GaN81, Cot86, CotP92, RF92, Sil86. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: RH93, L94, RH95b. Additional adverse literature that went uncited: Fur67,AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, Hobal75, VH76, Melt78, V78, M79, Gretal79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, Rh83, RH87, R88. RH88, L92.
Sharon, D., A. Kessler, A. Cohen, and E. Doveh, 2008: The history and recent revision of Israel’s cloud seeding program. J. Earth Sci., 57, 65-69. Cited cloud seeding success literature: GaN74, GaN81, GivRo04, GivRo05, NR95. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: GbR90, AHL08. Additional extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: R88, RoG89,RF92, L92, L94, RH95b, LGG96, RH97a,b, LKR97, Br99, Sil01. https://DOI.org/10.1560/IJES.57.1.65.
Silverman, B. A., 2001 (21 Nov 2000). A critical assessment of glaciogenic seeding of convective clouds for rainfall enhancement. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 82, 903-924. Cited cloud seeding success literature: W71, NAS73, GaN74, Ga75, Tuk78 I and II, Ga81, GaN81, Ga86, Cot86, Sil86, RF92, LevRo96, RoNi96, Wood97, Br99. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: GbR90, L92, NiRo94, RH95b, LGG96, LKR97, RH97a, ROS98,L99 Additional extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: R88, RH88, RoG89,L94, RH97b. https://doi.org/10.1175/15200477(2001)082%3C0903:ACAOGS%3E2.3.CO;2
Smith, P. L., A. S. Dennis, B. A. Silverman, A. Super, E. W. Holroyd, III, W. A. Cooper, P. W. Mielke, Jr., K. J. Berry, H. D. Orville, and J. A. Miller, Jr., 1984:HIPLEX-1: Experimental design and response variables. Climate Appl. Meteor.,23, 497-512. Cited cloud seeding success literature: Metal81. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: Fur67,AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, Hobal75, VH76, Melt78, V78, M79, Gretal79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, Rh83.
72. Smith, P. L., L. R. Johnson, D. L. Priegnitz, B. A. Boe, P. W. Mielke, Jr., 1997: An Exploratory Analysis of Crop Hail Insurance Data for Evidence of Cloud Seeding Effects in North Dakota. Appl. Meteor., 36, 463-473. Cited cloud seeding success literature: MBM82. Extant adverse literature that went uncited: Fur67,AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, Hobal75, VH76, Melt78, V78, M79, Gretal79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, Rh83, RH87, RH93, RH95a.
73. Super, A. B., and J. A. Heimbach, Jr., 1983: Evaluation of the Bridger Range winter cloud seeding experiment using control gages. Appl. Meteor., 22, 1989–2011. Cited cloud seeding success literature: CHAP67, Chap70, GrM67, Gretal69, MGC70, MGC71, HolJ71, GrE74, Rot75, Hill80b, Hill82, Metal81, MBM82. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: M79, HR79, CS80. Additional extant adverse literature to that went uncited: Fur67,AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, Hobal75, VH76, Melt78, V78, Gretal79, R79, Hill80a, MAR80, CV81. (The authors cited numerous preprints and grey, “Final Report” type literature that were not available for inspection.)
74. Super, A. B., B. A. Boe, and E. W. Hindman, III, 1988 (March 1988): Microphysical effects of wintertime cloud seeding with silver iodide over the Rocky Mountains. Part 1: experimental design and instrumentation. Appl. Meteor., 27, 1145-1151. Cited cloud seeding success literature: Metal81. Extant adverse literature that went uncited:Fur67,AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, Hobal75, VH76, Melt78, V78, M79, Gretal79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, Rh83, RH87.
75. Tzivion, S., T. Reisen, and Z. Levin, 1994: Numerical simulation of hygroscopic seeding in a convective cloud. Appl. Meteor., 33, 252-267. Cited cloud seeding success literature: Ga75. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: R88, RoG89, L92, RF92.
76. Xue, L., X. Chu, R. Rasmussen, D. Breed and B. Geerts, 2016: A Case Study of Radar Observations and WRF LES Simulations of the Impact of Ground-Based Glaciogenic Seeding on Orographic Clouds and Precipitation. Part II: AgI Dispersion and Seeding Signals Simulated by WRF. Appl. Meteor. Climate, 55, 445-464. Cited cloud seeding success literature: MGC70, CGM71, Metal81, ELL78, VM78, M95. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: Ro_retra80, Gb95. Additional extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: Fur67,AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, Hobal75, VH76, Melt78, V78, M79, Gretal79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, Rh83, RH80a, b, RH81, RH87, RH93, RH95a.
——————————————————————————————APPENDIX 2. THE PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES EXAMINED IN THE JOURNAL OF THE WEATHER MODIFICATION ASSOCIATION FOR CITATIONS IN THIS SURVEY.
77. R. R., W. E. Finnegan, and L. O. Grant, 1983: Ice nucleation by silver iodide-sodium iodide: a reevaluation. J. Wea. Mod., 15, 11-15. Cited cloud seeding success literature: GaN74, GaN81, GaM67, Metal81. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: Fur67,AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, Hobal75, VH76, Melt78, V78, M79,Gretal79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, CV81.
78. Boe, B. A., and A. B. Super, 1986: Wintertime characteristics of supercooled water over the Grand Mesa of western Colorado. Wea. Mod.,18, 102-107. Cited cloud seeding success literature: GrM67. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: Fur67,AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, Hobal75, VH76, Melt78, V78, M79,Gretal79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, Rh83.
79. Elliott, R. D., 1984: Seeding effects on convective clouds in the Colorado River Basin Pilot Project. Wea. Mod., 16, 30-33. Cited cloud seeding success literature: ELL78, VM78. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited:Fur67, AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, Hobal75, VH76, Melt78, V78, M79, Gretal79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, Rh3.
80. Grant, L. O., and R. M. Rauber, 1988: Radar observations of wintertime clouds over the Colorado and Utah. Wea. Mod.,20, 37-43. Cited cloud seeding success literature: Fur67, Gr87 (sic), Metal81. Extant adverse literature that went uncitedFur67,AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, Hobal75, VH76, Melt78, V78, M79, Gretal79, R79, HR79, Hill80a, MAR80, CS80, CV81, Rh83, RH87.
81. Griffith, D. A., 1984: Selected analyses of the Utah/NOAA cooperative research program conducted in Utah during the 82-83 winter season. Wea. Mod., 16, 34-39. Cited cloud seeding literature: GrM67. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: Fur67,AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, Hobal75, VH76, Melt78, V78, M79, Gretal79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, Rh83.
83. Griffith, D. A., and J. R. Thompson, 1991: A winter cloud seeding program in Utah. Wea. Mod., 22, 27-34. Cited cloud seeding success literature: VM78. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: HR79, RH80b, Rot_retra80, RVM81, HR81.
84. Long, A. B., 2001: Review of downwind extra-area effects of precipitation enhancement. Wea. Mod., 33, 24-45. Cited cloud seeding success literature: ELL78, Bret74. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited: Fur67,AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, Hobal75, VH76, Melt78, V78, M79, Gretal79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, Rh83, RH95a, b, RH97a, b, Br99.
85. Shaffer, R. W., 1983: Seeding agent threshold activation temperature height, an important criterion for ground-based seeding. Wea. Mod., 15, 16-20. Cited cloud seeding success literature: ELL78, VM78. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: H80a, b, Ro_retra80. Extant cloud seeding literature that went uncited: RH80a, b, Rot_retra80, RVM81, RH81.
86. Silverman, B. A., 2009: An independent statistical evaluation of the Vail operational cloud seeding program. Wea. Mod., 41, 7-14. ELL78, GrE74, Metal81.Extant adverse literature that went uncited: Fur67,AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, Hobal75, VH76, Melt78, V78, M79, Gretal79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, Rh83, R86, RH87, RH93, RH95a, Gb95, Gb00, Sil01.
87. Solak, M. E., R. B. Allan, T. J. Henderson, 1988: Ground-based supercooled liquid water measurements in winter orographic clouds. Wea. Mod., 20, 9-18. Cited cloud seeding success literature: GrE74. Extant adverse literature that went uncited: Fur67,AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, Hobal75, VH76, Melt78, V78, M79, Gretal79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, Rh83, RH87.
88. Super, A. B., 1990: Winter orographic cloud seeding status in the intermountain West. Wea. Mod., 22, 106-116. Cited cloud seeding success literature: GrE74. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited:Fur67,AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, Hobal75, VH76, Melt78, V78, M79, Gretal79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, R83, R86, RH87.
89. Todd, C., and W. E. Howell, 1980: General and special hypotheses for winter orographic cloud seeding. Wea. Mod., 12, 1-15. Cited cloud seeding success literature: MGC71, VM78. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited:Fur67,AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, Hobal75, VH76, Melt78, V78, M79, Gretal79, R79, HR79.
90. Todd, C. J., and W. E. Howell, 1985: Repeatability of strong responses in in precipitation management. Wea. Mod., 17, 1-6. Cited: Cited cloud seeding success literature: ELL84, ELL78, GaN81, GrE74, M63 (sic), VM78. Extant adverse cloud seeding literature that went uncited:Fur67,AVM69, VGr72a, b, V74, Hobal75, VH76, Melt78, V78, M79, Gretal79, R79, HR79, MAR80, CS80, CV81, Rh83.
AHL08: Alpert, P., N. Halfon, and Z. Levin, 2008: Does air pollution really suppress precipitation in Israel? J. Appl. Meteor. Climatology, 47, 943-948. https://doi.org/10.1175/2007JAMC1803.1
AVM69: Auer, A. H., D. L. Veal, and J. D. Marwitz, 1969: Observations of ice crystals and ice nuclei observations in stable cap clouds. J. Atmos. Sci., 26, 1342-1343.
BZ88: Ben-Zvi, A., 1988: Enhancement of runoff from a small watershed by cloud seeding. J. Hydro!.101,291-303. No doi.
BHarp86: Benjamini, Y., and Y. Harpaz, 1986: Observational rainfall-runoff analysis for estimating effects of cloud seeding on water resources in northern Israel. J. Hydrol., 83, 299-306.Doi not available.
BZetal10: Ben-Zvi, A, Rosenfeld, D., A. Givati, 2010. Comments on “Reassessment of rain experiments and operations in Israel including synoptic considerations” by. Levin, N. Halfon and P. Alpert (Atmos. Res., 97, 513-525.
BGM73: Brier, G. W., L. O. Grant, and P. W. Mielke, Jr., 1973: An evaluation of extended area effects from attempts to modify local clouds and cloud systems. Proc., WMO/IAMAP Scien. Conf. on Weather Modification, Tashkent, World Meteor. Org., 439-447.
Br99: Bruintjes, R. T, 1999: A review of cloud seeding experiments to enhance precipitation and some new prospects. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 80,805-820.
CHAP67: Chappell, C. F., 1967: Cloud seeding opportunity recognition. Atmos. Sci. Paper 118, Dept. of Atmos. Sci., Colorado State University, 87pp.
CHAP70: Chappell, C. F., 1970: Modification of cold orographic clouds. Ph.D. Dissertation, Dept. of Atmos. Sci., Colorado State University, 196 pp.
CGM71: Chappell, C. F., L. O. Grant, and P. W. Mielke, Jr., 1971: Cloud seeding effects on precipitation intensity and duration of wintertime orographic clouds. J. Appl. Meteor., 10, 1006-1010.
CMAR80: Cooper, W. A., and J. D. Marwitz, 1980: Winter storms over the San Juan mountains. Part III. Seeding potential. J. Appl. Meteor.,19, 942-949.
CS80: Cooper, W. A., and C. P. R. Saunders, 1980: Winter storms over the San Juan mountains. Part II: Microphysical processes. J. Appl. Meteor., 19, 927-941.
CV81: Cooper, W. A., and G. Vali, 1981: The origin of ice in mountain cap clouds. J. Atmos. Sci., 38, 1244-1259.
DO97: Dennis, A. R, and H. D. Orville, 1997: Comments on “A new look at the Israeli cloud seeding experiments.” J. Appl. Meteor., 36, 277-278.
ELL76: Elliott, R. D., R. W. Shaffer, A. Court and J. F. Hannaford, 1976: Colorado River Basin Pilot Project Comprehensive Evaluation Report. Final Report to the Bureau of Reclamation, Aerometric Research,Inc., Goleta, CA, 641 pp.
ELL78: Elliott, R. D., Shaffer, R. W., Court, A., and J. F. Hannaford, 1978: Randomized cloud seeding in the San Juan mountains, Colorado. J. Climate Appl. Meteor., 17, 1298-1318.
ELL80: Elliott, R. D., Shaffer, R. W., Court, A., and J. F. Hannaford, 1980: Reply to Rangno and Hobbs. J. Appl. Meteor., 19, 350-355.
Fretal15: Freud, E., H. Koussevitsky, T. Goren and D. Rosenfeld, 2015: Cloud microphysical background for the Israeli-4 cloud seeding experiment. Atmos. Res., 158-159, 122-138.
Fur67: Furman, R. W., 1967: Radar characteristics of wintertime storms in the Colorado Rockies. M. S. thesis, Colorado State University, 40pp
Gb67a: Gabriel, K. R., 1967a: The Israeli artificial rainfall stimulation experiment: statistical evaluation for the period 1961-1965. Vol. V., Proc. Fifth Berkeley Symp. on Mathematical Statistics and Probability, L. M. Le Cam and J. Neyman, eds., University of California Press, 91-113.
Gb67b: Gabriel, K. R., 1967b: Recent results of the Israeli artificial rainfall stimulation experiment. J. Appl. Meteor., 6, 437-438.
GbBar70: Gabriel, K. R.., and M. Baras, 1970: The Israeli rainmaking experiment 1961-1967 Final statistical tables and evaluation. Tech. Rep., Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 47pp. No doi.
GbNu78: ___________., and J. Neumann, 1978: A note of explanation on the 1961–67 Israeli rainfall stimulation experiment. J. Appl. Meteor., 17, 552–556.
GbR90: Gabriel, K. R., and Rosenfeld, D., 1990: The second Israeli rainfall stimulation experiment: analysis of precipitation on both targets. J. Appl. Meteor., 29, 1055-1067
Ga71: Gagin, A., 1971: Studies of the factors governing the colloidal stability of continental clouds. Proc., Intern. Conf. on Weather Modification, Canberra, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 5-11.
Ga75: Gagin, A. 1975: The ice phase in winter continental cumulus clouds. J. Atmos. Sci., 32, 1602-1614.
Ga80: _______., 1980: The relationship between depth of cumuliform clouds and their raindrop characteristics. J. Rech. Atmos., 14, 409-422. Doi not available.
Ga81: _______., 1981: The Israeli rainfall enhancement experiments. A physical overview. J. Wea. Mod., 13, 108-122. Doi not available.
Ga86: _______., 1986: Evaluation of “static” and “dynamic” seeding concepts through analyses of Israeli II and FACE-2 experiments. In Precipitation Enhancement–A Scientific Challenge, Meteor. Monog., 21, No. 43, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 63-70. https://doi.org/10.1175/0065-9401-21.43.63
GaA85: Gagin, A., and M. Arroyo, 1985: Quantitative diffusion estimates of cloud seeding nuclei released from airborne generators. J. Wea. Mod., 17, 59-70.
GaGb87: Gagin, A., and K. R. Gabriel, 1987: Analysis of recording gage data for the Israeli II experiment Part I: Effects of cloud seeding on the components of daily rainfall. J. Appl. Meteor., 26, 913-926.
GaN74: Gagin, A., and J. Neumann, 1974: Rain stimulation and cloud physics in Israel.Weatherand Climate Modification, W. N. Hess, Ed., Wiley and Sons, New York, 454-494.
GaN76: _______., and _________, 1976: The second Israeli cloud seeding experiment–the effect of seeding on varying cloud populations. Proc. II WMO Sci. Conf. Weather Modification, Boulder, WMO Geneva, 195-204.
GaN81: Gagin, A., and J. Neumann, 1981: The second Israeli randomized cloud seeding experiment: evaluation of results. J. Appl. Meteor., 20, 1301-1311.
GaS73: Gagin, A., and I. Steinhorn, 1973: The role of solid precipitation elements in natural and artificial production of rain in Israel. Preprints, Intern. Conf. on Cloud Physics, Tashkent, 216–228. (Available from the American Meteorological Society, Boston, MA 02108.)
Gr68: Grant, L. O., 1968: The role of ice nuclei in the formation of precipitation. Proc. Intern. Conf. Cloud Phys.,Toronto, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 305-310.
Gr86: Grant, L. O., 1986: Hypotheses for the Climax wintertime orographic cloud seeding experiments. Precipitation Enhancement–A Scientific Challenge, R. R. Braham, Jr., Ed., Meteor. Monographs, 43, No. 21, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 105-108.
GrE74: Grant, L. O., and R. D. Elliott, 1974: The cloud seeding temperature window. J. Appl. Meteor., 13, 355-363.
GrM67: Grant, L. O., and P. W. Mielke, Jr., 1967: A randomized cloud seeding experiment at Climax, Colorado 1960-1965. Proc. Fifth Berkeley Symposium on Mathematical Statistics and Probability, Vol. 5,University of California Press, 115-131.
GrDR82: Grant, L. O., DeMott, P. J., and R. M. Rauber, 1982: An inventory of ice crystal concentrations in a series of stable orographic storms. Preprints, Conf. Cloud Phys., Chicago, Amer. Meteor. Soc. Boston, MA. 584-587.
Gretal79: Grant, L. O., J. O. Rhea, G. T. Meltesen, G. J. Mulvey, and P. W. Mielke, Jr., 1979: Continuing analysis of the Climax weather modification experiments. Seventh Conf. On Planned and Inadvertent Weather Modification,Banff, The Amer. Meteor. Soc., J43-J45.
Gretal74: Grant, L. O., Chappell, C. F., Crow, L. W., Fritsch, J. M., and Mielke, P. W. Jr., 1974: Weather modification: a pilot project. Final Report to the Bureau of Reclamation, Contract 14-06-D-6467, Colorado State University, 98pp plus appendices.
Gretal69: Grant, L. O., Chappell, C. F., Crow, L. W., Mielke, P. W., Jr., Rasmussen, J. L., Shobe, W. E., Stockwell, H., and R. A. Wykstra, 1969: An operational adaptation program of weather modification for the Colorado River basin. Interim report to the Bureau of Reclamation, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, 98pp. (Available from the Bureau of Reclamation, Library, Federal Building, Denver, Colorado 80302)
GivR05: Givati, A., and D. Rosenfeld, 2005: Separation between cloud-seeding and air-pollution effects. J. Appl. Meteor., 44, 1298-1314.
GivR09: ________, and D. Rosenfeld, 2009: Comment on “Does air pollution really suppress rain in Israel?”. J. Climate Appl. Meteor.,48, 1733-1750. https://doi.org/10.1175/2009JAMC1902.1
Hill80a: Hill, G. E., 1980a: Reexamination of cloud-top temperatures used as criteria of cloud seeding effects in experiments on winter orographic clouds. J. Climate Appl. Meteor., 19, 1167-1175.
Hill80b: Hill, G. E., 1980b: Seeding-opportunity recognition in winter orographic clouds. J. Climate Appl. Meteor., 22, 1371-1381.
Hill86: Hill, G. E., 1986: Seedability of winter orographic clouds. Met. Monogr.,43, No. 21, 127-137.
HR78: Hobbs, P. V, and A. L. Rangno, 1978: A reanalysis of the Skagit cloud seeding project. J. Appl. Meteor., 17, 1661–1666.
HR79: Hobbs, P. V., and A. L. Rangno, 1979: Comments on the Climax randomized cloud seeding experiments. J. Appl. Meteor., 18,1233-1237.
Hobal75: Hobbs, P. V., L. F. Radke, J. R. Fleming, and D. G. Atkinson, 1975: Airborne ice nucleus and cloud microstructure measurements in naturally and artificially seeded situations over the San Juan mountains in Colorado. Research Report X, Cloud Physics Group, Atmos. Sci. Dept., University of Washington, Seattle, 98195-1640. No doi. (Available at http://carg.atmos.washington.edu/sys/research/archive/colorado_seeding.pdf
LRo96: Levi, Y., and D. Rosenfeld, 1996: Ice nuclei, rainwater chemical composition, and static cloud seeding effects in Israel. J. Appl.Meteor.,35,1494-1501.
L92: Levin, Z., 1992: The role of large aerosols in the precipitation of the eastern Mediterranean. Paper presented at the Workshop on Cloud Microphysics and Applications to Global Change, Toronto, 115-120. (Available from Dept. Atmos. Sci., University of Tel Aviv).
L94: Levin, Z., 1994: The effects of aerosol composition on the development of rain in the eastern Mediterranean. WMO Workshop on Cloud Microstructure and Applications to Global Change, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.World Meteor. Org., 115-120.
LGG96: Levin, Z., E. Ganor, and V. Gladstein, 1996 (June 1995): The effects of desert particles coated with sulfate on rain formation in the eastern Mediterranean. J. Appl. Meteor., 35, 1511-1523.
LHA2010: Levin, Z.., N. Halfon, and P. Alpert, 2010: Reassessment of rain enhancement experiments and operations in Israel including synoptic considerations. Atmos. Res., 97, 513-525.
LKR97: Levin, Z., S. O. Krichak, and T. Reisin, 1997 (September 1996): Numerical simulation of dispersal of inert seeding material in Israel using a three-dimensional mesoscale model. J. Appl. Meteor., 36, 474–484.
M79: Mielke, P. W., Jr., 1979: Comment on field experimentation in weather modification. J. Amer. Statist. Assoc., 74, 87-88.
M95: P. W., Jr., 1995: Comments on the Climax I and II experiments including replies to Rangno and Hobbs. J. Appl. Meteor., 34, 1228-1232.
MM83: Mielke, P. W., Jr., and J. G. Medina, 1983: A new covariate procedure for estimating treatment differences with applications to Climax I and II experiments. J. Climate and Appl. Meteor., 22, 1290-1295.
MBM82: Mielke, P. W., Jr., Berry, K., and J. G. Medina, 1982: Climax I and Climax II: distortion resistant residuals. J. Climate and Appl. Meteor.,21, 788-792.
MGC70: Mielke, P. W., Jr, L. O. Grant, and C. F. Chappell, 1970: Elevation and spatial variation effects of wintertime orographic cloud seeding. J. Appl. Meteor., 9,476-488. Corrigenda,10, 842, 15,801.
MGC71: Mielke, P. W., Jr, L. O. Grant, and C. F. Chappell, 1971: An independent replication of the Climax wintertime orographic cloud seeding experiment. J. Appl. Meteor., 10, 1198-1212.
Metal81: Mielke, P. W., Jr., Brier, G. W., Grant, L. O., Mulvey, G. J., and P. N. Rosenweig, 1981: A statistical reanalysis of the replicated Climax I and II wintertime orographic cloud seeding experiments. J. Appl. Meteor., 20,643-659.
MAR80: Marwitz, J., 1980 (January 1980): Winter storms over the San Juan mountains. Part I. Dynamical processes. J. Appl. Meteor., 19, 913-926.
MCS76: Marwitz, J.,W. A. Cooper and C. P. R. Saunders, 1976: StructureandSeedability ofSanJuanStorms.Final Report to the Bureau of Reclamation,University of Wyoming, 324 pp.•
MedR73: Medenwaldt, R. A., and A. L. Rangno, 1973: Colorado River Basin Pilot Project Comprehensive Atmospheric Data Report, 1972-1973 Season.Report to the Bureau of Reclamation, E. G. & G., Inc., Durango,CO. 376 pp.
Melt78: Meltesen, G. T., J. O. Rhea, G. J. Mulvey, and L. O. Grant, 1978: Certain problems in post hoc analysis of samples from heterogeneous populations and skewed distributions. Preprints., 9th National Conf. on Wea. Mod., Amer. Meteor. Soc., 388-391.
M-SS: Morel-Seytoux, H. J., and F. Saheli, 1973: Test of runoff increase due to precipitation management for the Colorado River Basin Pilot Project. J. Appl. Meteor., 12, 322-337.
NAS73: National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council, Committee on Planned and Inadvertent Weather Modification, 1973: Weather and Climate Modification: Progress and Problems, T. F. Malone, Ed., Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., 258 pp.
NGbGa67: Neumann, J., K. R. Gabriel, and A. Gagin, 1967: Cloud seeding and cloud physics in Israel: results and problems. Proc. Intern. Conf. on Water for Peace. Water for Peace, Vol. 2, 375-388. No doi available
NiRo94: Nirel, R., and D. Rosenfeld, 1994: The third Israeli rain enhancement experiment-An intermediate analysis. Proc. Sixth WMO Scientific Conf. on Weather Modification, Paestum, Italy, World Meteor. Org., 569-572. No doi available.
NiRo95: Nirel, R., and D. Rosenfeld, 1995: Estimation of the effect of operational seeding on rain amounts in Israel. J. Appl. Meteor., 34, 2220-2229.
R79: Rangno, A. L., 1979: A reanalysis of the Wolf Creek Pass cloud seeding experiment. J. Appl. Meteor., 18, 579–605Rh83: Rhea, J. O., 1983: “Comments on ‘A statistical reanalysis of the replicated Climax I and II wintertime orographic cloud seeding experiments.'” J. Climate Appl. Meteor.,22, 1475-1481.
R88: Rangno, A. L., 1988: Rain from clouds with tops warmer than -10 C in Israel. Quart J. Roy. Meteorol. Soc., 114, 495-513.
RH80a: Rangno, A. L., and P. V. Hobbs, 1980a: Comments on “Randomized seeding in the San Juan mountains of Colorado.” J. Appl. Meteor., 19, 346-350.
RH80b: Rangno, A. L., and P. V. Hobbs, 1980b: Comments on “Generalized criteria for seeding winter orographic clouds”. J. Appl. Meteor., 19, 906-907.
RH81: Rangno, A. L., and P. V. Hobbs, 1981: Comments on “Reanalysis of ‘Generalized criteria for seeding winter orographic clouds’”, J. Appl. Meteor., 20, 216.
RH87: Rangno, A. L., and P. V. Hobbs, 1987: A re-evaluation of the Climax cloud seeding experiments using NOAA published data. J. Climate Appl. Meteor., 26,757-762.
RH88: Rangno, A. L., and P. V. Hobbs, 1988: Criteria for the development of significant concentrations of ice particles in cumulus clouds. Atmos. Res.,22, 1-13. No doi available.
RH93: Rangno, A. L., and P. V. Hobbs, 1993: Further analyses of the Climax cloud-seeding experiments. J. Appl. Meteor., 32, 1837-1847.
RH95a: Rangno, A. L., and P. V. Hobbs, 1995b: Reply to Gabriel and Mielke. J. Appl. Meteor., 34, 1233-1238.
RH95b: Rangno, A. L., and P. V. Hobbs, 1995: A new look at the Israeli cloud seeding experiments. J. Appl. Meteor., 34, 1169-1193.
RH97a: Rangno, A. L., and P. V. Hobbs, 1997a: Reply to Rosenfeld. J. Appl. Meteor., 36, 272-276.
RH97b: Rangno, A. L., and P. V. Hobbs, 1997b: ComprehensiveReply to Rosenfeld, Cloud and Aerosol Research Group, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington, 25pp. Cloud seeding success literature cited: Gb67, GbB70, W71, Bret73, GaN73, GaN74, Saxet75,GaN76, GbN78, Ga80, GaN81, Ga81, Kerr82, GaA85, Ga86, Sil86, GaG87, B-Z88, RoG89, D89, RF92, NiRo95, RoN96, ROS97. Adverse cloud seeding literature cited: HR78, Gretal79,M79, R79, Hob80, Ros80, B-Harp86, R88, RH88, RoG89, GbR90, L94, RH95b. LGG96 (http://carg.atmos.washington.edu/sys/research/archive/1997_comments_seeding.pdf)RH97b: Rangno, A. L., and P. V. Hobbs, 1997b: ComprehensiveReply to Rosenfeld, Cloud and Aerosol Research Group, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington, 25pp.
Rn88: Reynolds, D. W., 1988: A report on winter snowpack-augmentation. Bull Amer. Meteor. Soc.,69, 1290-1300.
RD86: Reynolds, D. W., and A. S. Dennis, 1986: A review of the Sierra Cooperative Project. Bull Amer. Meteor. Soc., 67, 513-523.
Rh83: Rhea, J. O., 1983: “Comments on ‘A statistical reanalysis of the replicated Climax I and II wintertime orographic cloud seeding experiments.'” Climate Appl. Meteor.,22, 1475-1481.
RDW69: Rhea, J. 0., L. G. Davis and P. T. Willis, 1969: The Park Range Project. Final Report to the Bureau of Reclamation, E. G. & G., Inc.,Steamboat Springs, CO. 288 pp.
ROS97: Rosenfeld, D., Comments on “A new look at the Israeli cloud seeding experiments.” J. Appl. Meteor., 36, 260-271.
RF92: Rosenfeld, D., and H. Farbstein, 1992: Possible influence of desert dust on seedability of clouds in Israel. J. Appl. Meteor., 31, 722-731.
RoGa89: Rosenfeld, D., and A. Gagin, 1989: Factors governing the total rainfall yield from continental convective clouds. J. Appl. Meteor., 28, 1015-1030.
RN96: Rosenfeld, D., and R. Nirel, 1996: Seeding effectiveness—the interaction of desert dust and the southern margins of rain cloud systems in Israel. J. Appl. Meteor., 35, 1502-1510.
RVM81: Rottner, D., L. Vardiman, and J. A. Moore, 1981: Reply to Rangno and Hobbs, J. Appl. Meteor., 20, 217.
Saxet75: Sax, R. I., S. A. Changnon, L. O. Grant, W. F. Hitchfield, P. V. Hobbs, A. M. Kahan, and J. Simpson, 1975: Weather modification: Where are we now and where are we going? An editorial overview. J. Appl. Meteor., 14, 652-672.
Sh90: Sharon, D., 1990: Meta-analytic reappraisal of statistical results in the environmental sciences: the case of a hydrological effect of cloud seeding. J. Appl. Meteor., 29, 390-395.
ShKCD08: Sharon, D., A. Kessler, A. Cohen, and E. Doveh, 2008: The history and recent revision of Israel’s cloud seeding program. Isr. J. Earth Sci., 57, 65-69. https://DOI.org/10.1560/IJES.57.1.65.
Sil86: Silverman, B. A., 1986: Static mode seeding of summer cumuli–a review. In Precipitation Enhancement–A Scientific Challenge, Meteor. Monog.,21, No. 43, 7-20.
Sil01: Silverman, B. A., 2001. A critical assessment of glaciogenic seeding of convective clouds for rainfall enhancement. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc.,82, 903-924.
S09: Silverman, B. A., 2009: An independent statistical evaluation of the Vail operational cloud seeding program. J. Wea. Mod., 41, 7-14.
V78: Vardiman, L., 1978: The generation of secondary ice particles in clouds by crystal-crystal collisions. J. Atmos. Sci., 35, 2168-2180.
VG72a: Vardiman, L., and L. O. Grant, 1972a: A case study of ice crystal multiplication by mechanical fracturing. Abstracts, Intern. Cloud Physics Conference, London, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 22-23.
VG72b: Vardiman, L., and L. O. Grant, 1972b: A study of ice crystal concentrations in convective elements of winter orographic clouds. Preprints, Third Conference on Weather Modification, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 113-118.
VH76: Vardiman, L., and C. L. Hartzell, 1976: Investigation of precipitating ice crystals from natural and seeded winter orographic clouds. Final Report to the Bureau of Reclamation, Western Scientific Services, Inc., 129 pp.
VM78: Vardiman, L., and J. A. Moore, 1978: Generalized criteria for seeding winter orographic clouds. J. Appl. Meteor., 17, 1769-1777.
Wo97: Woodley, W., 1997: Comments on “A new look at the Israeli Randomized cloud seeding experiments.” J. Appl. Meteor.,36, 250-252.
W71: Wurtele, Z. S., 1971: Analysis of the Israeli cloud seeding experiment by means of concomitant meteorological variables. J. Appl. Meteor., 10, 1185-1192.
An essay proposed and rejected by the Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. in 2019
Rejectee and author,
Arthur L. Rangno
Retiree, Research Scientist IV,
Cloud and Aerosol Research Group, University of Washington, Seattle.
Abstract
Peer-reviewed and other publications that lack the full “story” via author omissions of relevant literature having opposing viewpoints are said to exhibit, “one-sided citing.” This is especially frequent phenomenon in journal articles in the domain of weather modification in which the author has worked.
One-sided citing is particularly pernicious to journal readers who are deliberately misled; to authors that go uncited and lose ground in citation metrics, and are, therefore, perceived to have less standing in their field than they should. Implicitly, one-sided citing also damages the institutions whose authors practice it. Raising the bar to “scientific misconduct” on such activity will stop it.
That one-sided citing regularly reaches the peer-review literature in controversial arenas is testimony that the peer-review system is broken and needs to be repaired.
Examples of one-sided citing are discussed.
Below are items that must be filled out in support of your submission to BAMS.
Category: Essay/opinion piece on “one-sided citing.”
Purpose: 1) Bring attention to a serious problem in some peer-reviewed publications that will likely lead to future remediation; 2) open a dialogue for others, who, like this author, have had their modest careers diminished by “one-sided-citing.”
Importance: alerts journal readers to the phenomenon of “one-sided-citing” in a medium they otherwise trust and perhaps imbue them with a “caveat emptor” attitude when reading articles in controversial arenas.
Length: 1770 words
Illustrations:none
Scientific context/interpretation of one-sided citing:
One-sided citing is a deliberate act by authors to mislead journal readers by “cooking and trimming” truth. It inflicts material harm on researchers whose work should be cited but isn’t since one’s standing in his/her field, awards, promotions are often evaluated via citation metrics. Besides in the cloud seeding domain, it has also been observed in the climate literature.
It arises because of poor, or “one-sided” peer-reviews of manuscripts, which in turn, might well be traced to the practice of authors suggesting reviewers to journal editors, which, not surprisingly, leads to fault-ridden, peer-reviewed articles.
It is recommended that the AMS adopt wording analogous to that of the FTC regarding consumer fraud and label such acts as “scientific misconduct” to put an end to this practice.
Examples of one-sided citing are provided in the essay.
There will be no electronic supplements.
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Response to the letter of rejection for this
essay/opinion piece from the
Bull. of the Amer. Meteor. Soc.
Thank you, Jeff R., if I may, for taking your valuable time to respond with an assessment of my provocative proposal.
I knew this would be a pot boiler, but I reasoned that forming a question about the lamentable practice of one-sided citing in the title that it would fly right in for peer-review! I have 40 years of experience with this kind of activity.
So why BAMS (again)?
Here’s what I saw about what BAMS says it publishes from the BAMS web page on “article types for BAMS.” I hope these words remain and do not disappear.
“Essays: Up to 5,000 words (average length is about 3,500 words). Based on experience, opinion, and qualitative or quantitative analysis. These peer-reviewed contributions are designated as a “Forum” within the Articles section.”
Certainly, with 40 years of experience with journal literature, the observation of one-sided citing in it, which I quantify by examples, falls within the criteria stated by BAMS.
We’ve got that.
Can one determine “one-sided citing? Of course, IF one knows the literature! You can’t know what’s being omitted if you don’t know the literature!
The inspiration for this essay? The AMS recommended book, Eloquent Science (Schulz). Here’s what Schultz had to say about this phenomenon, which I suspect you have not seen:
“One-sided reviews of the literature that ignore alternative points of view, however, can be easily recognized by the audience, leading to discrediting of your work as being biased and offending neglected authors…”.
For emphasis, please observe that Schultz believes, as we who have been subject to one-sided citing do, that it is “easily recognized.”
You are of the opposite opinion concerning recognition, which I did not expect.
But then no single editor such as yourself can possibly know enough about any segment of the literature his journal covers to recognize omissions; one-sided citing.
I discuss an example of one-sided citing that appeared in JAMC, the lead author of that article from a respected institution who knows my work in the weather mod domain well. He had co-authored one or more articles with the beloved leader of the experiments that were brought down by my work; those at Climax, Colorado. In his article the discredited Climax randomized cloud seeding experiments are cited once, Mielke et al. (1981). End of story.
The long journal paper trail of reanalyses, beginning with Rhea (1983) that showed those Climax results and the hypotheses behind it were ersatz were ignored. The journal reader, in examining the single reference to Mielke et al. 1981 will learn of a robust cloud seeding success in a randomized experiment! End of story#2.
This is misconduct in MY OPINION—the discussion of which is allowed in BAMS essays/opinion pieces. Others, of course might disagree, not realizing that the lead author was well aware of the unraveling of the Climax experiments.
Why should it be formally considered “scientific misconduct”?
Many are harmed:
the journal reader who expects to find truth in a highly acclaimed journal,
the authors who exposed faulty claims whose work is not cited (impacting citation metrics),
the journal it appears in can be deemed, in fact, unreliable for “truth”,
the institutions from which one-sided citing emanates are harmed implicitly by being seen as houses of bias.
Why is this not obvious?
Again, I can tell you positively that the lead author of that JAMC publication knew of that journal paper trail regarding his home institution’s (Colorado State University) experiments.
But let’s write him, with you cc-ed, and ask if he “deliberately” omitted contrary findings? He can’t say he didn’t know about them. What other answer is then left? Q. E. D.
The problem for me, as senior members of the community I represent pass (e.g., Roland List, Bernie Silverman, et al), is that younger researchers will no longer “easily recognize” the abuses of one-sided-citing in this domain. I myself have been deemed, in two recent e-mails, “the last of a dying breed” and “the best of a dying breed.” It was use of the word “dying” that made the most impact…and resurrected thoughts of the bucket list. Jeff Rosenfeld is on the receiving end of that list I’m afraid, thoughts left on the table…
The motivation to address the one-sided citing problem (after discovering it was still occurring, and represents a blatant sign of inadequate reviews in weather mod. Those are likely due to the regrettable practice of authors suggesting reviewers to editors (who are out of their element and cannot possibly know all the resources they should be commanding for the breadth of topics of their journal).
I was not, of course, asked to review those publications.
I will pass my take on to David Schultz, and see what his take is on it, and whether he thinks BAMS is a good place or? PNAS?
To use the NRC-NAS phrase in their publication on science ethics, one-sided citing can be described as, “cooking and trimming” the truth. We should all be against such practices in the strongest way and openly condemn them. That’s why I recommend that the AMS, first, resurrect their abandoned “Code of Ethics” and incorporate wording of the FTC, adjusted for science, concerning consumer fraud.
Sorry to be such a pain in the butt, Jeff, but, as the song says, “I gotta be me.”
art
PS: My goal was to ignite a Society-wide discussion of this problem with a splash in the BAMS opinion/essay domain. “One-sided citing” is easily proved. Examples are discussed in detail in my essay/opinion piece, and briefly here.
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I have posted what became a full journal manuscript, well-beyond a mere essay about one-sided citing here:
“Secondary Ice Production: Current State of the Science and Future Recommendations”
by P. R. Field,a,b R. P. Lawson,c P. R. A. Brown,a G. Lloyd,d C. Westbrook,e D. Moiseev,f A. Miltenberger,b A. Nenes,g A. Blyth,b T. Choularton,d P. Connolly,d J. Buehl,h J. Crossier,d Z. Cui,b C. Dearden,d P. DeMott,i A. Flossman,j A. Heymsfield,k Y. Huang,b H. Kalesse,h Z. A. Kanji,l A. Korolev,m A. Kirchgaessner,n S. Lasher-Trapp,o T. Leisner, G. McFarquhar,o V. Phillips, p J. Stith,q and A. Sullivan. l
Note to reader: the many superscripts refer to the institutions that the 29 authors belong to. They are not reported in this review.
The entire unadulterated article with its many illustrious co-authors can be found here:
“Reviewer #1: I believe the comments made by Art Rangno up through his section 3 should be included as an Appendix to the Monograph as he adds a number of points and references not included in the original monograph that may be of interest to future monograph readers. I felt that the authors of the monograph adequately responded to the comments made by Art through his section 3. However, the monograph authors have completely ignored as far as I can tell Rangno’s more specific comments in section 4 of his review. I would like to see the Monograph authors address these more specific comments in the main body of the Monograph text and would like a response to each comment as in a normal journal paper response to reviewers comments.” ———- There were no other reviewers. (AR)
Reviewed by (Mr.) Arthur L. Rangno[1] Retiree, Staff Research Scientist III, Cloud and Aerosol Group, Atmos. Sci. Dept., University of Washington, Seattle. Currently: Catalina, Arizona 85739
The many authors’ polite response to my novella-sized review is found below. They were very nice considering I was not in a good mood when I reviewed their chapter. Since some of the senior authors of Chapter 7 are friends, I am placing their response before the review and “enhancement” of Chapter 7, American Meteorological Society Monograph 58, that I submitted here:
There are two minor editions additions to my review that have been added concerning a research flight by the Cloud and Aerosol Group that adds more information to the problem of “secondary ice” and a further reference to drop freezing experiments by Duncan Blanchard (1957).
About the journal “Reply” to the “Review and Enhancement” by the 29 authors of Chapter 7
Monograph Editor, G. McFarquhar, had this to say to me and the 29 co-authors of that chapter about my submission:
“All:
First, I would like to give some information on the comment/reply process from my perspective as Chief Editor of the AMS Monographs. It is true that there has never been a comment/reply published on an AMS Monograph article before.“
Editor McFarquhar went on to mention the “strange” organization of my “review and enhancement.” (Hah. Hardly surprising).
So, I inadvertently broke some ground in submitting a “review of a review.” Why I was overlooked as a reviewer of this chapter is still perplexing. The most gratifying thing about this submission was that one of the 29 co-authors of Chapter 7 wrote and said, “I knew it was you who did the heavy lifting for Peter Hobbs.” Indeed, and was the case for the other outstanding researchers that passed through his group. But perhaps because it was in doubt that I could contribute, as a mere staff member in Peter’s group, was the reason why I was not asked to review Chapter 7 before it was published. I coulda helped.
I have attached the current “status quo” situation, if interested in the topic of secondary ice formation in clouds. You will see in my review that the original Chapter 7 had some amusing errors, such as the Beaufort Sea apparently being in the Washington coastal waters. I think the illustrious co-authors of Chapter 7 were in a hurry…. Also, in a grotesque error, the co-authors referred to me as, “Dr. Rangno,” while my real name is Mr. Art:
Some background on why I decided to review Chapter 7
I discovered the 2017 American Meteorological Society Monograph Number 58 and its Chapter 7 in early 2018. I had worked on the problem of secondary ice in clouds discussed in this volume for more than 20 years with Professor Peter V. Hobbs, Director of the Cloud and Aerosol Research Group. I know and consider a number of the senior authors friends.
Our published work while sampling clouds in different venues and over many years repeatedly concluded that the leading theory to explain “secondary ice” in clouds, came up short. That mechanism, discovered in careful lab experiments by Hallett and Mossop (1974: Mossop and Hallett 1984), showed that when graupel (represented by a rod in a cloud chamber) intercepted larger (>23 um diameter) supercooled cloud droplets, some ice splinters were cast off. However, it was limited to in-cloud conditions when the temperature was between -2.5° and -8°C. The peak splinter production occurs at a temperature of -4.5°C. From that peak, the rate of splinter production drops off quickly.
There is no doubt that this process occurs in clouds. But, is that all there is?
The problem that we encountered was that high ice particle concentrations developed too rapidly in clouds with tops>-10°C to be explained by the Hallett-Mossop riming-splintering mechanism alone, as it was described in the original lab experiments and those that followed (e.g., Mossop 1985).
We also found high ice particle concentrations in clouds in which the components of this leading theory were not met, or barely so (Rangno and Hobbs 1994). The discrepancies that we encountered, and those in other publications that reported discrepancies but were not cited in the Chapter 7, will also be a theme. It will also give me a chance to present an overview of our extensive findings, especially those that were not cited (Rangno and Hobbs 1991; 1994), and where there were drawbacks in our earlier work on this subject (i.e., Hobbs and Rangno 1985).
Abstract and organization of:
“Review and Enhancement of Chapter 7, AMS Monograph 58“
Sections 1-3 below was reviewed and commented by the authors of Chapter 7, but I had not seen those comments as of 19 March 2021. They were not relayed to me by the journal Editor, which is normally done so that errors and misunderstandings in papers can be taken care of behind the scenes before publication. That’s a pretty normal practice, but it hadn’t happened by that date, so read Sections 1-3 with caution since revisions are likely and the authors’ criticisms except as they appeared above.
You can easily skip to the line-by-line critique resembling a “normal” manuscript review that comprise Sections 4 and 5 via “jump” links.
————————————————————————————–The review of Chapter 7 consists of several elements: 1) an introduction section, 2) a review of the Hallett-Mossop process and why it cannot explain, of itself, high ice particle concentrations in Cumulus clouds with slightly supercooled tops; 3) relevant literature that went uncited in Chapter 7 that might have altered, and in some cases, enhanced some of the authors’ conclusions; 4) selected quotes from Chapter 7 followed by my commentary, similar to a formal manuscript review; 5) lesser, picayunish corrections , some involving citation etiquette, all of which should have been caught before Chapter 7 went to press.
Field et al. (2017, hereafter, F2017) have done a remarkable job of summarizing a vast amount of work on the continuing enigma of the origin of ice-in-clouds. Not surprisingly, considering the abundance of publications in various journals relevant to this mystery, some publications were overlooked that might have helped the reader, and altered some of the conclusions wrought in F2017. This review is meant to “fill in” those blanks; to be an enhancement of Chapter 7 rather than a series of criticisms. It is restricted to the cloud microphysical portions of Chapter 7 concerned with ice multiplication in Cumulus clouds, the writer’s specialty.
1. Introduction
The “embarrassment of citation riches” to much of our prior University of Washington work[2], is much appreciated. Nevertheless, since it is not possible to be cited too many times, only too few, we dredge up even more of our work relevant to the question of secondary ice that went uncited. The comments contained in this review will range from picayunish errors in F2017 (left until the end) to more significant commentary concerning the workings of the H-M process at the beginning of this review. This is followed by quotes in F2017 followed by my comments, a style mimicking that of a pre-publication review.
We start with a summary of the Hallett-Mossop riming-splintering process (Hallett and Mossop 1974; Mossop and Hallett 1974, hereafter “H-M”) and why the H-M process cannot, of itself, account for the “rapid” development of ice in clouds that F2017 mentions in their abstract. In reading Field et al. it was felt that this distinction between clouds that produce ice rapidly and the inability of the H-M process alone to do that in slightly supercooled Cumulus clouds, beginning with primary ice nuclei (IN) was not made clear.
Relevant literature that was not cited or possibly not known about by F2017 is indicated by an “u” after the citation in this review, for “uncited.” The relevant citations are found at the end of this piece. (Jump/anchor links will be added when I remember how to do them.) ‘
Review of the Hallett-Mossop riming-splintering process
The rapid development of precipitation in Cumulus clouds transitioning to Cumulonimbus clouds, has been noted for many decades via radar (e.g., Battan 1953; Saunders 1965, Zeng et al. 2001) and by aircraft (e.g., Koenig 1963). A process that can explain such rapid transitions in clouds whose tops reach much above the freezing level must act very quickly (<10min) to enhance concentrations of ice particles in such clouds. The H-M process is one that is usually cited in conjunction with this rapid formation of ice. However, of itself, even when the broad droplet spectra is satisfied in a Cumulus turret with a top at -8°C with only primary ice nuclei (IN) as ice initiators, such a cloud can never attain the 10s to 100s of ice particles per liter associated with “ice multiplication”, those in modest Cumulonimbus clouds.
Why can’t the H-M process alone produce significant ice in Cumulus clouds when its criteria are satisfied?
The lifetime of Cumulus turrets is too short, <20 min (e.g., Workman and Reynolds 1949u, Braham 1964u, Saunders 1965u). Its too short for several cycles of splinters to develop, those having to reach fast-falling graupel sizes to be significant splinter producers, starting with ice particles from the very few primary ice nuclei (IN) at -8°C. Even the H-M droplet spectra itself is doomed within a few minutes in the lives of ordinary Cumulus turrets as they fall back and evaporate[3]. Mason’s (1996) calculations, using reasonable assumptions, required 1 h for ice particle concentrations to reach 100 l-1after starting from primary IN, which Mossop noted was untenable for a Cumulus turret. Chisnell and Latham (1976) understood this: “Firstly there are some reported multiplication rates, 10 in 8 min (Mossop et al. 1970), 500 in 5 ~ min (Koenig 1973-sic), which are inexplicable in terms of a ‘riming only’ model, but which are consistent with a model containing rain drops.”
Absent larger (>30 µm diameter) droplets and/or precipitation-sized drops (>100 µm diameter), tens of minutes to an hour or more is required to raise ice particle concentrations from from primary IN concentrations to 100 l-1(e.g., Chisnell and Latham 1976, “Model A”, Mossop 1985a,u, Mason 1996), times that are not tenable considering the short lifetimes of Cumulus turrets.
Moreover, air translates through Cumulus clouds analogous to lenticular clouds though at a far slower pace (e.g., Malkus 1952u, Asplinden et al 1978u). Thus, while a Cumulus cloud can appear to exist for tens of minutes, its individual turrets cannot. Any splinters that might be formed by a round of very sparse graupel due to primary IN, should an ice crystal have time to become a graupel particle, will go out the side or evaporate as the top declines and evaporates toward the downwind side as illustrated in Byers (1965u, Figure 7.3). One of the lessons learned in the HIPLEX seeding experiments when dry ice, dropped like graupel into supercooled Cumulus turrets, was that it produced ice crystals that drifted out the side of decaying cloud portions (Cooper and Lawson 1984u).
Mossop (1985a,u) himself had trouble explaining the rapidity of ice development in his own Cumulus clouds in the Australian Pacific. Using his measured concentrations of frozen drizzle drops as an accelerator of ice formation, Mossop calculated that it would take about 47 minutes to go from initial ice concentrations due to primary IN (0.01 per liter) at -10°C to 100 ice particles per liter. Mossop knew that this amount of time was untenable for a Cumulus turret. He then reasoned that IN must be about 10 times higher at -10°C to explain that discrepancy, or about 0.1 per liter, to bring the glaciation time he observed down to about 20 minutes (calculating that the concentrations of ice particles increased 10 fold each 10 min beginning with 0.1 IN per liter active at -10°C). The concentration of IN surmised by Mossop (1985a, u) is now close to that in updated concentrations of IN by DeMott et al. 2010 of about 0.3 per liter active at -10°C[4].
However, IN need to be about 10-100 times higher than Mossop’s estimate of 0.1 per liter to bring down the time of glaciation to that observed in clouds like his own Australian clouds, namely, ones containing copious droplets >30 um diameter and some precipitation-sized drops. This was demonstrated by Crawford et al. 2012’s case of 100 times the DeMott et al. primary IN with a model cloud top at -10°C, a case study that best mimicked the near-spontaneous glaciation of real clouds having modestly supercooled tops and containing drops >30 µm diameter (often with drizzle or raindrops).
In sum, if the droplet spectra does not broaden considerably farther so that droplets larger than 30-40 µm in diameter are in plentiful concentrations (past the Hocking and Jonas 1971; Jonas 1972) thresholds for collisions with coalescence to begin, there will be no “rapid” glaciation in slightly to modestly supercooled clouds that only meet the H-M droplet spectra criteria.
Discussion of ice multiplication in literature that went uncited by F2017
Our follow up studies of ice development in Cumulus and small Cumulonimbus clouds after HR85 and HR90 went uncited in F2017. Those were Rangno and Hobbs 1991u and 1994u, hereafter RH91u and RH94u. We offer a brief summary of our findings before moving on to other relevant uncited findings. We believe that these uncited papers, en toto, cast additional light the nature of the problem posed by ice multiplication.Discussion of RH91u with some background on HR85
In our prior study of ice-in-clouds, HR85, only a 6 s time resolution was available for data during most of the sampling period (1978-1984). Therefore, we sampled rather wide cloud complexes to get meaningful statistics. In addition, our 2-DC probe was only operated sporadically, not continuously in cloud.
In RH91u data resolution was 1 s or less, and there was continuous 2-DC coverage of cloud penetrations. Moreover, we carried a vertically-pointable (up or down), mm-wavelength radar, perhaps the first cloud research aircraft to do so.
We often sampled much smaller clouds than in HR85 and we found that maritime, short-lived (<1 km wide) “chimney” Cumulus clouds whose tops fell back into warmer air and evaporated, did not produce much detectableice even if they reached close to -10°C. This was true even as their wider, nearby brethren with the same cloud top temperature produced “anvils of ice”, replicating the findings in HR85 (see RH91u, Figure 1). The low ice concentrations found in chimney Cumulus clouds could also have been due to not being able to sample very small ice crystals, those below about 100 µm in maximum dimension. It forced us to reconsider the role of evaporation that we posited was important in the production of ice in HR85.
The finding in RH91u that wider clouds had considerably more ice corroborated Mossop et al.’s 1970 and Schemenauer and Isaac’s (1984u) earlier findings that cloud width had a profound effect on the development of ice in clouds. These findings implicitly address the importance of the duration of cloud and precipitation-sized drops, if any of the latter, at lower temperatures.
Of note is that the maritime Cumulus clouds in Washington State coastal waters during onshore flow are virtually identical to those studied by Mossop and his colleagues in the Australian Pacific in terms of cloud base temperatures, droplet concentrations, ice particle concentrations and in the minimum cloud top temperatures at which most sampling took place (e.g., Mossop et al 1968u, Mossop and Ono 1969u). Our studies were, thus, an attempt at replicating the findings of Mossop and his colleagues without going to Australia.
In RH91u, we found again, as noted in F2017, that Mossop’s (1985a, u) report that ice concentrations required 20 min to rise from 0.1 per liter to 100 per liter, was still too great an amount of time to account for the rapidity of the glaciation that we observed in our Washington clouds. Lawson et al. (2015) have arrived at a similar conclusion recently though in a different way.
In RH91u we also compared the explosive formation of ice in our maritime Cumulus to our prior dry ice cloud seeding experiments (Hobbs 1981u) and again in RH94u. The imagery is remarkably similar as a demonstration of the rapidity, the virtually spontaneous formation of ice[5]. We thought that an important comparison.
We also investigated the ocean’s influence on ice formation by sampling small to medium Cumulus clouds that developed out of clear air in an extremely cold[6], offshore flowing air mass over the Washington State coastal waters. Cloud bases were -18°C and cloud tops of the deepest Cumulus, -26°C. The sea surface was roiled by estimated 25-40 kt winds with widespread whitecaps. Mixing from the sea surface, about 13°C, to cloud bases was extreme, as marked by the heavy turbulence on that flight and vomting. We sampled those cumuliform clouds as they deepened downwind as far as 100 km offshore that day.
That day stood out in our studies. We measured the lowest ice particle concentrations in all our sampling of cumuliform clouds with top temperatures -24°C to -26°C by measuring maximum concentration of only 7 l-1in clouds up to about 1 km in depth. This day forced us to conclude that the coastal waters of Washington State, anyway, were not a source of high temperature ice nuclei, counter to some more recent work (DeMott et al. 2016). However, we did not measure concentrations of ice particles that were < 100 µm in maximum dimension.
The droplet spectra in those offshore flowing clouds was narrow, as would be expected with such low base temperatures, and again the idea that droplet sizes control ice formation was once again realized by these low concentrations of ice.
In sum, from our attempts at replicating Mossop’s results in clouds identical to his over many years, we found several departures in ice formation from the operation of the H-M process as it was being described. These discrepancies are somewhat different than those quoted for our research in F2017, hence we reprise them here:
The focus of RH94u was to remove the effects of the H-M process by studying ice development continental and semi-continental clouds found mostly east of the Cascade Mountains of Washington State, clouds that did not meet the H-M criteria. We believed that this was an important next step. The clouds we sampled almost always had base temperatures of 0°C or lower. Droplet concentrations were semi-continental to “continental” ranging from 300 cm-3to 1500 cm-3, many times higher than droplet concentrations in the Washington coastal waters in onshore flow that averaged but ~50 cm-3. Thus, the droplet spectra in the eastern Washington and other cold clouds we sampled were considerably narrower than in our coastal clouds, and due to those cold bases, contained few if any drops meeting the large droplet size (>23 µm) in the H-M temperature zone. We again carried our vertically-pointable, mm-radar to help elucidate cloud structures below or above the aircraft.
Our findings for the eastern Washington State clouds, simply explained, were that the higher the cloud base temperature, the greater the ice at in a Cumulus cloud, holding cloud top temperature constant. Thus, a cloud with a base of -15°C and a top of -20°C had far lessice than a cloud with a base of 0°C and a top at -20°C with no contribution from H-M. This finding spoke to, as we believed then and continue to believe, the largest droplet sizes of the spectra as being a critical parameter in the production of ice. We continued to find that a measure of the broadness of the FSSP-100-measured droplet spectrum (our “threshold diameter”, or large end “tail” of the droplet spectrum, e.g., HR85) in newly risen turrets lacking much ice (<1 l-1) continued to be strongly predictive of later maximum ice particle concentrations.
We also found that for very cold based clouds (<-8°C) that Fletcher’s (1962u) summary ice nucleus curve predicted ice concentrations associated with a range of cloud top temperatures extremely well (r=0.89). This probably indicated that we had little contribution from probe shattering artifacts after accounting for them (see RH91u). The crystal types in those clouds were almost all delicate stellar and dendritic forms where shattering artifacts would be expected to be rampant[9].
Too, ice formation in the eastern Washington State clouds, as it was in our maritime clouds, was extremely rapid, explosive, in turrets with larger droplets (>~25 µm in diameter) as they reached their peak heights with no contribution from H-M. As with our maritime clouds, the scenario of a few much larger particles (graupel) appeared to be coincident with wholesale formation of high ice concentrations.
This did not happen, however, in very cold-based (<-8°C), shallow clouds with small (~<20 µm diameter) droplets and tops down to -27°C where ice appeared to form from a “trickle” process likely due to ambient IN concentrations rather than aided by other factors.
The formation of ice was far more rapid in clouds with tops between -5°C and -12°C than could be accounted for by H-M, requiring <10 min, as judged from the small size of the ice particles in high concentrations, ones that had not yet had time to begin forming aggregates; moreover, they were usually coincident with relatively high LWC that had not had time to be depleted (e.g., HR90, RH91u). Newly risen turrets full of LWC could be seen to transition to an icy, fraying, soft, cotton-candy appearance in less than 10 min. What cloud observer hasn’t seen this behavior?
Our maritime clouds had very low concentrations of small (<13 µm diameter) droplets once appreciably above cloud base and into the H-M temperature zone. Low concentrations of small droplets were once thought to be an impediment to riming and splintering (e.g., Mossop 1978u; Hallett et al. 1980u), though later studies deemed them to have only a “secondary role” (Mossop 1985b).
Measured graupel concentrations, despite our “optimizations” (using high concentrations over a few meters rather than turret-averaged) to try to make H-M work in RH91u were still not high enough to account for the high concentrations of ice particles that developed so quickly.
Our fast-glaciating, modest Cumulus and Cumulonimbus clouds with tops between -5°C >-12°C did not contain mm-sized raindrops, thought to be critical for rapid glaciation as asserted by F2017. However, copious large droplets (>30 µm diameter) and drizzle-sized drops up to about 500 µm diameter were always found, though the latter in relatively low concentrations[7],[8]. Drop sizes between 30 µm and 60 µm diameter, deemed an important player in ice multiplication by Ono (1972u), were always copious.
Discussion of Rangno and Hobbs (1994u)
Too, our evaluation of the H-M process could not explain the ice multiplication that occurred in those few eastern Washington clouds that did meet the H-M criteria. In our calculations we used a “relaxed” FSSP-100 spectra (as lately invoked by Crawford et al. 2012) that resulted in more >23 µm diameter droplets than were actually observed in our calculations to no avail in an attempt to “break” our conclusions (as good scientists do).
Two very short but illuminating papers were published in 1998 that discussed two viewpoints concerning the H-M process. Blyth and Latham (1998u) “Commented” on the University of Washington findings2as completely explicable due to the H-M process, counter to the conclusions stated in our papers in which we felt that H-M might be playing a lesser role. We defended our findings in our reply (Hobbs and Rangno 1998u)[10].
Following Mossop’s (1978) nomogram for ice development and ice multiplication boundaries given cloud base temperatures[11], we evaluated the onset of ice based on cloud depth and temperature of the onset of ice in Cumulus clouds using cloud base temperatures for continental clouds in Rangno and Hobbs (1988u), updated with many more data points from various locations around the world in Rangno and Hobbs 1995u (Figure 12). These data, for non-severe convection, point to a critical role of droplet sizes as proxied by cloud depth for the onset of ice in clouds (as Ludlam 1952) first noted), and, thus when ice multiplication can be expected.
Other uncited findings that impact F2017
Perhaps the most remarkable instance of “secondary” ice formation was left out of the field studies described by F2017: that of Stith et al 2004u in clean tropical updrafts. Stith et al. reported tens of thousands per liter of spherical ice particles in tropical updrafts that led to nearly complete glaciation by -12°C and total glaciation by -17°C. As Stith et al. pointed out, and was obvious, there is no mechanism presently known that can explain those observations. The remarkable findings of Stith et al. should have been “front and center” in F2017. (Or, it should have been called out as bogus in a footnote.)
Another finding, one that resembles the findings of Stith et al. 2004u, and is also inexplicable by H-M, is that of Paluch and Breed (1984u). High ice particle concentrations (100 l-1) formed in a Cumulus cloud updraft at a moderate supercooling.
Other examples of H-M “exceptionalism” that went uncited in F2017: Cooper and Saunders 1980u, Cooper and Vali 1981u, Gayet and Soulage 1982u, Waldvogel et al 1987u.
A tedious line-by-line critique of F2017, analogous to a pre-publication manuscript review, one that should have taken place before publication.
P7.1: F2017, their introduction: “Airborne observations of ice crystal concentrations are often found to exceed the concentration of ice nucleating particles (INPs) by many orders of magnitude (see, e.g., Mossop 1985; Hobbs and Rangno 1985; Beard 1992; Pruppacher and Klett 1997; Hobbs and Rangno 1998; Cantrell and Heymsfield 2005; DeMott et al. 2016). In the 1970s (Mossop et al. 1970; Hallett and Mossop 1974) the discrepancy between expected ice particle concentrations formedthrough primary ice nucleation and observed ice particle concentration motivated the search for mechanisms thatcould amplify primary nucleation pathways.”
Comment: While it was gratifying to have our work cited in the Introduction of F2017, the observations of unexpectedly high ice particle concentrations at slight supercoolings (>-10°C), goes no farther back than Mossop et al. 1970. One wishes some the earlier workers who reported ice at unexpectedly high cloud top temperatures would have been cited in this first grouping[12], such as Coons and Gunn 1951u; Ludlam 1955u; Murgatroyd and Garrod 1960u; Borovikov et al. 1961u; Koenig 1963; Hobbs 1969u; Auer et al 1969u.
P 7.2, Section 2, F2017: “The consensus is that H-M occurs within a temperature range of approximately -3°C to -8°C, in the presence of liquid cloud droplets smaller than ~13µm and liquid drops larger than ~25µm in diameter that can freeze when they are collected by large ice particles (rimed aggregates, graupel, or large frozen drops).”
Comment: It is now believed that the small droplets play a far less important role than once envisioned. Goldsmith et al. (1976), later confirmed by Mossop (1978) appeared to find strong evidence that droplets <13µm diameter played a critical role in ice multiplication. In fact, it was thought for a time that very low concentrations of those small drops would lead to clouds absent in ice multiplication in clean locations (e.g., Hallett et al. 1980u). However, Mossop 1985a, u himself, in later laboratory experiments determined that small drops played a much-reduced role in H-M. Cloud studies in pristine environments where ice multiplication was rampant (RH91u in the Washington State coastal waters in onshore flow, HR98 in the Arctic, Rangno and Hobbs (2005) in the Marshall Islands, and Connolly et al. (2006a) in England, would seem to have confirmed the minor role of droplets <13 µm diameter in riming and splintering in clean conditions.
Section 2, p7.3-7.4: The F2017 Table 1 and the discussion of laboratory and field observations of secondary ice particles.
Comment: While Section 2 was remarkably thorough, some important findings were not cited, or listed in Table 7.1 of the many studies of secondary ice particles. Ono (1971u, 1972u) should have been included in Table 7-1 and in the accompanying F2017 discussions; he appears to have preceded Hallett and Mossop (1974) concerning the importance of larger cloud droplets coincident with graupel in ice multiplication[13]. Two elucidating quotes from Ono:
Ono (1971u), his abstract:
“(Ice crystal) sizes, concentrations and microphysical conditions of occurrence support the hypothesis that they were formed when ice fragments were thrown off from water drops freezing after accreting on ice crystals.”
Ono (1972u):
“However, from our present observations, it has been found that in the clouds where moderately large drops of 30 to 60 µm in diameter and graupel-like rimed ice particles occurred simultaneously, we have a high concentration of secondary ice crystals. The presence of drops with some hundreds of microns in diameter is not a crucial factor for crystal multiplication.”
Moreover, Ono’s (1972u) findings above would appear to square better with our own findings (e.g., HR90, RH91u) for maritime clouds in the Washington coastal waters concerning high ice particle concentrations since our cumuliform clouds in onshore flow always had plenty of supercooled droplets >30 µm diameter in their middle and upper portions, sizes that Ono implicated in ice multiplication. Also, our Washington maritime clouds have virtually no mm-sized drops as F2017 erroneously conclude are necessary for the “rapid” ice formation.
At the top of p 7.4: “…and observations are compromised by the potential of ice to break on contact with the aircraft or instruments (e.g., Field et al. 2006).”
Comment: A single reference to Field et al (2006) regarding probe-related ice artifacts could lead the reader to believe that shattering on probe tips was a very recently discovered problem. Shattering on probe tips has been a well-known problem and was obvious in the imagery as soon as 2D probes began to be used in the late 1970s. Those of us in airborne research have been addressing this problem for more than 30 years to minimize the contribution of artifacts to ice particle concentrations (e.g., Harris-Hobbs and Cooper 1987).
Many of reports of ice multiplication have originated at ground sites (e.g., Hobbs 1969u, Auer 1969u, Burrows and Robertson 1969u, Ono 1971u, 1972u, Vardiman 1978). Citing these reports and emphasizing that they were ground sites would have made it clear to the reader that airborne artifacts have not reduced this enigma very much.
In fact, in view of the complexity of aircraft measurements of ice particles, MORE ground observations are critical, particularly at sites where the H-M process should be frequently active in clouds at the ground as in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State (e.g., Paradise Ranger Station). Such ground measurements are vitally needed as well in the Middle East at sites where there has been a dearth of ice-in-cloud measurements[14]. Some authors now claiming that even modern outfitted research cannot derive accurate concentrations of ice particles (i.e., Freud et al. 2015). Hence, the need for more ground work if, in fact, the assertion in Freud et al. 2015 is true..
Section 2, last paragraph on p7.4: “Splinter production following the freezing of a large millimeter size droplet that subsequently shatters (droplet shattering; e.g., Mason and Maybank 1960..”
Comment: The authors in citing Mason and Maybank (1960) several times are apparently unaware that Mason and Maybank’s results were compromised by CO2, as discovered by Dye and Hobbs 1966u. CO2is a gas that promoted the shattering of drops that Mason and Maybank observed. Later, however, Hobbs and Alkesweeny 1968u, did find that a fewsplinters were shed by drops that rotated in free fall as they froze, far fewer than reported by Mason and Maybank. Hobbs and Alkesweeny’s work should have been cited along with that of Brownscombe and Thorndike (1968).
P7.2, Section 2, laboratory evidence for secondary ice formation:
Comment: The role of water supersaturation in ice formation was ignored as a possible source of secondary ice. Gagin and Nozyce 1984u reported the appearance of ice crystals in the environment of freezing mm-sized drops in lab experiments. They attributed the formation of the new ice crystals to a pulse of high supersaturation with respect to water as the freezing drop warmed to 0°C in their chamber. This could be an important secondary ice-forming mechanism, similar in effect to that used by Chisnell and Latham (1976), who incorporated splinters derived from freezing drops. This process might explain the simultaneous appearance of ice splinters that appear so quickly, side-by-side, with frozen precipitation-sized drops.
P7.4, Section 3. In situ observations of SIP and the discussion of the role of IN.
Comment: The work of Rosinski (1991u) goes uncited. Rosinski did a lot of work on maritime IN, ones that he claimed were active at slightly supercooled temperatures in concentrations of tens per liter. His work should have been mentioned, even if it’s only to state that his measurements are not generally accepted. However, if he was even partially correct, his findings would go a long way to explaining the rapidity of ice development in maritime clouds.
P7.5, “In addition, the measurements may be affected by the possibility that ice particles generated by the passage of the aircraft through the cloud (Woodley et al. 2003) from previous cloud passes could have mixed into the measured samples.”
Comment: The authors only cite Woodley et al. (2003) regarding aircraft-produced ice due to the passage of an aircraft. This unexpected phenomenon was first reported 20 years prior to Woodley et al. by Rangno and Hobbs (1983u, 1984u)[15]. Scientific etiquette requires that those who went first be cited. Not citing benchmark papers that roiled the airborne research community due to the temperatures at which ice was produced (>-10°C) is remarkable. John Hallett (2008) termed this finding, “an embarrassment to the airborne research community.”
Too, not being cited when you should be inflicts material damage since one’s impact in one’s field, likelihood of promotions, awards, etc, is measured by citation metrics.
P7.6 “Lawson et al. (2015) suggest that the rapid glaciation in these strong updraft cores (~10ms-1) occurs at temperatures too cold and a rate too fast to be attributable to the H-M process.
Comment: Citing the report of Stith et al. (2004u) would have been perfect here, as would have been Paluch and Breed (1984u).
P7.7, discussion of Heymsfield and Willis (2014): “Heymsfield and Willis (2014)found that SIP evidenced by observations of needles–columns throughout the range -3°C to -14°C was observed predominantly where the vertical velocities were in the range from -1 to +1 ms-1. The LWCs in the regions where SIP are observed are dominantly below 0.10 gm-3. Median LWCs in these regions were only about 0.03 gm-3 with no obvious dependence on the temperature.”
Comment: The Heymsfield and Willis (2014) finding is not only counter to most of the Washington experience but also that of other workers (e.g., Mossop et al. 1968u, Figure 4[16]; Mossop et al. (1972u. Figure 2; Mossop 1985u, Figure 1), Paluch and Breed 1984u; Lawson et al 2015’s “first ice”). Why? The initiation and observation of small ice particles in high concentrations usually occurs in the higher (short-lived) LWC zones (>0.5 g m-3). These contrary findings are not mentioned by F2017, ones that would have presented a different picture of the origin of the high concentrations of ice. Perhaps Heymsfield and Willis (2014) encountered their high ice particles in cloud “death throes”; evaporating anvil shelving, rather having encountered them close to where they formed?
P7.7, discussion of Taylor et al. (2016): “Taylor et al. (2016)analyzed aircraft measurements in maritime cumulus with colder (11°C) cloud-base temperatures that formed over the southwest peninsula of the United Kingdom. They found that almost all of the initial ice particles were frozen drizzle drops [;(0.5–1) mm], whereas vapor-grown ice crystals were dominant in the later stages. Their observations indicate that the freezing of drizzle–raindrops is an important process that dominates the formation of large ice in the intermediate stages of cloud development. In the more mature stage of cloud development the study found high concentrations of small ice within the H-M temperature range.”
Comment: Virtually identical findings to Taylor et al.’s was reported for even cooler based clouds a quarter of a century earlier by RH91u which should have been cited along with Taylor et al.’s.
P7.7, 2nd: “It has been speculated that graupel does not need to play the rimer role. In situ observations from frontal cloud systems suggest that riming snowflakes may be able to mediate the SIP (Crosier et al. 2011; Hogan et al. 2002.).
Comment: The 2002 and 2011 references to non-graupel ice particles shedding splinters seem out of place since this was considered so many years prior to these references. For example, riming by other than graupel particles was part of the “potential” H-M scheme of Harris-Hobbs and Cooper in 1987, in Mason 1998, and by Mossop 1985b.
We should cite those who tread the ground before we did.
P7.8. last three lines: “Finally, it should be noted that conditions where cloud tops are -12ºC and drizzle-sized supercooled droplets are present do not always result in the production of large numbers of ice crystals. Bernstein et al. (2007) and Rasmussen et al. (1995)identified these conditions as long-lived clouds and hazardous for aircraft.”
Some elaboration on the interesting and important findings of Bernstein et al. (2007) and Rasmussen et al. (1995):
The University of Washington aircraft observed drizzle drops aloft in orographic clouds in the Oregon Cascade Mountains during IMPROVE 2 (Stoelinga et al. 2003); we had not observed them in the more aerosol-impacted clouds of the Washington Cascades in many years of sampling them, though we did not fly in the kind of strong synoptic situations encountered in IMPROVE 2.
However, those Oregon drizzle drops that we encountered in IMPROVE 2, as usually happens, didn’t make it to the ground as liquid drops. IMPROVE 2 had ground measurements in support of airborne work; no freezing rain or drizzle events were reported, a finding compatible with long term records in the Sierras, and Cascades with precipitation at below freezing temperatures under westerly flow situations and when the temperature decreases with height (unpublished data). There is a duration-below-freezing-temperature factor, as well as the temperature itself, that together control the freezing of precipitation-sized drops. The deeper the sub-freezing layer at temperatures below about -4°C, the more likely drops will freeze on the way down becoming sleet/ice pellets.
Supercooled layered cloud tops, sometimes colder than -30°C, are common and persistent, and they have been known about since 1957 (Cunningham 1957u, Hall 1957u; this situation is shown in Byers 1965u), and were described later by HR85, HR98, and explained by Rauber and Tokay 1991u. Supercooled tops, usually ones having a broad droplet spectrum if they are shedding ice (RH85), persist because the ice that forms within them falls out, as do precipitation-sized drops, if any, and those drops freeze on the way down. Altocumulus clouds sporting virga is a common example of this phenomenon. In this “upside down” storm situation, ice particle concentrations have been observed to increase downward (e.g., HR85; Rasmussen et al. 1995) likely due to the breakup of fragile crystals. This phenomenon can mislead researchers solely using satellite data to infer the phase of entire cloud systems below those tops.
p7.15, Section 6, discussion and conclusions section, second bulleted item: “The onset of the rapid glaciation of convective clouds is observed to occur shortly after millimeter-size drops freeze.”
Comment: If Ono’s 1972u findings are correct the glaciation process is also triggered by drops smaller than even drizzle drops (0.2 to 0.5 mm diameter). In our cool-based, modest-sized Washington State maritime clouds (bases rarely >6°C) with mm-sized drops were rarely encountered; nevertheless, ice formation was usually rapid and prolific.
P7.15, Section 6, 2ndparagraph, last sentence: “It has been suggested by, for example, Koenig (1963)and Lawson et al. (2015)that supercooled raindrops play an important role in the initiation of the glaciation process and there is evidence that this can occur at temperatures greater than -10°C.”
Comment: The phrasing that “there is evidence”, which was likely unintentional, makes it sound like the appearance of ice in clouds with tops >-10°C is a rare phenomenon which the authors know is hardly rare! It happens globally over the oceans in clean conditions, and in continental convective clouds with warm bases.
Minor comments and corrections
P7.6 “Figure 7-6shows aircraft observations taken within a few hundred meters of cloud top by repeatedly penetrating a rapidly growing convective plume”
Comment: Can the authors rule out aircraft production of ice?
P7.7: “They found that almost all of the initial ice particles were frozen drizzle drops ~ (0.5–1) mm], whereas vapor-grown ice crystals were dominant in the later stages.”
Comment: Drizzle drops are defined by the AMS and WMO as close togetherdrops between 0.2 mm and 0.5 mm diameter. They virtually float in the air. The 0.5 to 1 mm diameter drops that F2017 refer to are raindrops, not drizzle ones.
P7.2, Section 2, Laboratory Studies:
Comment: Amid citations of laboratory experiments that “have produced secondary ice”, we point out that Choularton et al (1980) only produced protuberances and spicules, not actual ice particles. Later, F2017 again cite Choularton et al. a bit incorrectly by suggesting the drop sizes for spicule production he studied was “>~25 µm”. Choularton et al. reported the main increase in protuberances was for droplets >20 µm diameter.
P 7.4, Section 3, In Situ Cloud Studies, first paragraph, 2ndline: “Ice particles are often observed in abundance in convective clouds that are colder than 0°C but with cloud-top temperatures warmer than about -12°C…”
Comment: Slightly more accurately: “… clouds whose tops have ascended past -4°C but have not been colder than about -12°C…”
P7.5, Section 3, last paragraph: “Hobbs and Rangno (1985, 1990, 1998), in a series of aircraft investigations of maritime cumulus off the coast of Washington…”
Comment: F2017 indicates that HR98 concerned Washington State coastal clouds. It concerned Arctic stratiform clouds. This seems like a remarkable error for 29 authors to make. Moreover, in HR98 we discussed ice multiplication in pristine, slightly supercooled Arctic Stratus clouds with extremely low (<20 cm-3) droplet concentrations. We found little correlation between droplets <13µm diameter droplets and small (<300 diameter) ice particles as some have reported (Harris-Hobbs and Cooper 1987) in support of their importance in riming and splintering process. Yet ice was plentiful (10s per liter) regardless of the concentrations of those small droplets in boundary-layer Stratocumulus clouds with tops of just -4° to -6° C.
P7.5, Section 3, the discussion of Harris-Hobbs and Cooper 1987: “Harris-Hobbs and Cooper (1987)used airborne observations from cumulus clouds in three different geographic regions to estimate secondary ice production rates.”
Comment: The California clouds that HHC87 examined were not Cumulus but were long stretches of orographic stratiform, banded cloud systems rather than Cumulus clouds.
Editorial note concerning the popular phrasing, “warm or “cold” temperatures in numerous places.
A quote from Peter Hobbs on this common error; “A cup of coffee can be warm or cold, but not a temperature.” A temperature is a number and can have no physical state itself, but rather refers to the state of a tangible object.
Acknowledgements: This review is dedicated to the memory of Peter V. Hobbs, Director of the Cloud and Aerosol Research Group, Atmospheric Sciences Department, University of Washington, Seattle. He allowed me to become the most I could be in my field. This is also dedicated to our “can do” pilots; the many members of our flight crews; and our software engineers, whose dedication to their jobs over the years in the adverse conditions that we often flew in, made our findings possible.
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[1]Retiree, Cloud and Aerosol Research Group, Atmos. Sci. Dept., University of Washington, Seattle.
[2]Hobbs and Rangno 1985, 1990, and 1998, hereafter HR85, HR90, and HR98, and Rangno and Hobbs 2001 and 2005, hereafter RH2001 and RH2005.
[3]Exceptions might be those situations where fresh turrets rise up through remains of turrets in calm or nearly calm situations.
[4]It is interesting to note that aufm Kampe and Weickmann (1951) produced virtually the same ice nuclei activity graph as found in DeMott et al. 2010. Blanchard (1957) froze freely suspended giant drops at -5° to -8°C using out door air, as did aufm Kampe and Weickmann.
[5]We also found it difficult to arrive at that moment of “explosive” ice development with our aircraft.
[6]The Quillayute, WA, rawinsonde 500 mb temperature was -45°C the morning of our flight!
[7]We note that in the cloud studied by Mossop (1985u) a drop of 1.5 mm diameter was encountered.
[8]If Ono (1972u) was correct about the importance of drops between 30 µm and 60 µm diameter, then we may have been barking up the wrong “ice tree” by concentrating on drizzle and raindrop sizes.
[9]While tedious, we inspected all our 2-D imagery in our Cumulus studies for artifact problems; we didn’t just crunch numbers without looking at every 2-D strip!
[10]This colloquy also emphasized an extremely important point in science; we should speak out on findings that we question instead of remaining on the sidelines. We admired Blyth and Latham for questioning our work. After all, we could be wrong!
[11]Isaac and Schemenauer (1979), however, criticized Mossop’s 1978 nomogram; Mossop (1979) responded politely with more supportive data.
[12]It has been said that references to ground breaking early work is disappearing in publications due to the presence of younger authors.
[13]Ono worked with Mossop (e.g., Mossop and Ono 1969u), perhaps there was some “cross-pollination” of ideas…
[14]Sites to consider might be at Mt. Hermon, Israel, or at ski resorts in Lebanon. In-cloud situations with snow and graupel precipitation would be common at these sites.
[15]Our first two submitted manuscripts, ones that preceded RH83u, were rejected. The editor wrote, concerning the 2ndmanuscript, “The reviewers are still unconvinced by these controversial claims”, B. Silverman, Ed., personal correspondence.
[16]Mossop et al. 1968u also found columnar ice particles in dissipating, anvil-like regions as well as in high LWC zones.
A Personal Sojourn through a Murky Scientific Field Whose Published Results Have Often Been Skewed and Unreliable
by
Arthur L. Rangno
(journal handle)
Retiree, Research Scientist III, Cloud and Aerosol Research Group, Atmospheric Sciences Department, University of Washington, Seattle.
Author Disclosure
I have worked on both sides of the cloud seeding fence; in research and in commercial seeding projects.
My main career job for almost 30 years (1976-2006) was with the University of Washington’s Cloud and Aerosol Research Group (CARG) within the Atmospheric Sciences Department. I was a non-faculty, staff meteorologist and part of the flight crew of the various research aircraft we had (B-23, C-131A, and Convair 580) and directed many flights concerning the development of ice in Cumulus clouds; some involved dry ice cloud seeding. Prof. Peter V. Hobbs was the director of the CARG.
After retiring from the University of Washington I was a consultant and part of the airborne crew for the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in a test of cloud seeding in Saudi Arabia during the winter of 2006-07. That research involved some randomized seeding of Cumulus clouds.
An overview/introduction to Peter Hobbs’ group’s work in cloud seeding, as it was presented at the American Meteorological Society’s Peter Hobbs Symposium Day in 2008 can be found here. Since Peter V. Hobbs has virtually no wikipedia presence, unlike his peers of comparable stature, he deserves at least a review of his group’s work (and our collaborations) in that domain (and in a tongue-in-cheek way that I think he would have liked.) Peter Hobbs passed in 2005.
I have also worked in summer commercial cloud seeding programs in South Dakota (twice), in India, in the Sierras, and for a CARG cloud seeding program for the Cascade Mountains of Washington in the spring of the drought winter of 1976-77. I worked for North American Weather Consultants, a provider of commercial cloud seeding services, as a summer hire in 1968 while a meteorology student at San Jose State College.
Confirmation bias? Yes, I have some. You can make supercooled, non-precipitating clouds precipitate. But since those clouds are almost always shallow, the amount of precip that comes out is small. Is it economically viable? I don’t know. EOD.
Where it all started: in a big randomized cloud seeding experiment in southwest Colorado in the early 1970s designed to prove orographic cloud seeding once and for all
Cloud seeding is releasing silver iodide (AgI) or dropping dry ice pellets into clouds with liquid water at temperatures below about -5°C (23°F) to create more ice crystals than are thought to occur naturally in them. The ice crystals grow, aggregate into snowflakes and fall out as snow, or rain. At least that’s the ideal picture. Droplets of liquid water can persist in thin layer clouds and in strong updrafts to temperatures lower than -30°C (-22°F). Quite amazing, really.
But nature is perverse in ways we don’t understand fully. Completely glaciated (iced-out) clouds can occur in clouds that have never been colder than about -7°C (20°F). Such clouds have always been observed to have larger cloud droplets, drizzle or raindrops in them. Hence, there is a “problem” in assuming that clouds are lacking in ice and need MORE ice crystals via seeding; they often don’t, and seeding them will have no effect, or even could decrease precipitation.
No randomized cloud seeding experiment, followed by a necessary replication of the result to rule out flukes, has shown to have produced increased precipitation to date. An exception in the works may be an experiment in the Snowy Mountains of Australia that has recently been reported, but has not been examined rigorously by outside skeptics like me. And extreme rigor is required when cloud seeding successes are reported by those who have conducted the experiment! Read on….
About this “blook”
This is not a blog, but a “blook” (book-blog); a “blogzilla”, an autobio consisting of 50 years of experiences and observations of this field, 1970 to the present time. Thanks in advance to the two of you who actually read this whole thing! It’ll take a couple days. Its story about a journey through science and one about how it sometimes fails to catch perverse literature and won’t allow valid literature that it doesn’t like. My hope is that my path through this field was “anomalous” or we’re in deep trouble.
This blog-book (“blook”) has four main elements: 1) my cloud investigation trip to Israel and its findings; 2) about the difficulty of getting a review of Israeli cloud seeding published in the American Meteorological Society’s Bull. of the Amer. Meteor. Soc. (“BAMS“), historically the repository of cloud seeding reviews, 3) the manuscript in question itself recounting the “rise and fall” of cloud seeding in Israel (with slight revisions following peer-review) and 4), the early 1970s experiences in Colorado that led me to being an activist in closely scrutinizing cloud seeding literature, one having a strong distrust of successful reports. It is also about a “kill the messenger” attitude in science, and a test of current friendships of those once associated with institutions that will be mentioned.
For a modicum of credibility regarding what you will read:
Peter V. Hobbs and I received a monetary prize for our work in the cloud seeding arena. The award was adjudicated by experts with the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization. Peter Hobbs had done what might be viewed as “constructive” work in this domain before I arrived.
My portion of this prize, however, was mainly for tearing down accepted structures within the cloud seeding literature via reanalyses of cloud seeding experiments, some deemed the best that been done by the scientific community, along with other published commentaries. Ironically, some “tear-downs” were ones that Peter Hobbs himself had helped build up before I arrived. Here’s the secret to my reanalyses of cloud seeding successes: sadly, I have to report that they were ALL virtually “low hanging fruit” ready to be picked off by almost any under-credentialed meteorologist like me (cloud seeding wrecking ball Rangno) who was willing to look a little closer at them; they did not require someone with a big brain or “Einsteinian” insights to unravel them.
A part of the “prize”, was also under inadvertent (and controversial) seeding effects, we discovered in the early 1980s that our own prop aircraft (a Douglas B-23) was inadvertently seeding supercooled clouds that we had flown through at temperatures as high as -8°C! I still remember bringing in a strip chart to Peter Hobbs and telling him, “I think our aircraft did this” (created spikes of ice concentrations in an otherwise ice-free Cumulus congestus cloud).
The aircraft inadvertent seeding paper was so controversial in its day due to casting a shadow on prior aircraft sampling of supercooled clouds that it was rejected twice and took two years and voluminous increases in size before being accepted (Rangno and Hobbs 1983, J. Clim. Appl. Meteor.). It didn’t help that many earlier aircraft studies of clouds had been conducted near -10°C. Now, its common knowledge and the effect must be guarded against when sampling the same cloud repeatedly for life cycle studies. Prof. John Hallett described our findings in 2008 at the Peter Hobbs Symposium Day of the American Meteorological Society, as “an embarrassment for the airborne research community.” No! Not our study, but what we found!
In short, I have been involved with a lot of destruction or compromising of prior published science. On the other hand, I did make one positive contribution to cloud seeding, suggesting that we use the CARG mm-wavelength cloud sensing, vertically-pointed radar as a seeding target (after an aircraft contrail passed over it one day). The results of our subsequent experiments were published in no less than Science mag, and that article got a hand-written accolade from “Mr. Dry Ice,” himself, Vincent Schaefer, the discoverer of that modern seeding methodology! Some of this experiment (the best part, of course) is reprised in the 2008 Hobbs Symposium Day talk here.
I begin in mid-stream in a sense by starting out about my provocative trip to Israel to investigate their clouds in 1986. This was long after my disillusion with the cloud seeding literature had taken hold in the early 1970s. I start with this chapter because I am still battling to this day to get a review of cloud seeding in Israel published; its rise and fall. This is a major science story and I won’t give up on it! There are many reasons other than science ones for the difficulty of getting this account published. They are enumerated later. No one will be surprised by them.
The Israel seeding account, too, parallels the “rise and fall” of widely perceived experiments in Colorado that were believed to have proved cloud seeding as purported by no less than the National Academy of Sciences. Those Colorado experiments and their own rise and fall cycle preceded that of the Israeli experiments.
As in Israel, the primary fault of the Colorado experimenters was that they could not get their clouds right, the “bottom line” in cloud seeding experiments. The Colorado experimenters inferred (through post-experiment statistical analyses) as did they Israeli experimenters, “ripe-for-seeding” clouds that don’t exist.
Moreover, the Colorado experimenters could not accept the idea that their experiments were compromised because nature flung heavier storms at the seeding target and surrounding regions on randomly drawn seeded days. There were also problems with the data that the Colorado experimenters had used; it wasn’t what they said they had used, and they didn’t draw random decisions when their own criteria said they should have. (An aside: “Good grief!” And, yes, I was involved in the tear-down of the Colorado experiments).
In the account of Israel’s experiments’ “rise and fall”, you will read about how the results and even the clouds described by the Israeli experimenters, mirrored what was being reported about the clouds of Colorado. This even though the clouds in Israel were winter Cumulus and Cumulonimbus clouds that rolled in off the Mediterranean Sea, and the Colorado clouds much colder, winter stratiform clouds in the mountains, of course, deep within a continent. This should have raised some eyebrows, but didn’t. I included discussions of the Colorado findings in the Israel manuscript because at the time, these disparate reports were cross-pollinating one another in a sense for the scientific community, one that was primed for cloud seeding successes to be reported after increasingly optimistic findings in lesser studies and experiments in the 1960s.
If this hasn’t piqued your interest in reading this “blogzilla”, then, oh well; move along. haha.
But, if you want to read an “important paper”, as deemed by the anonymous reviewer (one of two), and presumably one not beholden to cloud seeding, it’s here. (That reviewer wanted it less harsh, however, and felt there were “personal criticisms.”). You can decide on these latter assertions by examining the manuscript, post revisions below.
By the way, BAMS was, and is, fully aware of the 2nd, “reject article” reviewer’s conflict of interest, but for whatever reason, paid no attention to it. More about this below.
Yes, this a slog. “Bear down”, as they say at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. (I think it will be worth it.)
Perhaps, as long as this account is, it will be seen as just a diatribe, a useless expenditure of energy on a cause that has little merit except to the author, me. I fear that’s how this will be seen, but I post it anyway. Let us begin…
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No scientist working in a conflicted science arena where there are strong and diverse opinions, whether its on the origin of dogs, the degree of warming ahead due to CO2, or here, in cloud seeding, will be surprised by anything in this account.
“Unreliable literature”?
An interesting provocation in the title that I now flesh out. “One-sided citing”, or “selective citing” is a frequent occurrence in cloud seeding articles (and in other conflicted domains) and can be considered one element of “skewed literature,” that is, not being candid (honest?) about the history of your subject.
One-sided citing is when peer-reviewed article only presents (cites) one side of an issue or findings when there are more that a journal reader should be made aware of. It can only result from reviews of manuscripts by “one-sided reviewers” or ones ignorant of the body of literature in the subject they are passing judgement on in their review.
It should never happen in honest, thoroughly screened-for-publication literature.
So, how often does one-sided citing occur in the cloud seeding literature?
A survey of cloud seeding literature through 2018 (article in preparation) was done that found that 39 of 82 articles in American Meteorological Society (AMS) journals and in the Journal of Weather Modification Association’s peer-reviewed segment exhibited “one-sided citing.” The survey of peer-reviewed literature concerned two sets of once highly regarded cloud seeding experiments whose findings were overturned “upon closer inspection” also in the peer-reviewed literature. The two sets of once benchmark experiments, lauded virtually by all at one time, were conducted in Colorado and Israel. The criteria that was used in this survey was that an overturned result had to be in the peer-review literature for at least a year from the date of final acceptance of a cloud seeding article before any references to the two sets of experiments in an article that mentioned them were examined and categorized. Perhaps we should be placated that a slight majority of papers did, in fact, reference the “whole story” and cited studies that compromised prior successes. I think not.
The number of instances that authors and co-authors signed on to articles that told only one side of the story (ones that referenced only the successful phases) after compromising literature appeared was over 100 representing more than two dozen institutions from universities, government agencies, certified consultants, utilities, and, not too surprisingly, commercial seeding providers.
The institutional “winners” of one-sided citing?
Colorado State University, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, and the Bureau of Reclamation, each having more than ten one-sided “instances1.” These results tell you, not surprisingly, that institutions who have, or have had, concentrated programs in cloud seeding as these did, are the ones most likely to have authors that practice one-sided citing in cloud seeding journal literature.
What motive would there be for authors to cite only the successful phase of cloud seeding experiments that were overturned later? There are several possible answers:
Foremost in my mind is to mislead journal readers by citing only the successful phase of an experiment that was overturned, presumably hoping that their readers don’t find out about the reversal. This leads the naive reader who takes such an article at face value to believe that cloud seeding has a more successful history than it really does, the probable goal of the authors. This is tantamount to citing Fleischmann and Pons (1989, J. Electroanalytical Chem.) in support of “cold fusion,” without citing the followup studies that showed “cold fusion” was bogus. What’s the difference here?
Added to this primary reason for one-sided citing would likely be: ignorance of the literature on the part of authors; the telltale human factor; authors that have grudges against scientists that have injured their home institution’s work, or that of their friends; and authors who don’t wish to cite scientists whose work threatens their own livelihood in cloud seeding.
Cloud seeding literature with only one side of the story cited can be considered one element of “skewed” literature. It should be considered a form of scientific misconduct or really, fraud, in my opinion, even if only a “misdemeanor.” BAMS leadership disagrees with my strong position, stating that its too difficult to determine one-sided citing in recently declining a proposed BAMS essay, “Should ‘one-sided citing’ be considered a form of scientific misconduct?” BAMS felt it was too hard to determine one-sided citing. It must also be considered that my proposal wasn’t as “tight” as it could have been…
But I disagreed due to having a low threshold of misconduct/fraud. Its rather easy to determine one-sided citing, as most of you would realize who’ve been subject to these kinds of omissions of your work. Please see the AMS book, Eloquent Science; the author, David Schultz, believes that one-sided citing is “easily recognized”, contrary to the view of BAMS. Perhaps BAMS leadership didn’t read the well-reviewed book, or consult with Prof. Schultz on why he would write that.
The survey above indicates that an awful lot of misleading literature is reaching the journals, something that publishers/editors of journals probably don’t want to hear about. Ask Stewart and Feder and their experiences with Nature in getting their 1987 article, “The Integrity of the Scientific Literature” published. It took years.
Moreover, one-sided citing damages authors like myself (I am frequently a “victim”) who lose citations they reasonably should have had, and thus one’s impact in his field as measured by citation metrics is reduced.
Surprisingly, one-sided publications have originated from such well-regarded institutions as the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJ), and Colorado State University (CSU), among many others that could be named, thus compromising those institutions’ reputations as reliable sources of information.
That so many occurrences of one-sided citing reach the peer-reviewed literature points to a flawed peer-reviewed system, one populated by “one-sided reviewers” and/or ones ignorant of the literature they are supposed to know about in the role of a reviewer. This is not news.
The shame of this practice is that it would have only taken a single sentence containing references to “fill in the blank” for the journal reader, such as: “These results have been questioned.” Or, “overturned.”
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My whole cloud seeding story, more or less, is about the kind of lapses described above likely driven by excessive confirmation bias, vested interests; scientists presenting only part of the actual story, as happened in Israel regarding a key “confirmatory” experiment, again pointing to a weak peer-review foundation in journals.
Moreover, this “Readers Digest Condensed Book” is only a partial (!) autobio and should be considered one in development. I know changes/additions will be made over time as comments come in… I’ve tried to constrain myself for the time being to just those important-to-me science highlights/”traumas”/epiphanies that I experienced in this realm in my journey rather than present EVERY detail of my experiences in this field (though it will surely seem like I am discussing every detail).
This is also a story, too, by a person who only wanted to be a weather forecaster ever since he was a little kid, but ends up working in and de-constructing cloud seeding experiments, the latter almost exclusively on his own time due to an outsized reaction to misleading literature.
As mentioned, I joined the University of Washington in 1976, btw, long after my disillusionment with the cloud seeding literature was underway. With Prof. Peter Hobbs support when I brought in drafts concerning reanalyses of cloud seeding experiments, I had a strong platform from which to rectify misleading and ersatz cloud seeding claims. I don’t believe another faculty member at the “U-Dub” would have taken the interest that Peter did in cleaning up my drafts. Thank you, Peter Hobbs.
Peter Hobbs was also able to reverse course, as it were, when new facts came in. This was not so much seen in the cloud seeding community I went through in Colorado as you will learn in the “Where it all began” chapter.
My distrust of the cloud seeding literature was so great that I hopped a plane to Israel on January 3rd, 1986, relatively sure that the published cloud reports that were the basis for a cloud seeding success in Israel were not slightly, but grossly in error. And someone needed to do something about it!
Most of this “blook” will be about this chapter of my life because it seems so characteristic of the compromised literature in this field whose character somehow seems to escape the attention of gullible reviewers, and also demonstrates the powerful seductive forces that the thought of making it rain has on otherwise good scientists. Nobel laureate, Irving Langmuir, comes to mind.
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1An author or authors on a one-sided article are each counted as an “instance.” A single author can comprise several “instances” if he repeatedly “one-sides” the issue, and a single article that “one sides” with several authors can be several “instances.” It was observed that several authors repeatedly practiced one-siding in their cloud seeding articles, practices that also repeatedly escaped the attention of those authors’ reviewers somehow.
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For a comprehensive, informative, and entertaining read about early cloud seeding experimenters, crackpots, sincere, but misguided characters, and outright cloud seeding footpads, read, “Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control” by Prof. James R. Fleming. I highly recommend it. Coincidentally, James R. Fleming was a crew member of Peter Hobbs’ research group when I was hired in 1976, before he became the illustrious “Prof. Fleming.” I actually took his place when I started, doing some of the same things he did, like servicing our aircraft’s instrumentation after flights! Crazy, eh?
You will read in Fleming’s book about how Nobel Laureate, Irving Langmuir, became obsessed with cloud seeding and his critical faculties were diminished by an overwhelming cloud seeding “confirmation bias.” The “Langmuirs” in this field persist to this day, willing to throw up specious arguments to recoup failed cloud seeding efforts, or create publications “proving” an ersatz increase in precipitation due to seeding by cherry-picking controls mid or post-experiment. And they’re still leaking articles like that into the peer-reviewed literature due to inadequate peer-review, likely by still-gullible and one-sided reviewers, and certainly by ones ignorant of the subject they are supposed to review. Examples to follow.
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The experiences I had in the realm of cloud seeding also deal with a “checkered history”, as Prof. Fleming wrote, but ones that emanated from academic settings in the modern era in form of peer-reviewed literature. One will be able to confidently conclude from my account that putting on an academic robe did not end the kind of cloud seeding shenanigans described by Prof. Fleming, though they are far more subtle, sophisticated and crafty.
So “crafty” has been such literature that it persuaded national panels consisting of our best scientists (yes, consensuses have been formed) to declare that what were really ersatz cloud seeding successes, true and valid in several cases. Namely, bogus reports of cloud seeding successes that reached the peer-reviewed literature have misled our entire scientific community and those who read those assessments by our best scientists!
(Note: Were our best scientists at fault? Not only “no”, but HELL no!” They were just too trusting of peer-reviewed cloud seeding literature and naive about the forces of confirmation bias combined with weak peer-reviewing that allowed faulty publications to reach the literature, ones that they took at face value.)
Were the cloud seeding experimenters responsible for such faulty modern literature just misguided, deluded, but sincere people?
Or were they “chefs” that “cooked and trimmed” their results to present their journal readers with ersatz successes that they themselves benefitted from? You’ll have to decide. The evidence is clear in one case.
This, too, is written as I near the “end of my own road” and thinking that the events I experienced might be useful for others to know about and, especially, to be vigilant about.
Since its a story with dark elements, it’s also one where the scientific community (like doctors who loath testifying against malfeasant doctors), has tended to “circle the wagons” in misguided efforts to protect the reputation of science and scientists rather than being concerned with the “victims” of scientific misconduct/fraud. Again, ask Feder and Stewart. I am treading in this world now with in a manuscript submission last year to BAMS and the AMS, discussed in considerable detail later. You will be able to read the manuscript itself and make up your own mind about it’s appropriateness in BAMS.
Having never been a faculty member, only a staff research meteorologist at the University of Washington with only a bachelor’s degree, I suspect that it is easier for me than for authors like Prof. Fleming to address malfeasance and/or delusion as seen in the peer-reviewed literature by well-credentialed faculty members, the “club,” as it were, some of whom were even domiciled in one of the institutions he matriculated from.
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The organization of this piece is somewhat suspect. Its not my forte, as the late Peter Hobbs would know. It jumps around a bit. But you will able to do that, too, via “jump links” in the Table of Contents. Think of them as like mini-chapters of a book.
Discussions about Israel’s clouds, cloud seeding, and the battle to get my review of Israeli cloud seeding published in BAMS has a light gray background for some sorting of topics! There is repetition. This “blogzilla” is so long I’ve lost track of some statements that might be repeated. But then, if I repeated something, maybe it was real important. 🙂
The references to technical literature alluded to here, are mainly in the submitted manuscript itself, which is found later in this piece, and on my “Publications” blog page. I didn’t want to overwhelm non-technical readers with numerous inserts of citations.
The “Rise and Fall of Cloud Seeding in Israel” manuscript that I will discuss relative to BAMS, consists of a distillation of more than 700 pages of peer-reviewed and non peer-reviewed conference preprint literature scattered among various journals and conferences and has, at this point, taken a couple of years to put together. Its a sobering historical account that has not been told before, and needs to be heard by a wide audience, particularly those who are involved with cloud seeding. There are also lessons for all of us in there when it comes to researching something when you already know before you start what the result will be.
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I dedicate my work to the late Mr. Karl Rosner, former “Chief Meteorologist” of the Israeli randomized experiments, who became a friend. His integrity was laid bare for all to see when he stated that the high statistical-significance in the Buffer Zone (BZ) of Israel-1 (higher than in either of the two targets!) on “Center” seeded days could NOT have been due to inadvertent seeding based on his wind analysis (quoted by Wurtele, 1971, J. Appl. Meteor.) The BZ lay between the two intentionally seeded targets.
How easy it would have been for a seeding partisan to have said, “Oh, yeah, we must’ve seeded that Buffer Zone” and perhaps have ended speculation about a lucky random draw that favored the appearance of seeding effects in the Center target of Israel-1.
His revealing 1986 letter to me about the Israel-2 experiment is included later.
2. The background for going to Israel in 1986: no one could get a research plane in to check out those ripe-for-seeding clouds described by the HUJ experimenters
By the early 1980s, the events and the journal literature I had experienced during a randomized cloud seeding experiment in Colorado caused me never again to believe in a published cloud seeding success prima facie. It didn’t matter how highly regarded it was by national panels and individual experts. And the Israeli experiments were perceived as just that; the best that had ever been done in those days of the 1980s.
The ripe-for-seeding clouds that I went to see were ones that the HUJ experimenters had described repeatedly in journals and in conference presentations. They were the foundation for the belief that seeding them had, indeed, resulted in the statistically-significant increases in rainfall that had been reported in two randomized cloud seeding experiments, Israel-1 and Israel-2. The experimenters’ ripe-for-seeding cloud reports explained to the scientific community WHY cloud seeding had worked in Israel and not elsewhere.
In 1982, Science magazine hailed these experiments as the ONLY experiments in 35 years of seeding trials that rain increases had been induced by cloud seeding. Yes, there was a dreaded scientific consensus that these experiments had proved cloud seeding. However, only half of the Israel-2 experiment had been reported by the HUJ seeding team when the Science magazine assessment was made; the half that appeared to support a successful overall seeding experiment.
At the time I went to Israel in 1986, and much of the reason for going, was that no major outside research institution, curious about those Israeli clouds, had been able to get their research planes in to check them out. At least six attempts had been rebuffed (Prof. Gabor Vali, Atmos. Sci. Dept., University of Wyoming, personal communication, 1986). The attached letter below to me from Sir John Mason, former head of the British Royal Society and author of, “The Physics of Clouds,” tells of his attempt to get the British research aircraft into Israel and coordinate such a mission with the lead Israeli cloud seeding experimenter, Professor A. Gagin (hereafter, Prof. AG) of the HUJ. You will find it illuminating about why outside researchers couldn’t get in. (Prof. AG passed in September 1987.)
So, in going to Israel in 1986 and by then having ten years of experience under my belt in airborne cloud studies with the University of Washington’s Cloud and Aerosol Research Group (CARG), as a weather forecaster, as a former storm chaser (summer thunderstorms in the deserts of Southern California and Arizona, Hurricane Carla in 1961) and importantly, as a cloud photographer, I felt I could fill a vacuum left by those rebuffed airborne research missions. Peter Hobbs, the director of our group, put it this way: “No one’s been able to get a plane in there.” It was a very curious situation in itself.
A “story board”, Clouds, Weather, and Cloud Seeding in Israel found below is focused on my provocative, but badly needed, cloud investigation trip to Israel in January-mid-March 1986. How I got to the point of doing such an outrageous science act as going to Israel to check out their clouds in person really began in Colorado in the 1970s, as mentioned.
Let me add this: I loved my storm and cloud chasing time in Israel and my days working within the Israel Meteorological Service (IMS) on fair weather ones only, of course! I made relationships that continued over the years though most are now gone.
Since this is just a personal “blog-book” and I want to make it more “human” if you will, as well as having reliable science, I will add a couple of photos from my IMS experience. The first two photos below are some of my “officemates” in the climate division of the IMS that I had around the little table space I was given thanks to IMS Director, Y. L. Tokatly, who saw my skepticism as a natural part of science. The clouds of Israel can only be studied in Israel.
The third photo is one taken on top of a satellite campus of the HUJ where the Atmospheric Sciences Department was located (a former nunnery); photo by Prof. A. G.
Two of my “office mates” within the Israel Meteorological Service’s Climate GroupMore “officemates” within the Israel Meteorological Service’s Climate Group. They were all so nice and accommodating to this intruder’s presence.The photo taken of me by Prof. A. Gagin atop a satellite campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, on January 10th, 1986, during our first cordial meeting. The building had been a former nunnery he told me. (He would not allow me to take his photo.)
5. Story board concerning an extreme act of skepticism: the 1986 trip to Israel and its results
“Honey, I just quit my job at the University of Washington, and now I am going to spend $4,000 of our savings because I think the clouds in Israel aren’t being described correctly. I want to help them figure out their rain clouds. Do you mind if I’m gone for a few months and no longer have a job when I come back? Also, I won’t be looking for a job very soon since I will have to spend the rest of the year working on a manuscript about my findings. OK? I think we’ll still have some savings left at the end of the year.”
No, you can’t do these things if you’re married. But, as a single man in those days, “oh, yeah.” And somebody had to do something!
(Hit the expand button in the lower right hand corner for a full view.)
Peter Hobbs chided me about my skepticism concerning the HUJ cloud reports just before I left for Israel; that I seemed to be indicating to him that I knew more about the clouds of Israel than those who studied them in their backyard. He added that he thought I was “arrogant.” Wow.
Peter was still mad at me for resigning from his group just before a big CARG project and raising a ruckus about why I was resigning. But, I had scrutinized the HUJ cloud reports in considerable detail, and had submitted a paper on the problems with them in 1983 when he was on sabbatical. I had a solid background for my belief that the clouds described by the HUJ cloud seeding team didn’t exist. The mystery to this day is why they did not know the true nature of their clouds with all the tools they had.
Why I resigned from a job I loved, is another long story (oh, not really; you know, it was the old “authorship/credit issue”). Peter had those issues. But it’s one that ends happily with a reconciliation a couple of years later, which doesn’t always happen! We both benefitted from that reconciliation. We needed each other.
My trip to Israel was self-funded and self-initiated. It may sound ludicrous, but I also felt that by going to Israel I was going to be able to do what those rebuffed airborne missions could not do; evaluate the clouds of Israel sans aircraft. I had flown in hundreds if not thousands of clouds using high-end instrumentation, and when you’re directing research flights as I did for the University of Washington’s research group in studies of ice particle development in Cumulus and small Cumulonimbus clouds. You visually assess those clouds before going into them and then sample the best parts and then see what your instruments have told you about the concentrations of droplets and ice particles, etc.) You get a real quantitative feel for how much ice they’re going to have in them by their external appearance.
So, by just visually assessing the Israeli clouds and estimating their thicknesses and top heights, I would know from my airborne work and background whether the reports about the ripe-for-seeding clouds were correct. Upon closer inspection, there were several odd aspects in the HUJ experimenters’ cloud reports.
Too, if I was right about the clouds of Israel, that they were starting to rain when they were relatively shallow (highly efficient in forming rain, as we would say), say, topping out at 3-4 km (roughly 10 kft to 14 kft) above sea level, the people of Israel might well be wasting millions of dollars over the years by trying to increase runoff into their primary fresh water source, the Sea of Galilee (aka, Lake Kinneret) by seeding unsuitable clouds. They had started a commercial-style program in 1975 after Israel-2, the second experiment, had been partially reported as a success in increasing rain due to seeding.
During the first daylight hours of the first showery day, January 12th, 1986, I saw shallow Cumulonimbus clouds, clamped down by a stable layer of air, full of ice rolling in from the Mediterranean onto the Israeli coast. They had been preceded by true drizzle and thick misty rain falling from thick Stratocumulus the night before in Jerusalem where I had spent the night.
I KNEW within those first hours f the first storm that the cloud reports from the HUJ experimenters were grossly in error. To be sure there was nothing strange that day, or on subsequent days, I would ask the Israel Meteorology Service, “Was there anything unusual about this storm?” Nope. In fact, one former forecaster told me, “We get good rains out of clouds with tops at -10°C,” something the HUJ experimenters said never happened.
Experiencing drizzle was a surprise to me; it was not supposed to fall from Israeli clouds because the clouds were too polluted and as a result, the droplets in the clouds were too small to collide and form larger drizzle drops. The occurrence of drizzle instead, meant they were ripe to produce ice at temperatures only a little below freezing due to having large cloud droplets capable of coalescing into bigger drizzle drops, not tiny ones due to pollution that bounce off each other.
Why was the observation of true drizzle so important? The appearance of ice in clouds at temperatures not much below freezing (say, -4°C to -8°C) has always been associated with drizzle or raindrops before it forms.
Of course, there were other experienced research flight scientists in cloud studies out there I am sure that could have done the same thing as I did. But, I was the one that went. (Spent a lotta money doing what I thought was an altruistic act, too.)
6. About the clouds I was supposed to see in Israel
So, what are clouds that are plump with seeding potential supposed to be like? Just that; fat and pretty tall. The clouds that responded to seeding were reported to be those with radar-measured “modal” tops with heights where the temperatures were (from balloon soundings) between -12°C and -21°C. The major rain increases in the Israel-2 experiment due to seeding were reported from “modal” radar tops in the lower half of that temperature range. These would be clouds rolling in off the Mediterranean that were about 5-6 km thick, topping out around 15,000 to 20, 000 feet or so above sea level. Such clouds were described as having a tough time raining, according to the experimenters at the HUJ. They either barely rained, or not even at all, until they were seeded, the experimenters inferred from the statistical analyses alone. The effect of seeding in those statistical analyses of the Israel-2 experiment was that seeding had increased the duration of rain, not its intensity. Seeding had no effect when clouds were already raining.
These findings were compatible with how the experimenters seeded and also led to the inference of deep clouds that didn’t rain until seeded, surrounded by taller ones that did. Non-precipitating clouds cannot be observed by radar, so there was no evidence that such a cloud actually existed.
The experimenters had used just a little bit of seeding agent (silver iodide) released by a single aircraft flying long lines along the Israel coastline near cloud base in showery weather, and this seeding strategy was compatible with what was reported.
It all made sense. Mostly…unless you really got into the details of their cloud reports, in which the devil resides. And I had done that by 1983. See below for a “detective meteorology” module in which the cloud reports of the HUJ experimenters are closely scrutinized.
7. 1983: A paper questioning the Israeli cloud reports is submitted and rejected; a call to action… eventually
In 1983, after plotting dozens of rawinsonde soundings when rain was falling at the time of, or fell within an hour, of the rawinsonde launch time at Bet Dagan, Israel, and at Beirut, Lebanon, (see first figure in ppt above) I came to the conclusion that the clouds of the eastern Mediterranean and in Israel were, shockingly, nothing like they were being described as by the HUJ experimenters at conferences and in their peer-reviewed papers. I also looked at their published cloud sampling reports and it was clear to me that the clouds that the experimenters had sampled were not representative of those that caused significant rain in Israel; they were too narrow, did not have enough ice particles in them. They did not sample the wide Cumulonimbus complexes that produce rain for tens of minutes to more than an hour at a time during Israel’s showery winter weather, sometimes marked by thunderstorms.
I submitted a manuscript in July 1983 to the J. Clim. Appl. Meteor. that questioned the experimenter cloud reports. It indicated that rain frequently fell from clouds with tops >-10°C which according to the experimenters’ reports, was never supposed to happen. It was rejected by three of the four reviewers (B. Silverman, personal correspondence).Peter Hobbs, the leader of my group, was on sabbatical in Germany at this time and was not happy I had submitted a journal paper without his purview. In fact, I was to submit three that year, all rejected! I might have been “Rejectee of the Year” in 1983 with the AMS.
I was undaunted by the rejection; I was pretty sure my findings were correct, which they were proved to be by aircraft measurements in the early 1990s. Note: Rejected authors, take heart! You may have something really good.
The problem for reviewers of that 1983 submission?
How could the HUJ experimenters not know about what I was reporting if it was true?
The many rebuffed outside airborne attempts to study Israeli clouds, such as that by Sir John Mason mentioned above, suggested otherwise. I was to fester over this rejection for the next couple of years before deciding to go to Israel and see those clouds for myself, becoming a “cloud seeding chaser”, maybe the first!
I have to also acknowledge that it was Peter Hobbs in 1979 who challenged me, after our/my first cloud seeding reanalyses and commentaries were published on cloud seeding in Colorado, to look into the Israeli experiments. I guess he thought I had a knack of some kind for that kind of thing. In fact, he took a series of the first questions I had to the 1980 Clermont-Ferrand 8th International Cloud Physics Conference where the lead experimenter, Prof. AG, was presenting.
8. About the publication of the 1986 cloud study
Peter Hobbs called Prof. AG a few months before he passed in 1987 to let him know that my article on the clouds of Israel, derived from my 1986 cloud investigation, was going to be published in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society. The title? “Rain from clouds with tops warmer than -10°C in Israel,” something that the lead experimenter had maintained for many years never happened. In fact, to repeat, such rain was quite common, as the Israeli experiments Chief Forecaster, Mr. Karl Rosner, states in a 1986 letter to me (posted below), and as I also saw in 1986 during my investigation, and of course, as the IMS forecasters knew. Prof. AG passed three months after Peter’s call. Undoubtedly, the appearance of my paper was going to bring many questions and stress for him.
9. The best example of rapid glaciation of shallow cumuliform clouds that I saw in Israel
Shallow Cumulus congestus clouds that were transitioning to modest Cumulonimbus clouds rolled in across the coast north of Tel Aviv on January 15, 1986. This day’s scene was especially good because of the lack, mostly, of intervening clouds toward that small line of clouds. The first shot below was taken at 1556 LST and the second shot just four minutes later, 1600 LST. The rising turret peaking between clouds in the first shot had transitioned to ice in those four minutes, taking its possible load of momentary supercooled liquid water with it. This kind of speed of ice formation that I was to see repeatedly when I was in Israel.
Prof. AG had asserted in his papers that ice particle concentrations in Israeli clouds did not increase with time which was not possible in clouds converting to ice. Later, in mature and dissipitating stages concentrations will decrease as single crystals merge to become aggregates (snowflakes).
I estimated the tops of the clouds in the photos at 4 km ASL and the temperature at -14°C +3°C based on rawinsonde data. Cloud bases were a relatively warm 10-11°C; cloud bases in Israel on shower days are generally about 8°-9°C. The cloud top estimate was later verified by radar by Rosenfeld (1997, J. Appl. Meteor.); our full discussion of these photos, including an error in time by Rosenfeld (1997), is found here along with replies to his other comments. In retrospect, we erred by not publishing our full response to the comments of Dr. Rosenfeld instead of a partial one in the J. Appl. Meteor. I felt some of my best work was in this comprehensive reply, husbanded at the U of Washington:
Copies of these medium format slides, with the times above annotated on them, were sent in 1986 to Dr. Stan Mossop, CSIRO, Australia, Prof. Roscoe R. Braham, Jr., North Carolina State University, and Prof. Gabor Vali, University of Wyoming so that they could all see for themselves that there was something seriously wrong with the existing descriptions of Israeli clouds in the literature.
10. Why was the 1986 Israel cloud study submitted to a foreign journal, the British Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society?
Ans.: Neither Professor Peter Hobbs nor myself believed that my 1987 manuscript could be published in journals under the auspices of the American Meteorological Society (AMS). So, we went “foreign.”
I believe that this also relates to the problem I have today with BAMS under its current leadership with the “Rise and Fall of Cloud Seeding in Israel” manuscript. Perhaps the BAMS editors and its leadership feel they are “protecting” Israel, its science, and the HUJ by rejecting a manuscript about faulty science, a faulty consensus, indicative of poor peer-review, with the reader likely being led to elements of misconduct. ???
My rejected manuscript in 1983 had already suggested that the AMS audience and its reviewers were not ready to hear what I was going to report, and once again I was going to report that the clouds were markedly different than was being described by the HUJ seeding researchers.
The problem with submitting to the AMS, again? Too many (gullible) American scientists had heard repeatedly in conference presentations or read in peer-reviewed journals about Israeli clouds plump with seeding potential and low in ice content to low cloud top temperatures (to -21°C) as they were being described by the lead experimenter.
It would also be seen from my report that it was likely that the clouds of Israel had little seeding potential due to how readily they rained naturally when cloud top temperatures were barely cold enough for the seeding agent to even work.
So in 1987 we believed that what I was reporting would not fly in an American journal, and Peter Hobbs, a member of the Royal Society, “communicated” my manuscript to the QJ. The major problem again for AMS journal reviewers would be, as it was in 1983:
How could the HUJ experimenters not know what I was reporting?
Overseas reviewers tabbed by the QJ, however, such as a Sir B. J. Mason, et al (I don’t know who the reviewers actually were) were likely to be more circumspect, and not at all surprised by mischaracterizations of clouds by members of the cloud seeding community that decribed them as filled with seeding potential.
And they were more circumspect.
My 1987 submitted manuscript was accepted and published in the January 1988 issue of the Quarterly Journal. My conclusions about the general nature of Israeli clouds have been confirmed on several occasions beginning in the early 1990s in airborne measurements by Tel Aviv University scientists and by others later. I had indicated to Prof. AG and several other scientists to whom I wrote to from Israel in 1986 that, from ground observations, the clouds of Israel were producing “50-200 ice particles per liter at cloud top temperatures >-12°C” and that “ice was onsetting in Israeli clouds at top temperatures between -5°C and -8°C.”
Of course, these were fantastic statements based on ground observations in 1986 for those scientists that I wrote to from Israel, but they were verified in a peer-reviewed paper reporting cloud top temperatures and ice particle concentrations in 1996 (Levin et al., J. Appl. Meteor., Table 4).
That 1996 TAU paper is the last time that cloud top temperatures and ice particle concentrations in mature clouds would be reported by Israeli scientists, though the HUJ has conducted numerous flights since then in several separate programs, but have omitted that data about their clouds stating that the instruments they carried on their research aircraft were not capable of this measurement. (I am not kidding.)
The HUJ researchers, however, could only discern the general characteristic of Israeli clouds in 2015; that precipitation onsets in Israeli clouds only a little below freezing as they come in off the Mediterranean Sea. The Israeli experiments’ Chief Meteorologist, Mr. Karl Rosner, already knew this in 1986 (see his letter), as did the Israel Meteorological Service forecasters I spoke with in 1986. What’s wrong with this picture?
Moreover, as happens in conflicted science environments, the HUJ authors of the 2015 paper could not bring themselves to cite my 1988 paper that had reported 27 years earlier what they were finally discovering about their own clouds in 2015. What does this kind of citing tell you about the science emanating from this group at the HUJ? And what is it telling their countrymen? A lot.
The cause of such high precipitation efficiency, the 2015 HUJ authors asserted, was “sea spray cleansing” of clouds coming across the Mediterranean Sea from Europe. This made them ready to produce precipitation at modest depths with only slightly supercooled cloud tops. The Mediterranean Sea is approximately five million years old. Moreover, since the cold air masses exiting the European continent are deepening, there is a “volume cleansing” effect as well that they do not yet know about; aerosols are dispersed over greater depths and in situ concentrations decrease.
In was in 1992 that the HUJ seeding researchers first discovered that shallow clouds with slightly supercooled tops rained in Israel; but they asserted, only in the specific situation when the clouds were impacted by “dust-haze.” And it happened mostly on the southern margins of showery days, they reported.
So, why did it take HUJ researchers so long to learn about their “sea spray cleansed” clouds with all the tools at their disposal? Only the current HUJ seeding leadership can tell us; he studied the clouds and storm patterns of Israel in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
11. The battle to publish “The Rise and Fall of Cloud Seeding in Israel” in the Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. (more slogging)
A LOT of the material in this “blook” is about getting my The Rise and Fall of Cloud Seeding in Israel manuscript published in the Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. (BAMS). I am an expert on the clouds and cloud seeding in Israel and have published on those topics in peer-reviewed journals. The effort to have my holistic account of Israeli seeding published began three years ago! A proposal to BAMS for such an article was declined in 2017, re-written and accepted in later 2018, the manuscript itself submitted in January 2019, and a split decision, reject and accept, received in March 2019.
BAMS chose to reject it, without allowing a response to the comments of the two reviewers, the reject reviewer, who signed his review, is with the seeding team at the HUJ, and I felt, was a “conflicted” one. The “accept, important paper, minor revisions” reviewer was anonymous. BAMS believed that the seeding issues are “not settled” and issue, “too contentious” to be published in BAMS.
I have no idea what these vague descriptions meant about “not settled” and “too contentious.” The Special Editor did not elaborate on what was meant. Here’s my paper as it stands after peer-review, in a two column format for easier reading:
I think here of Stewart and Feder’s efforts to get their 1987 article, The Integrity of the Scientific Literature published in Nature…which took several years. Those authors had found quite a few errors in peer-reviewed scientific papers and wanted the science community to know about some sloppiness in their domain. It resisted. Ditto here.
A revised manuscript of the “Rise and Fall,” for short, following peer-review, was sent in January 2020 to the chief editor of BAMS and the Special Editor, along with the case for publishing it. I also included my replies to the comments of the two reviewers. All of this material is found near the end of this “blook” if you really want to dig into it. These were items that were NOT requested by the BAMS Editors; I just hoped they would peruse them and reconsider their reject decision.
So far, BAMS et al. are unfazed/unconvinced or, more likely, didn’t bother to read my arguments for publication, or the revised manuscript, or the responses to the reviewers. They have responded with silence. Silence is not always golden.
But I remain undaunted. This kind of behavior, rather imperious, is not unusual for editors of journals–they often feel they are above being questioned concerning their decisions, or feel they are too busy to review their decisions. Some editors/reviewers of journal articles, however, oftendo take the time to help and advise authors (BAMS‘ Richard Hallgren, Irwin Abrams; Fred Sanders, Gary Briggs for other journals, come to mind). These above really cared about the literature, even when a paper was rejected (as in my case with Hallgren and Abrams).
12. Why do I persist in the effort to be published in BAMS?
I deem this “Rise and Fall” account the most important story concerning cloud seeding since the advent of modern seeding in the late 1940s. It’s not only about what I deem a human tragedy, but also a scientific tragedy as well for the people of Israel and the outside scientific community. If this sounds melodramatic, read on.
It’s also important because it demonstrates the seductive/corruptive power of changing the weather; that is, making it rain or snow, on otherwise good scientists who went to the “dark side”, perhaps due to confirmation bias, vested interests, or maintaining a high status in this field that overwhelmed their judgement. As Ben-Yehuda and Oliver-Lumerman (2017) have pointed out in their book studying 748 cases of fraud, becoming a “fraudster” to use their word, is often a “process.” Good scientists, as the leading characters in this drama were, didn’t go overnight to the “dark side.”
It is worth observing in view of the current rejection of my manuscript reviewing Israeli cloud seeding that BAMS has published more than 70 cloud seeding articles, some of those considerably longer than mine, since the advent of modern cloud seeding in the late 1940s. So, an article like mine reviewing Israeli cloud seeding is rather normal for BAMS to publish from its past history. BAMS is the most read, most impactful of our American Meteorological Society (AMS) journals; my piece belongs there so that those organizations, from state to private ones, who might be considering cloud seeding, know about the Israeli experiences.
I have also placed a “Get a life” footnote in response to those many people who might think at this point that I need to get one after getting into this “blook.” Its not an unreasonable thought. That footnote, perhaps defensively written, has some less serious bio material about outside interests (“sports and weather”) so that it doesn’t appear that I didn’t have any life outside ruining other people’s cloud seeding work and careers. :), sort of.
13. A few ppt slides from a talk given on “The Rise and Fall of Cloud Seeding in Israel” at the University of Wyoming in October 2017
This third ppt is a glimpse of a talk given at the University of Wyoming Atmospheric Sciences Department in October 2017 on the “Rise and Fall” of cloud seeding in Israel. At this time, my proposal to BAMS for such an article had been rejected. It was accepted when re-written about a year later. BTW, I hope you like Israeli rock music. Huh?
I used a song that I really love that’s in Hebrew for “ambience” during that WY talk, and its here as well in this ppt, the title of the song being, “The Train from Tel Aviv to Cairo.” I encountered it during my 1986 trip. Yes, that train ride might have some tension in it as this song seems to imply with its minor chords, as do my talks. I let it play as I went through the early slides without comment, at least that was the plan. In this ppt, that song doesn’t start automatically, you’ll have to click on it. Boo.
14. The Israeli experiments’ chief meteorologist’s 1986 letter decrying the omission of data from Israel-2; describes the high cloud top temperatures that rain falls from
Mr. Rosner’s feelings about that omission can be seen in his letter to me the year of my visit in which he also critiques the 1981 published article by the experimenters that left out half the results of Israel-2 on superfluous grounds:
BTW, it was the Israel Meteorological Service (I was granted some work space within it) that introduced me to Mr. Rosner in 1986. He had an astounding story to tell me, someone who had come to Israel only in question of cloud reports but who then learned about omitted experimental data! Imagine my reaction. It was unbelievable, but was beginning to look like part of a “pattern of reporting”, too.
For comparison, about what was known in 1986 concerning the clouds of Israel (information contained in Mr. Rosner’s letter), and what was only recently discovered by HUJ cloud researchers, these quotes:
From Mr. Rosner’s 1986 letter:
Mr. Rosner first corrects a statement in Gagin and Neumann 1981 who had written this about Israel-2: “Cloud tops warmer than -5·C were not seeded.”
Mr. Rosner, as chief forecaster, was closer to the day-to-day operations, says this: “In fact, the threshold (for seeding) was -8°C” (for Israel-2). (Note by ALR: This is a minor correction.
Mr. Rosner added this critical cloud/rain information after that:
“There were many instances where the tops did not reach these levels and yet rained, sometimes heavily from such clouds.”
Twenty-nine years later, in 2015, HUJ researchers discover the shallow precipitating Israeli clouds described by Mr. Rosner in 1986 (and reported by me in 1988)
From Freud et al. 2015, Atmos. Res.:
The median effective radius over the (Mediterranean) sea (blue solid curve) crosses the precipitation threshold of 15 um already at -3°C, even before silver iodide can have any effect…..”
Now, if you still believe that Prof. AG and his cohorts rebuffed airborne missions by outside groups such as Sir John Mason’s to investigate Israeli clouds, or me from seeing radar echo top heights in 1986 solely because of “national” or “personal pride” …well, I have some ocean view property in Nebraska I’d like to sell you; maybe a bridge, too. Its beyond a reasonable doubt; incompetence can not be so great as to not know.
An example: I had ridden my bicycle from Tel Aviv to Prof. AG’s radar on the periphery of Ben Gurion AP for our 3rd and last meeting. He would not allow me, however, to go there during storms and evaluating echo top heights claiming his cloud reports would only be verified. The reason I couldn’t go there, he said, was due to, “airport security.”
I don’t think he realized how I had gotten to his meeting.
His behavior was consistent with having “contrary knowledge”, that is, having the same knowledge about Israeli clouds that his chief forecaster and the forecasters within the IMS had, or even his former seeding pilots had. I spoke with one of the latter, then doing tourist flights out of Sade Dov airport and he said, when I asked him, “At what heights do Israeli clouds begin to rain?”, he said, “eight to ten thousand feet” (ASL). This would be exactly where the HUJ 2015 described the onset of rain, at heights where the temperatures are a little below freezing on most shower days.
Compare, too, Prof. AG’s scientific demeanor toward me to that of Professor Lewis O. Grant of CSU described earlier who gave me, a known skeptic, the data I requested.
But why didn’t Prof. Gagin’s successors at the HUJ, ones who could go to his radars regularly long before he passed, learn about these shallow, precipitating clouds, “cleansed by the sea” and report on them in a timely manner? Surely such shallow precipitating clouds from the Mediterranean Sea were passing regularly over and around their radars winter after winter, decade after decade (one of the two radars was vertically-pointed).
I saw those same clouds, photographed them, and reported on them in the Quart. J. Roy. Met. Soc. and in Rangno and Hobbs (1995, J. Appl. Meteor.) Yet, the HUJ seeding experimenters could not discover them.
“Dust-haze” is not a significant factor in making the majority of shallow clouds rain in Israel, as was once asserted by the HUJ experimenters as the sole cause. Indeed, that spurious report in 1992 was the “acorn” from which the “oak” of Rangno and Hobbs (1995, J. Appl. Meteor.) had sprung, again driven by the thought, “someone has to do something about this!” (that 1992 paper).
To repeat, only the current HUJ seeding leadership can illuminate us on why he/they didn’t see the regular presence of “sea-spray cleansed” shallow precipitating clouds sans “dust-haze.” But will he? Perhaps, like me in the early 1970s, he was participating in the weather modification/cloud seeding culture’s de facto “Code of Silence” to stay employed and avoid retribution by his supervisor.
Taking a step back to get a perspective on what happened in Israel… it was a human tragedy that was taking place in those days. We don’t know why it happened for sure. Perhaps Prof. AG felt trapped by his early cloud reports, ones cited early on in the 1974 benchmark papers on riming and splintering by Hallett and Mossop; Mossop and Hallett in Nature and Science, respectively; each mentioned the Israeli clouds as not having large enough droplets for riming and splintering to take place. Perhaps, becoming so prominent in the cloud seeding arena as having seemingly done such careful work and in his own Sephardic community was too much to give up (Prof. AG told me in 1986 during our first cordial meeting that he was the “most prominent,” or “highest ranking”, member of that latter group).
And me, coming to check his cloud reports, a minor figure in the field, must surely have been his worst nightmare. Had someone of the stature of a “Stan Mossop” come? Maybe not so bad.
And surely, as Prof. AG would have suspected given his cloud microstructure knowledge, there was little chance that the commercial-style seeding program targeting the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret) that began in 1975 would have little chance of producing usable amounts of runoff, given the realities of Israel’s clouds. That this seeding program was not producing runoff was only discovered decades later when it was looked into by a panel of independent experts inspired by the Rangno and Hobbs’ 1995 reanalysis of the experiments and ensuing commentaries. It was finally “terminated” in 2007, 32 years after it began. (The “fall” in the “Rise and Fall”).
Imagine what we are dealing with here in scope and cost for the people of Israel? The magnitude of what happened emphasizes why my account should be published in BAMS for the AMS’ widest audience. In my opinion, those who are blocking the publication of my manuscript, rejecting it on tenuous grounds, consider the people of Israel somewhere down the line when it comes to BAMS priorities.
Please do read some of Mr. Rosner’s thoughts on omitting the results of the south target of Israel-2 by Gagin and Neumann (1981) in his letter.
15. More about getting published and those “dark elements” that may be preventing it
As of this very moment in 2020, I am still fighting to get the sobering story of this “Rise and Fall” of cloud seeding in Israel published in BAMS, one having dark elements; namely, the experimenters withheld critical data that would have changed the perceived outcome of their second, “confirmatory” randomized experiment, Israel-2.
Those withheld results were eventually forced out by the Israeli experimenters’ own “Chief Meteorologist,” Mr. Karl Rosner. Mr. Rosner’s campaign to out them began after he retired in 1985 (when he felt safe from possible retribution, he told me in Israel).
Well, there it is: whistleblowers, and why we don’t have more of them though they are crucial for science. Please step forward at your earliest convenience….
Those omitted results came out when the new leadership of the HUJ seeding unit had no choice but to publish them, with former Israeli statistician, Prof. Ruben Gabriel also becoming involved. (It was troubling to learn only recently that Prof. Gabriel, whom I admired, had reviewed the original paper that had omitted half of the Israel-2 results (Gagin and Neumann 1981, J. Appl. Meteor.—see acknowledgements.)
Imagine! Mr. Rosner felt it was wrong for the experimenters not to have reported all the results of the Israel-2 experiment immediately after it ended! I do, too, but there is little support for this view in the scientific community-at-large. The silence has been deafening.
In fact, not only was there silence, the AMS and the Weather Modification Association each dedicated memorial issues of journals to the leader of the Israeli experiments who was responsible for withholding data! Those organizations had not yet absorbed what had happened, and who exactly they had honored, but you can bet that they will fail to acknowledge their error.
Mr. Rosner and I remain in a substantial minority, one that perhaps consists of only me and him since the rest of the scientific community has “yawned” at the “misrepresentation/falsification” of Israel-2 while we remain upset about it to this day, looking for closure.
“Falsification”, as you will read, involves omission of data, and for the Israel-2 experiment it was not just a peccadillo. (Ben-Yehuda and Oliver-Lumerman (2017) defined omission of data as “misrepresentation.” Cherry-picking data while omitting the full amount of data that does not support the cherry-picked subset would fit under this definition.
16. The two peer-reviews: (accept and reject) and the BAMS choice to reject the “Rise and Fall” manuscript
There were but two reviews of my manuscript on the rise and fall of cloud seeding in Israel, submitted in January 2019 to the Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. (BAMS). The reviews came in in March 2019 and I ended up, to repeat, with a split decision: “reject” (by a conflicted reviewer with the HUJ “seeding team,” hardly surprising). He was my first choice as a reviewer with me knowing full well that he would reject anything I submitted, as he had in the past.
Why would I even name an adversary as my first choice of a reviewer?
I fervently believe that adversaries make the best reviewers. No error that you have made in a manuscript will slip by them. I did not want “pal” reviews. At the same time, I presumed that BAMS would understand the conflict of interest by the “reject” reviewer and allow me to respond to his disingenuous review full of mischaracterizations though also having some minor valid points that caused me to do some rewriting. BAMS did not recognize the conflict of interest, or has ignored it, as of now, February 24th, 2020. Probably never will. How strange this is, as though only BP can explain the Deepwater Horizon explosion without anyone commenting on it.
So, perhaps there is some inadvertent humor here when I deliberately selected a reviewer who would knee-jerk reject my paper and that BAMS would choose that one over an “accept” reviewer’s decision. Sadly funny.
The fault rather lies at the feet of BAMS who knew full well about the “reject” reviewer’s conflict of interest. It did not appear that BAMS even read the adversarial review and compared it to what was in my original manuscript! BAMS, too, is at fault in not letting me reply to the conflicted review. You can evaluate my assertions down at the end of this “blook” since I post the conflicted review and my replies to those comments. You can also read what I wrote in the manuscript, revised only slightly based on the legitimate comments of the two reviewers.
The 2nd anonymous reviewer’s decision, oddly not transmitted to me by the Special Editor in charge of my submission in his terse note; “article rejected” email, was the “accept, minor revisions, important paper”! That was amazing to me.
I was so excited to read that phrase: “important paper”, but one that somehow had no effect on the BAMS editorial staff. How can that be?
However, that anonymous reviewer also deemed my manuscript too “harsh” with “personal criticisms” and wanted it “toned down.” Well, those kinds of things are a matter of personal perspective, and are minor, as he wrote (“minor revisions.”) I contend that the original experimenters earned “harshness” with their reporting malfeasance, the effects of which I address in the “Rise and Fall,” “summary” and “reflection” sections. That is the only place where perceived “harshness” can be found in the revised manuscript. What happened must be reflected upon! To ignore it would be of itself be a whitewash and an insult to the people of Israel.
Thus, I can’t tone my manuscript too much and leave with my integrity intact; no one could. And it seems odd to want to put a happy face on misconduct; i.e., falsifying the results of an experiment, an act that affected so many stake holders in and outside of Israel.
Of these two possibilities, accept (with satisfactory revisions, as one would have expected with a split), or “reject,” BAMS chose to reject my manuscript outright, the Special Editor, tilting toward “reject” in his own opinion, describing it as “too contentious” and the seeding matter “not settled.” The latter statement is not credible in the face of the Israel National Water Authority (INWA), the funder of cloud seeding, had quit seeding of the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret) many years ago.
How is that seeding termination not a “settled” point? In fact, the INWA has started completely over with a new randomized experiment to see if seeding really does work. The results of the prior experiments have been, in essence, jettisoned.
The INWA quit commercial-style seeding, of course, amid the howls of the seeding promulgators at HUJ, who, while agreeing that there had been no extra runoff due to seeding, scrambled to pull out of the hat the argument that air pollution had canceled out seeding increased rain! They were both of the SAME magnitude!
Not surprisingly, this claim was not found credible by independent Tel Aviv University scientists on several occasions; the HUJ findings had been due to cherry-picking among the dense network of gauges in Israel. (There are 500 standard gauges and 82 recording gauges in Israel (A. Vardi, IMS Deputy Director, 1987, personal communication).
Nor did the INWA restore seeding based on the HUJ pollution claims, making the termination an emphatic settled point.
“Too contentious”? Not surprisingly, fessing up to having caused their own government to have wasted millions of dollars due to their faulty cloud seeding claims and the inability to assess their own clouds accurately is not in the “DNA” of the HUJ seeding group; seeding partisans within the HUJ will always believe that their experiments “proved” cloud seeding while the rest of the world, and even their own government, moves on.
Hence, disingenuous controversy with pseudo-scientific claims will always erupt from the HUJ seeders in defense of their million dollar lapses. Who is surprised by this behavior? Other scientists from Tel Aviv University who have also reanalyzed the HUJ cloud seeding claims in peer-reviewed journals have found them as faulty as Peter Hobbs and I did (details in the manuscript pdf).
Perhaps this is what the Special Editor and BAMS are afraid of in their ersatz assertion, “too contentious”: namely, that HUJ seeding partisans or others will write long “smoke screen” soliloquies to BAMS to complain about my “Rise and Fall” article should it be published, as they did similarly in 1997 after the 1995 Rangno and Hobbs reanalyses of the Israeli cloud seeding experiments was published.
17. The importance of controversy
Note: The Rangno and Hobbs 1995 reanalysis of the Israeli experiments, and the ensuing comments by several scientists and our “replies” to them in 1997, J. Appl. Meteor., “opened Pandora’s box” (Y. Goldreich, Bar-Ilan University, author of “The Climate of Israel“, 2018, personal communication). Goldreich further stated that this episode led the Israel National Water Company to hire that independent panel of experts to assess just what they were getting from the HUJ commercial-style seeding program for the Sea of Galilee. That panel could find no extra runoff due to seeding, contradicting the reports of the HUJ seeding promulgators. Why should we be surprised at this outcome given the actual high rain efficiency of the Israeli clouds that escaped the HUJ seeding researchers for SO LONG?
Controversy can be enormously fruitful. Q. E. D.
As a matter of fact, BAMS used to embrace controversial issues as they stated annually in their organizational issue and did so to help illuminate their readers on contentious scientific issues of the day. The statement about embracing controversy was dropped by new BAMS leadership. No reason was given. See below, from the 1995 organizational issue:
“Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) publishes papers on historical and scientific topics that are of general interest to the AMS membership. It also publishes papers in areas of current scientific controversyand debate, as well as review articles.”
Where have you gone, BAMS, that you would hide from controversy? Is it really that, “BAMS isn’t what it used to be”, as asserted by a Fellow of the AMS, a NAS member, and recipient of many honors, now retired from the University of Washington?
This further thought for the BAMS leadership: When my article is published in BAMS, why don’t you write an editorial or side bar about why you think it doesn’t belong in BAMS? This would be quite gratifying to me because you’d be laying your bias on the line for everyone to see.
18. About the new Israeli randomized cloud seeding experiment and the airborne study that prompted it
Israel, abandoning any idea that the prior cloud seeding experiments had “proved seeding”, again indicative of a terminus, has started over with a new experiment in the Golan Heights in the far north, to see, if in fact, cloud seeding works. It’s called, “Israel-4”, now its seventh season recently concluded. No preliminary results have been reported, which is odd. In contrast, the seemingly successful first two Israeli experiments had many interim reports reporting successful progress.
Unfortunately, the funder of this new experiment, the Israeli National Water Authority, hired the HUJ “seeding unit” to evaluate seeding potential in the Golan Heights region in preparation for the start of Israel-4, a mistake akin to having the fox guard the hen house.
I reviewed the published article that came out of that HUJ research in 2015 (Atmos. Res.) that described itself as the background airborne cloud study for the new experiment. After reading it, I was not sure it had even been reviewed! But, I had not seen it until two years after it came out, too late to formally comment on it.
That 2015 article clearly exaggerated seeding potential in my view; the 2015 authors could not even disclose ice particle concentrations and the rapidity at which they develop in Israeli clouds, critical information for seeding evaluation purposes. They claimed the couldn’t measure ice particle concentrations because the new, expensive probe they carried on their research aircraft, one manufactured by Droplet Measurement Technologies, Inc., could not measure ice particle concentrations accurately. Those measured concentrations by the new DMT probe, were “unreasonably high” (D. Rosenfeld, personal communication in his review, attached below.) I guess if concentrations are too high in Israeli clouds, they are not reportable by the HUJ.
DMT disputes the claim that their probe cannot measure ice particle concentrations accurately, stating that the HUJ researchers could have reported accurate ice particle concentrations if they had wanted to (D. Axisa, 2018, personal communication).
What does this tell you, again, about the reporting from the HUJ?
The reject reviewer, DR, was provably untruthful. Is there another explanation? What is it?
The above was pointed out to the Special Editor many months ago. The fact that critical data was being withheld from the INWA, the people of Israel, and the scientific community, as the prior HUJ experimenters had done with Israel-2. This knowledge had no effect on the Special Editor in reconsidering the quality of the entire “reject” review, as I think most in his position would have. Am I wrong here? Hence, my suggestion that he recuse himself from his role.
I wondered, too, why I wasn’t selected as a reviewer by Atmos. Res. of that 2015 article? My decision on the manuscript would have even been: “accept, pending MAJOR revisions”! This article had some of the best objective writing by the HUJ’s “seeding unit.” But it also had a “Jeckyl-Hyde” aspect where misleading statements kept popping up and along with over-optimized seeding scenarios.
And to the INWA? I would have implored them:
“Don’t do a cloud seeding experiment based on this paper! Get outside researchers to evaluate seeding potential!” (Yes, the larger font indicates that my voice is raised here.) 🙂
If Israel-4 fails to produce rain via seeding, the faulty HUJ assessment of seeding potential in the Golan will be the cause; the fox will have guarded the hen house as well as expected. And that faulty paper will be consistent with the work of the HUJ seeding group since the early 1970s, work that consistently exaggerated the seeding potential of Israeli clouds and seeding results.
19. Back to the battle to publish
Returning to my own case….what has been and remains shocking to me, as a well-published researcher and an expert on Israeli clouds and cloud seeding, is that BAMS has refused to get the opinions of one or more knowledgeable reviewers to break the current review split, or consider recusing the current Special Editor who is an alumnus of Colorado State University whose cloud seeding work I have, with Prof. Peter Hobbs, trashed on several occasions, even calling for an investigation of the reporting of those experiments. (See Colorado segment below–use the Table of Contents jump link to that subject).
Despite my admiration for Prof. Fleming’s secular work, a Special Editor more experienced in the technical details of the clouds and cloud seeding in Israel would have been more appropriate, such as Dr. Roelof Bruintjes of NCAR who wrote a long review of cloud seeding in 1999 that included the Israeli experiments, among several others. Other names of more qualified editors than the current one: Bob Rauber, Bart Geerts, Gabor Vali, etc.
In spite of having to question the Special Editor’s credentials for BAMS, the one who called the final shot on rejecting my manuscript, it doesn’t mean I don’t respect him and his body of historical work! Its like a court case where the prosecutor and the defense attorney can be at each other’s throats during a trial, but might be friends and socialize after work. This is the way I see it, anyway. Nothing personal intended.
As Schultz (2009) pointed out, a reject decision on the part of an editor if they have the least basis for it, is, in essence, the “easy way out.” No need to deal with troublesome authors thereafter; just ignore them. Such editors don’t have to read their responses, go over whether a revised manuscript has responded to the legitimate claims of the reviewers, etc., It can all be ignored once a “reject” decision has been made. I am quite sure the current Special Editor did not read my original manuscript and compare it to the comments of the “conflicted” reviewer from the HUJ. But you can read these below where I have posted them.
20. “Science” at BAMS? Or something else?
What does this sound like to you? Science? Or something else?
The answer is obvious. But why?????
Some thoughts on why BAMS/AMS rejected my “rise and fall” manuscript…
First, the BAMS Special Editor objected to the full title of the original submission, “The Rise and Fall of Cloud Seeding in Israel: A History with Lessons for the Future.” The word “history” is treading in the illustrious Special Editor’s domain; he deemed the use of the word “history” inappropriate in my title.
And, there are certainly lessons to be taken away from my account: 1) Never trust the experimenters to get it right when they report on their own experiment, among other lessons.
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My account involves a country that people often have strong feelings about, perhaps ones wishing to protect it from the kind of negative publicity that would go with an article about leading researchers from their highly regarded HUJ that did not report all of their experimental results and couldn’t decipher the natural properties of their clouds for decades. In doing so, our scientific community, and their own government were misled.
Perhaps the country of Israel and/or its “premier research institution” (as the HUJ describes itself), are considered off limits by BAMS leadership for articles having descriptions of reporting by scientists that could be characterized as “scientific misconduct.” Yet we know if we ask ANYONE in science about fraud in science, such as the BAMS staff itself, they will tell you with great vehemence how strongly they oppose fraud, while their actual reaction to it is: “don’t tell us about it.”
I am straining for a reason here for what to me is unprecedented behavior by BAMS in its rejection of my manuscript without allowing a response to the comments of the reviewers, given a split decision.
My account, too, is also about failed science, failed peer-review, and an erroneous scientific consensus concerning the Israeli cloud seeding experiments, once deemed as the only cloud seeding success in 35 years of seeding trials according to Science magazine. The embarrassment factor is extremely high.
But again, that consensus view of the Israeli experiments that dominated the 1980s and beyond before the wheels fell off, besides not comprehending their clouds, was based on partial reporting of results of their 2nd experiment, Israel-2, as well as the HUJ researchers failure to report in a timely manner the results from a third, long-term randomized experiment that was failing to show any effect of cloud seeding.
That third randomized experiment, Israel-3, began in 1975, but was only reported on for the first time 17 long years after it began when the results of the first 15 years of random seeding were reported in 1992. Slight decreases in rain on seeded days were reported; they were not statistically significant.
Reporting those suggested decreases in rain due to seeding being logged in Israel-3 after just a few years would have had a tremendous impact on the scientific community-at-large and would have increased pressure to have outside groups study the clouds of Israel and illuminate the HUJ seeding researchers about them.
Had all these seeding related results been communicated to outside researchers in a timely manner, as our AMS “Code of Guidelines” (Ethics) demands, had the HUJ researchers discovered the high natural ice-producing aspects of their clouds early on, or if they had just allowed outside investigators like Sir B. J. Mason and his British team to discover it for them, the “damage” paid by the Israeli people would have been so much more limited.
And why was it that every forecaster with the Israeli Meteorological Service I spoke with in 1986 knew that Israeli clouds rained with tops equal to or warmer than -10°C, and as we saw, as did HUJ’s very own experiments’ “Chief Forecaster,” Mr. Karl Rosner? And yet the HUJ experimenters denied that it happened. To repeat, how could the HUJ experimenters not know this about their own clouds with all the tools at their disposal, and the cloud knowledge around them?
This is a major conundrum that only their current seeding leadership can answer, someone whose graduate work in the late 1970s and early 80s was about the clouds of Israel as seen the experimenters’ radars and in satellite imagery.
All in all, the delays in reporting results of experiments, preventing bona fide researchers with aircraft in to study their clouds, and preventing me, an on site bona fide researcher, from examining the tops of radar echoes while I was in Israel, were all abuses of science. Who wants to hear a story about scientists abusing science in a country we care so much about?
Ans. No one.
But not wanting to hear about abuses (of science) doesn’t mean its a story that shouldn’t be told. Ask Catholics.
With BAMS rejecting my manuscript on tenuous grounds, not reading the my responses to the reviewers’ comments, BAMS has now become part of the story unless it reverses course upon “further review.”
21. Has credentialism played a role in the BAMS rejection?
Without doubt. I have only a Bachelor’s degree and was a non-faculty staff member at the University of Washington. Comprehensive reviews such as mine of the Israeli cloud seeding experience, a distillation of more than 700 pages of peer-reviewed literature and conference preprints, have always in the past been accomplished by upper echelon, senior faculty. You can just imagine how repugnant, odious it might seem to have an under-credentialed mere staff member like me write a comprehensive review in a journal about the former highly regarded cloud seeding experiments in Israel. The only thing I have going for me is seniority….and having exposed various ersatz aspects of those and other experiments. As a BAMS editor observed, this latter element in his opinion, disqualifies me from writing about this subject because I am too close to the events I am writing about.
Please read my manuscript, and make up your own mind.
Imagine, too, in a thought experiment, if some of the now-passed major players in this field, such as Sir B. J. Mason, Roscoe Braham, Jr., Randy Koenig, Peter Hobbs, or Stanley Changnon, had authored my manuscript instead of me and had also reflected on the ramifications of partial reporting as I do? Surely it would “get in.”
I believe my modest status on the professional totem pole, a person with little influence, has contributed to an easy rejection of my review manuscript by BAMS. Do we need to reprise Douglas Adams’ classic Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” vignette about the graduate student who discovered the “Infinite Improbability Machine” to understand this cultural aspect of science that even Adams understood? Just in case you don’t know it, from the Hitchhiker’s Guide:
“It startled (the student) even more when just after he was awarded the Galactic Institute’s Prize for Extreme Cleverness he got lynched by a rampaging mob of respectable physicists who had finally realized that the one thing they really couldn’t stand was a smart-ass.”
22. Getting tougher in science concerning fraud and misconduct, criteria just being posted by the AMS
BAMS and its current leadership represent an “old guard” science reaction when evidence of misconduct is presented: “Circle the wagons to protect science and scientists; never mind the victims.” They see ignoring misconduct as good for science. No messy investigations, no perceived decline in the reputation of science and scientists as sole pursuers of truth.
For examples of this very same kind of behavior in the culture of science, please see the 1988 PBS NOVA program, “Do Scientists Cheat?” (You’ll spend a lot of time trying to find the full version.) I believe this cultural aspect of science is the primary reason that my manuscript on the “Rise and Fall” has been rejected.
The rejection of my manuscript has nothing to do with “not settled” or “contentious” issues, as asserted by BAMS.
The Israeli people were victims, and will be again in my opinion, under the current promulgators of seeding at the HUJ who were present when the original misrepresentation of Israel-2 took place. But they did nothing when it happened. Why would they do anything different in the future?
There is a new “get tough” ethic in science concerning fraud and misconduct that new attitude has been represented by a recent editorial by Kornfeld and Titus in Nature Geoscience, 2016: “Stop Ignoring Misconduct.” A similar theme has been reprised in the comprehensive 2017 look at fraud in science, “Fraud and Misconduct in Research” by Ben-Yehuda and Oliver-Lumerman of the HUJ. They called the 748 proven cases of fraud in science that they reviewed for patterns in misconduct, the likely “tip of the iceberg.” They noted that the site, “Retraction Watch” logged more than 1500 retractions just between 2012 and 2015! Stewart and Feder were right to question the “Integrity of the Scientific Literature.” Ben-Yehuda and Oliver-Lumerman further observed that “retracting” a paper is an “out” for known misconduct, which is certain in some of those cases. In essence, Gabriel and Rosenfeld’s (1990) analysis of the FULL results of Israel-2 was a retraction of the previously reported results for Israel-2.
Ben-Yehuda and Oliver-Lumerman further chided science for euphemising what is actually fraud, terming it, “scientific misconduct.”
The AMS/BAMS needs to “listen up.” You’re not protecting the people of Israel as you may think; you’re hurting them in your misguided actions to block the publication of this review of Israeli cloud seeding that would alert them to the dangers lurking within their own prized academic institution. Cloud seeding zealots are likely to mislead them again, and have, IMO, with their 2015 “background” paper (Atmos. Res.) for the Israel-4 experiment that exaggerated seeding potential in the Golan Heights.
Ironically, I don’t even use the word “misconduct” in my “Rise and Fall” manuscript, though a reader might well be led to that thought. In this blog, I am more definitive. Not reporting all the results of your experiment, critical ones, is deemed a type of misconduct called, “falsification/misrepresentation”, or “cooking and trimming”, and that, as we all know, including everyone at BAMS, is, in fact, what happened in Israel-2; half of this second experiment’s data was not voluntarily reported by the original experimenters, and that led to a false scientific consensus that seeding effectiveness had been “proved” at the end of Israel-2.
Those withheld results of Israel-2 were finally published, but only after the lead experimenter passed in 1987 (he was just 54, he was about to have a lot of explaining to do). The 1990 journal publication (J. Appl. Meteor.) in which this happened was titled, “The full results” of the 2nd experiment. The full result was a “null” one when using the crossover methodology that had been used to elucidate the apparently successful results of Israel-1 in their retraction of the partial successful results reported earlier for Israel-2.
Why else would you withhold data except to produce an false image of success from which you would benefit?
Later analyses by the HUJ experimenters in the evaluations of Israel-2 have suggested increased rain on seeded days in the north target and decreases in the south target when using the full dataset and invoking “dust-haze” as having interfered in the experiment; that hypothesis is addressed in my “Rise and Fall” manuscript and is shown to be of dubious validity as they were also deemed in 1995 in Rangno and Hobbs (J. Appl. Meteor.) and by independent scientists at TAU in 2010 (Atmos. Res.)
Embarrassment has to be considered as a player in this melodrama. The AMS issued memorial issues J. Appl. Meteor. to both authors (Prof. AG and J. Neumann), 1989 and 1996, respectively, the authors of the 1981 Israel-2 cloud seeding paper that omitted half of the results of that experiment.
Additionally, the Special Editor of BAMS that rejected my paper is writing a book about Joanne Simpson who wrote the most over the top praise for Prof. AG of the HUJ when he passed. In her view, Abe Gagin could practically walk on water.
Blocking my rise and fall of cloud seeding in Israel paper from being published will shield both Joanne’s memory, the Special Editor’s. book and the AMS from considerable embarrassment. Her homage:
And, who wants to read about a failed scientific consensus, though a minor one in the small niche of cloud seeding, that might trigger a surge of negativity via an “aha, moment” concerning the “Climate Change consensus”? “Maybe its wrong, too”, some might believe. Well, too bad AMS.
23. The battle is on display here:
I am posting the revised version of the manuscript here, the one BAMS refuses to examine, after having implemented the minor legitimate changes suggested by the two reviewers. Along with it, I am posting the reviewers’ comments and my replies to them as well as thoughts on the Special Editor/BAMS rejection e-mail.
It seems only fair to do this although perhaps only one or two knowledgeable people will actually bother to read all this. The reviews were long, and so must the responses to them be. So there is a LOT of material here.
Please tell me, if you’ve somehow gotten this far, if you think the manuscript is a suitable story, and a comprehensible one, for a general magazine of “informed readers” that BAMS says it targets. I think most everyone who reads the manuscript will understand what happened, and why this is an important story that needs to be told, not buried in a low impact journal or nowhere at all but here.
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24. Where it all began: Durango, Colorado, 1970-75
In 1970 I joined a large randomized cloud seeding experiment as a naive, idealistic-about-science weather forecaster; I didn’t come out that way. A lifetime of own-time “activism” regarding cloud seeding literature I deemed suspect was the result.
This section is kind of a slog about my Colorado experiences….but, I wanted to hit a FEW highlights of what was an epiphany about science for a rather naive person, me, just out of college, that occurred in Durango, Colorado. This was my very first job as a weather forecasting meteorologist after graduating from San Jose State College (as it was called then).
(Skip if busy….though if you do, you will miss some personal ridicule, a movie, accolades, a possibly libelous newspaper headline caused by me, and details of a monetary science prize ($20,000) from the United Nation’s World Meteorological Organization that me and Peter Hobbs received for our work in weather modification. Yes, in 2005 I became, “Prize-winning meteorologist”, Art Rangno… 🙂
It is sad for me to have to point out something about the above “prize”, however. Like my HS and college baseball career, (all 2nd team this; all 2nd team that), the prize described above was really a consolation one, to insert a truth-in-packaging note. Other workers got lots more than we did that year like that guy from South Africa that got $250,000. On the other hand, 32,000 Chinese weather modification workers got the SAME amount as Peter and I got that year; hah, less than a US dollar each!
OK, back to serious text…
…that Durango job was a dream come true for me, since I only wanted to be a weather forecaster since I was a little kid (even, somehow, forecasted weather for my 5th grade class–had a brass aneroid barometer in the “cloak room”). And there I was in the beautiful little town of Durango, Colorado, right out of college in 1970, forecasting weather for an important scientific experiment! My life could not have been better!
How I got to the point where I would be so skeptical of peer-reviewed cloud seeding literature that I would travel thousands of miles in question of cloud reports from the world’s leading cloud seeding scientist, however, began here during this huge Bureau of Reclamation randomized cloud seeding experiment called the Colorado River Basin Pilot Project (CRBPP). Read on.
25. The movie explaining the Colorado experiment; a tribute to its size and importance
To depart for a second, it was a project sohuge that it had its own movie, the cloud seeding “documercial,” Mountain Skywater, with a soundtrack by a local Durango artist, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown!
Departing even further from serious text, it is with extreme modesty that I point out that I was the STAR of this 28 minute movie; I never dreamed that I would be a STAR in a movie (!), but there I am, as was declared by the Commissioner of Reclamation in those days, Ellis Armstrong. He attended the 1972 release of the 1971 film in Durango and gave me an autographed photo of several of us with him in which he proclaimed on it that I was the STAR. I only speak maybe two sentences in the whole thing! It was a pretty humorous take by the Commissioner. I do cite it in my filmography, however. 🙂
Watching this movie you will get a sense of that cloud seeding era and how it was thought that a cloud seeding success in this randomized experiment was going to be a slam dunk in the San Juan mountains around Durango. There wasn’t a lot of questioning in those days about the work that this massive project was based on; namely, several stunning randomized experiments conducted and reported by Colorado State University (CSU) scientists in the late 1960s–contracts were being signed in 1968 for the CRBPP work about when the Climax II experiment was only about half completed! (And that, my friends, was a gigantic goof, as you will read.)
Also from the movie you will get a sense of the CRBPP’s scope and how well-planned it was overall. The precip measurements were made by those who didn’t know what the experiment day call was, seeded or not seeded. It doesn’t get better than that, and the BuRec deserves some mighty big accolades for that; trying to do it right. They were so confident, too, that they said that in spite of randomization (in which only half the days are seeded), that the CRBPP would produce an extra 250,000 acre-feet of water from the target watersheds.
Also in “doing it right”, and before the CRBPP began, the BuRec proclaimed in its PR literature beforehand that they would hire an independent statistical group to evaluate the results of this mega-experiment. It doesn’t get better than that, either. It was a display of confidence about the outcome of the experiment. But, that didn’t happen. Instead, the BuRec hired a group associated with cloud seeding!
Aside: For the other seeding operators out there whose films you might see, this admonishment: “Randomize, baby, randomize”. Prove your claims the right way. Also, to seeding funders: employ independent panels to evaluate what you’ve been getting from commercial seeding as the Israeli’s bravely did.
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26. Scientific idealism begins to slip away in Durango
However, during the CRBPP I lived through journal peer-reviewed literature (J. Appl. Meteor.) that many of us knew was bogus but no one challenged. I, too, participated in a “Code of Silence” that kept our outside peers in the dark about important discrepancies that were being discovered in the CSU cloud and cloud seeding hypotheses during the CRBPP. These discrepancies turned out to cause the undoing of an otherwise well-planned experiment by the Bureau of Reclamation’s Atmospheric Water Resources Management Division, as it was called then (just “BuRec” in this piece). The “Management” of atmospheric water was a word that also spoke to overconfidence.
At the same time, while in awe of the BuRec’s planning, it was strange to me that the personnel with them were immune from learning from those of us in the field about problems in their interpretations of the CRBPP’s results.
An example: BuRec personnel submitted a paper to a Florida conference in 1974, several years after the CRBPP had started, purporting that “carryover seeding” effects (those days when a control day followed a seeded day) had compromised the CRBPP because heavy snow often fell on that second “control” day. They then assumed that any heavier snow on the 2nd day MUST be due to seeding effects from leftover seeds that didn’t get blown away. They then grouped such carry over days, or portions of such days, into the actual days chosen for seeding and got better suggestions of increased snow due to seeding for the CRBPP overall.
However, no seeding effects were being detected in the first few years on single days that were seeded. Therefore, it was a crazy idea that somehow the seeding agent, silver iodide, turned into super-seeds after we turned off the seeding generators.
Of course, there was a natural explanation for heavy precipitation on the second day when two days in a row were selected for experimentation.
I wrote a long letter in 1974 explaining why the findings in that BuRec preprint were bogus. When we randomly selected a second day in a row for experimentation, it was because an incoming storm was so large and heavy that it took two days for it to go by, or it was just beginning on the last hours of the first day. Not surprisingly, the heaviest part of the storm was on the second day, and usually early on.
I showed the BuRec data that control days that followed a control day, the second control day also had heavy snow, especially in the early going just like they were inferring was due to inadvertent “carryover” seeding of a control day after a seeded day. You could claim in a similar way from my examples that not seeding on a control day caused heavy snow on a following control day; silly. I had much more argumentation as well.
My explanation fell on deaf ears.
I concluded my commentary to them in 1974 about their ersatz findings with a line they couldn’t refuse to act on: I said they needed a “Resident Skeptic” at their headquarters in Denver.
A couple of weeks later, the CRBPP Project Monitor from the BuRec, Mr. Bill Douglas, presented me in person with a framed, Dr. Archie M. Kahan “Certificate of Honorary Resident Skeptic Award.” The presentation, in which he read the words on the Certificate, got a lot of chuckles from our staff who gathered around to see it. Archie Kahan, whose signature appears in the lower right, was the head of that BuRec cloud seeding division.
27. A Resident Skeptic Award from Dr. Kahan and the BuRec
Here is that “Certificate”, one really meant, I thought anyway, to ridicule someone they didn’t take seriously. Well, there were some at the BuRec, like the late Olin Foehner, who did take me seriously. I was only trying to help, guys…. You’ll have to zoom in to read the text.
Note the upside down Bureau of Reclamation logo in the lower left hand corner. It was to be prophesy for the division that sent me this “award.” Due to various missteps, of which the CRBPP was one, and a wetter period of years in the later 1970s into the 1980s, interest in cloud seeding virtually disappeared and their office was shutdown.
28. Decay of idealism accelerates in Durango
More disillusionment with the BuRec and journal literature came when their preprint about carry over effects in the CRBPP was published in 1975 in the peer-reviewed, J. Appl. Meteor. There was no mention of the synoptic situation that I had described that compromised their findings. To them, inadvertent contamination of CRBPP days was too good an argument to let go of to help boost the results for a failing 10 million dollar experiment. Nor did I comment on it; I had no experience in journal matters and it never occurred to me to do so.
29. The choice of the evaluators of the CRBPP 🙁
Another decline in confidence about the science of the CRBPP occurred when the BuRec, instead of choosing an independent group to evaluate the CRBPP as they said they would do before the project started, hired a cloud seeding group to evaluate it! While the group they hired went under the company name of Aerometric, Inc., most of the team of evaluators were really from North American Weather Consultants, led by Robert D. Elliott, President of NAWC. NAWC was largely a commercial cloud seeding company with many seeding projects and at one point was seeding commercially so enthusiastically in Utah that it contaminated some control days of the CRBPP! “Aerometric-NAWC” was chosen as the evaluator when it was clear, after just two years of random decisions, that the CRBPP was NOT going to replicate the CSU seeding results.
Perhaps the BuRec needed a friendly bailout, someone to put a happy face on a science disaster. (Footnote: I had worked for NAWC as a summer hire in 1968 and loved it and the great people there. Tor Bergeron stopped by! Still, it wasn’t a good choice by the BuRec to have them evaluate whether cloud seeding worked.)
30. The informational “black hole” during the CRBPP: important findings came in from the field but never went out to peers
In mid-stream of the CRBPP, the BuRec called a meeting in July 1973 to try to understand what was going wrong with it. Why wasn’t it going to replicate the CSU work? Mainly, it was due to a few critical CSU assumptions that were not supported by data, such as the 500 mb temperature being an index of cloud top temperatures, and therefore, as it had been assumed, a reliable index of seeding potential. After all, the CSU experiment seeding effects were stratified by 500 mb temperatures repeatedly in the published literature; they had no data on actual cloud tops. Neither of those parameters, 500 mb temperatures or cloud top temperatures, are reliable indicators of seeding potential.
Nor were there widespread non-precipitating, reasonably deep clouds ripe for seeding ahead of and behind periods of natural precipitation, clouds that CSU scientists had inferred existed because the claimed increases in snow they reported, were solely due to the greater duration of snowfall on seeded days. Seeding had no effect on natural precipitation they concluded.
No such thick, non-precipitating cloud was found to exist in the CRBPP. This was largely due to the fact that cloud tops during storms were almost always colder than -15°C in storm situations, and usually considerably colder. Those cold tops naturally produced substantial ice concentrations without being seeded. High natural ice concentrations in clouds pretty much decimates seeding potential.
In closing that 1973 meeting, consisting of a who’s who in weather modification from universities and companies around the country, the Chief of the BuRec’s cloud seeding division, Dr. Archie M. Kahan closed it by observing that, “the (CSU) physical hypotheses were not as strong as we had been led to believe.”
It was an understatement.
But these important findings presented at that BuRec conference remained husbanded with those at that meeting. The “Code of Silence” was in full display. The discrepancies were not to be “outed” until 1979 in Hobbs and Rangno (J. Appl. Meteor.) and in my reanalysis of the CSU Wolf Creek Pass experiment that same year in that journal. (The former article was originally part of the draft manuscript I brought in to Prof. Hobbs, but he deemed it something that should be reported separately.)
31. Another pivotal event in 1974
I remember how excited I was, too, when a National Academy of Sciences 1973 report, Climate and Weather Modification; Problems and Progress, came through the Durango office in 1974. The NAS Panel on Weather Modification (Malone et al.) stated that the CSU cloud seeding work had “demonstrated” cloud seeding efficacy on a “deterministic basis”.
What was exciting when I read that NAS report in 1974?
I knew by then that an assessment by our best scientists with the NRC-NAS, a scientific consensus on the CSU experiments, as we would say today, was wrong! It was interesting to me later that Peter V. Hobbs, for whom I was to work, was a co-author of that optimistic report concerning the CSU experiments.
32. 1974: The University of Washington to the “rescue”
A breath of fresh air for me blasted into Durango during the CRBPP. The University of Washington’s Cloud and Aerosol Group, Directed by Peter Hobbs, was hired by the BuRec to study the winter storms in the San Juan Mountains and the dispersal of the ground released seeding agent during those storms; was it getting into the clouds?
By this time, it was clear that the CRBPP was not going to replicate the Colorado State University cloud seeding results in which 50-100% increases in snowfall were reported due to seeding. By 1974, the randomly drawn control days of the CRBPP were averaging more snow than the seeded days! The U of WA group was just coming off an exhaustive seeding project in the Pacific Northwest called the Cascade Project that had incorporated extensive ground and airborne measurements. The U of WA field research team was led by Dr. Lawrence F. Radke for the first half of its six week Colorado mission, and by Research Meteorologist, Don Atkinson during the second half.
With the Washington team was James Rodger Fleming, who was to play the pivotal role 40 years later in rejecting my “Rise and Fall of Israeli Cloud Seeding.” Fleming had just obtained his Master’s Degree from the Colorado State University whose work was being questioned.
Problems with the CSU cloud seeding work had been described at the end of the first season, 1970-1971, by the seeding contractor, E. G. and G., Inc., (Willis and Rangno 1971, E. G. & G., Inc., Final Report to the BuRec). Those reported flaws, including the often observed blocking flow during stable air mass situations, however, went nowhere with the BuRec. CRBPP’s project leadership changed and CSU student, Lawrence Hjermstad (hereafter LH), was brought in to replace the departing Project Manager, Owen Rhea who had replaced Project Manager, Paul Willis early in the first season.
Also contributing to a lack of action was that the first season of randomization had produced results suggesting that increases in snow had occurred on seeded days compared to control days, which the BuRec exulted over in news releases. I had become Acting Project Forecaster when Paul Willis’ was removed as PM. In that role, I had made every forecast of random draws in the winter of 1970-71. You can’t imagine how much I loved that challenge, though the stress of “getting forecasts right” was daunting, getting up at night to see if the clouds were moving in, heart pounding. But I felt I had been born to be a weather forecaster, as so many of us do in this field.
And, in my first forecasting season, the forecasting criteria was much easier than it would be in the following two winter seasons, and likely why I was hired in the first place. In that first season of the CRBPP, we were directed by the BuRec, as expected, to forecast a chance of measurable precipitation “somewhere” in the target in the 24 h ending at 11 AM local time. This had to be accompanied by at least 12 h of a 500 mb temperature of -23°C or higher when the precip happened. The temperature at 500 mb, or around 18,000 feet, changes rather slowly as storms come through, so it was not an extremely difficult job to predict that.
That was to change for the following two seasons after a critical visit to the CRBPP headquarters in Durango in April 1971 by Prof. Lewis O. Grant, the leader of the Climax and Wolf Creek Pass cloud seeding experiments. He was chagrined to learn that the BuRec had ordered experimental days of the CRBPP to be drawn on the basis of 500 mb temperatures, as the CSU results had been stratified by, and not rawinsonde inferred cloud top temperatures. Prof. Grant felt that actual cloud top temperatures that were -23°C or higher, would bestow better results in the CRBPP experiment. The rawinsonde inferred temperatures at cloud top would prove to be very different than the 500 mb temperature.
This would not be news to practicing meteorologists, and was not news to former PMs, Paul Willis and Owen Rhea, just off the Park Range Project at Steamboat Spring, CO. Owen Rhea, in the summer of 1970 when I queried him about the frequently used CSU expression in the design document I was assigned to study, “500 mb (cloud top) temperature” told me, “that may say its cloud top, but that’s not cloud top.” Paul Willis chuckled at the CSU claim, saying pretty much the same thing.
The confusion was sown not only in the journal literature by CSU, but also in the 1969 CSU written design document in which it was claimed that 500 mb temperature was an index of cloud top temperature during storms and had stratified the 50-100% increases in snowfall at Climax and at Wolf Creek Pass by, well, you guessed it, 500 mb temperatures. In the 1969 CSU design document, CSU and their consortium of authors used the phrase, “500 mb (cloud top) temperature” repeatedly. Hence, the BuRec’s instruction at the outset of the CRBPP to use of 500 mb temperature as the primary forecast criterion in the first season, 1970-71.
Due to Prof. Grant’s visit and return to CSU where he advised the BuRec to change to random draw criterion to rawinsonde inferred cloud top temperatures, the forecasting job became extremely difficult. There were no immediate upwind rawinsonde measurements in which to infer incoming cloud tops from, and there were no useful satellite measurements during the years of the CRBPP. The nearest, and most often upwind of the San Juan’s, was the rawinsonde profiles from the NWS at Winslow, AZ, hours away from the CRBPP target. Moreover, that site was in the lee of the Mogollon Rim Mountains where strong drying would in effect, “hide” the incoming cloud depth. It was the best site we could use, but it not very useful for clouds arriving in the San Juan Mountains.
The new PM, LH, whom had led the Climax experiment in Colorado during his later graduate years and had done some interesting work on the precipitation patterns around Climax at CSU. His work was to be important in shedding light the Climax I results (Hjermstad 1970, Master’s Thesis).
However, LH and I clashed over many elements of the CRBPP during our first couple of years there, and the office had a background of tension. Instead of helping to write annual reports for each season of the CRBPP, as for the 1970-71 season, I was now subject to being on loans to other companies to assist in their cloud seeding efforts. The annual CRBPP reports for the remainder of the CRBPP had a much different tone, “happier” tone, and discrepancies were not dwelled upon if mentioned at all.
The internal clashes between myself and the CRBPP leadership were described to the Washington team during their airborne studies and they were sympathetic and understood the discrepancies and confusion sown by the cloud top criterion changes (hence, the “breath of fresh air”). LH was fully onboard the criterion change to rawinsonde inferred cloud top temperatures at the beginning as Prof. Grant demanded, but went further, suggesting to the BuRec that only 3 h of a random day meeting that criterion would be enough for an experimental 24 h day to be randomly drawn.
LH was to change his mind over the “500 mb (cloud top)” temperature issue after two seasons. Following presentations of this discrepancy at a BuRec workshop at Denver in 1973, the call of a random decision reverted to 500 mb temperature (>-23°C). However, it did not return to a partitioning large portions of storms, 12 h as before, but only THREE h of a 24 h day had to meet that criterion during a storm as LH wanted.
During the remainder of the CRBPP, that after the 1970-71 season, I had been moved to back from Acting Project Forecaster (under Owen Rhea), to my original hired position as Assistant Project Forecaster as LH brought in his well-experienced forecasting friend from Ocean Routes, Inc., Dick Medenwaldt. While I was disappointed, it was the logical thing to do given my on-paper inexperience.
During the early years of the CRBPP, 1970-1973, the stunning, and ever-so-convincing results of both Climax I and Climax II were reaching the journals (Mielke et al 1970 for Climax I, Mielke et al 1971 for Climax II, and Chappell et al 1971, the latter examined where the seeding effects were taking place—it was by creating more hours of snowfall and not affecting the intensity, as was expected by the kind of ground releases of seeding that had been carried out. Note: the BuRec was going on preliminary results when it started the massive funding of the CRBPP–that’s how good the CSU work looked to them.
And how convincing were those results, once having been published in the peer-reviewed journals? Here’s what the National Academy of Science’s Panel on Weather Modification had to say about the results of the Climax experiments in 1973:
“Hence, in the longest randomized cloud-seeding research project in the United States, involving cold orographicwinter clouds, it has been demonstrated that precipitation can be increased by substantial amounts and on a determinate basis.”
Prof. Peter V. Hobbs was a member of the NAS Panel that wrote that statement. He was fully onboard with what the literature was telling him, as was virtually everyone else. (Hah. “Everyone” but me, of course, as an insider to the CRBPP mess.) The interesting sidelight to this was that instead of questioning the reliability of the original CSU experiments, attention focused on what went wrong with the CRBPP! That’s the main reason why I began a reanalysis of the Wolf Creek Pass experiment. It was crazy that no one was questioning the original reports to see if they were robust!
Nevertheless, when the Climax results were combined with those from the seasonally randomized Wolf Creek Pass experiment in the San Juan Mountains conducted in the 1960s, with its strong indications of statistically significant increases in runoff produced by cloud seeding (Morel-Seytoux and Saheli 1973, J. Appl. Meteor., the CSU seeding picture was as complete as one could possibly could be. Thus, one can’t be too hard on the BuRec for charging ahead into a costly randomized experiment, the CRBPP, instead of doing more research “before the leap.”
33. A final blow to idealism about science
The final straw, however, was a much-cited article in 1974 in the J. Appl. Meteor. titled, “The Cloud Seeding Temperature Window.” The two authors had used constant level pressure surfaces to index cloud top temperatures in several seeding projects to come up with a cloud top temperature window of -10° to -25°C for successful cloud seeding. This temperature range was thought to characterize clouds with tops this cold that were deficient in ice particles, but would have supercooled liquid water in them that could be tapped by cloud seeding. It turned out to be a too optimistic a temperature range as later research showed.
Moreover, the lead author of this article had been told by three different people on separate occasions in my presence not to use a constant pressure level as an index of cloud tops in the Rockies. Nature does not constrain cloud tops so that they can be indexed by a constant pressure level temperature in the atmosphere.
The other author of “The Cloud Seeding Temperature Window” was in the midst of evaluating the storm day rawinsondes of the CRBPP; he was the leader of the Aerometric-NAWC evaluations team chosen by the BuRec. He absolutely knew that stratifications by a constant pressure level was not a viable way to index cloud tops from our data. When I asked that 2nd author the next time he came through the Durango office about that article, “How could you write that?” He simply replied, sheepishly it seemed to me, that he had just, “gone along with” the lead author.
So that was it.
I never again trusted the cloud seeding published literature. Cynicism 1, Idealism, nil. It didn’t matter, either, how highly regarded the literature was. It still might be inaccurate, corrupt, I thought. I often wondered, too, why that “Window” article was cited so much. I presumed it must be by readers that did not know much about synoptic weather and cloud top fluctuations.
34. A regrettable personal media eruption in late 1975 that required an apology in person at CSU
I remained quiet until the CRBPP experiment ended in 1975, which also allowed me to retain my great job in the nice little town of Durango, Colorado–ah, the plight of whistleblowers……
But then I erupted in November 1975 after the CRBPP ended when it was safe and I had no job. 🙂 Here’s that whistleblowing eruption as seen in the Durango Herald, one that I feel I have to disclose in this “blook” to give an idea of my potential biases:
You will notice that I referred to “Watergate” in the Herald headline. As I left the Durango Herald office with the reporter, Mike McRae, I muttered a mistake. I said, “if what I have begun to work on turns out, it could be the Watergate of meteorology”, meaning it would make a big splash. It was a poor, if current and accessible metaphor, but it implied wrongdoing on the part of CSU scientists. I was away when the article came out and was devastated to see what Mike had written after a careful 1-2 h recorded interview in his office. He had promised to let me examine the article before it came out, but called the evening before I left and said he wasn’t able to do that, adding, “trust me.”
I left the next day for Fresno, California. I got that Durango Herald issue about a week after it came out while I was there working briefly for Tom Henderson, and Atmospherics Inc.
After I returned to Durango from Fresno, I sped off to CSU to apologize in person for my lapse to the leader of the CSU experiments, Professor Lewis O. Grant. I had also submitted a “retraction” to the Herald clarifying what I meant. I did see that reporter Mike in the Durango supermarket, and, after I only shook my head at him, he said, “Never trust a newspaper reporter.”
Q. E. D.
But Mike’s article in which I stated I was going to reanalyze ALL of the CSU prior experiments, as you will read, was to have a profound effect that neither of us could have imagined at the time.
35. The apology and the after effects of the 1975 Durango Herald article
I was able to meet with Professor Lewis O. Grant, the leader of the CSU experiments in his CSU office as soon as I got there, . I groveled and apologized for my possibly libelous newspaper gaffe. He was real nice about it, actually. And, moreover, even when I said I still questioned his seeding experiments and asked for data, like the list of random decisions, he did not hesitate. He was an idealist; questioning was a part of science and he understood that.
Professor Grant’s attitude was not shared by the leader of the experiments in Israel, I am sad to say as Sir John Mason’s letter illustrated.
I kept Professor Grant apprised of my work from Durango as I went along with it as I said I would. As the Wolf Creek Pass experiment began to fall apart in my reanalysis, he even wrote that I had found something important. He was a true scientist.
I also learned from Professor Grant’s graduate student, Owen Rhea, who had started out as the CRBPP’s lead forecaster in 1970 and, along with Paul Willis, had hired me, that the Durango Herald article got back to the National Science Foundation who asked of CSU, “What’s going on?”
According to Owen, due to that Durango Herald article in which I was claiming that I myself would reanalyze ALL of their work, CSU scientists began reassessing their Climax experiments at that time. Those, too, eventually fell apart “upon further review”; their own. Its always best if you find your own problems and report them first before someone else does.
First, in 1978, the earlier claimed evidence of inadvertent downwind increased snow due to seeding at Climax, was found to be due to a synoptic (weather pattern) bias on seeded days. Gone.
Then, in October 1979, at a joint conference of weather modification and statistics at Banff, Canada, Owen Rhea, Professor Grant’s graduate student, verbally withdrew the claims that seeding had increased snowfall in the Climax experiments. Paul Mielke, Jr., the lead CSU statistician, had already done this in a short commentary in the J. Amer. Stat. Assoc. in March of that year, also noting that the stratifications could not have partitioned seeding potential. Climax I and II, gone.
A lucky draw on seeded days had occurred in both Climax experiments; pretty remarkable, though Climax II was to receive some “help” as it turned out, exposed in later independent reanalysis in 1987 by yours truly, with Hobbs.
At that same conference at Banff in 1979, I presented my now published, “Reanalysis of the Wolf Creek Pass cloud seeding experiment” in the May 1979 issue of the J. App. Meteor.) It, too, like the Climax experiments, was the result of a lucky draw and favorable selection of controls by the experimenters, but ones chosen after the experiments had begun, a no-no for experiments because it opens to door to confirmation bias and cherry-picking.
That was my first presentation at a conference. The year before, I had played “center microphone” for a similar conference in Issaquah, Washington. That is, I ran around with a microphone for attendees that had questions for speakers. I was a real “gopher” just the year before.
All in all, the Banff conference was a devastating one for those involved in cloud seeding at CSU, and for those organizations such as the BuRec that had placed such big bets on the CSU experimenters’ original reports.
36. Pre-1979 Banff conference palpitations and why; the human part of being a science worker in a conflicted environment
The Banff 1979 program that I was going to present in was published in the Bull. Amer. Soc. in May 1979. I was shocked to see that it indicated that CSU faculty would address my paper before I gave it. Thankfully this did not happen. I was an amateur compared to the faculty at CSU, and I was sure all that time before the October Banff conference after seeing the program in May, that my work would be cut to pieces and I would get up red-faced with nothing to say. I had palpitations that whole summer of this nightmare scene, and even redid my paper. Perhaps I had made egregious errors; I was the one that was biased and couldn’t see it.
The evening before my talk in October, I ran into Professor Grant, and he informed me at that time that they were not going to address my work after all. Whew. I had even considered not going; the fear of humiliation was that bad!
Paul Mielke, Jr., also came by, and he simply said, “We screwed up.” I admired him for that and his courageous 1979 article in the J. Amer. Stat. Assoc. In essence, in that article, he had stated that there was no real basis for the 10 million dollar CRBPP the BuRec had signed up for. Can you imagine? The BuRec REALLY did need a “Resident Skeptic!”
The 1979 Banff talk went fine, even got an accolade and a laugh, and I ended by saying, “Who wouldn’t have believed all this evidence was NOT due to cloud seeding?”, trying to put the best face on the CSU seeding collapse that evening. It was an amazing trifecta of “evidence” that seeding had increased snow that CSU scientists had encountered and embraced, but was now gone.
But that was not to last.
CSU scientists began looking again at their Climax experiments and began publishing claims that they had resuscitated valid increases in snow in those experiments in 1981, though they were smaller ones, stratifying the data again by 500 mb temperatures asserting or implying that they had something to do with cloud tops and cloud seeding potential. It was quite a discouraging blow if you care about science.
Neither I, nor Owen Rhea of CSU, could let such claims go unchallenged and we each reanalyzed the new Climax experiment reports, both of us finding a second time in the following years that those claims of increased snow due to seeding by the experimenters were ersatz. There’s much more on this, but will end this discussion here for some hint of brevity. My reanalysis of the Climax experiments was rejected by the J. Appl. Meteor., B. Silverman, Ed., personal communication; Owen Rhea’s compact one, was accepted. We did not realize that we were doing the same thing at the same time.
And, so, while the story today is centered on my work in Israel, the full autobio ppt “book” has a lot of backfill to my experiences in Durango like the ones above, experiences that caused me to distrust any publication regarding a cloud seeding success without extreme scrutiny, the kind that reviewers of journal manuscripts mostly don’t have the time or inclination for.
37. 1983, a real no-no: a request for an independent panel to investigate the reporting of the Climax I randomized experiment
This was a painful chapter, but in trying to be totally candid, it has to come out. There are likely still those out there that know about it, though, as I wrote in my request for this to the Amer. Meteor. Soc., I hoped it would remain completely behind the scenes. It did not. Prof. Grant himself later told an audience that he was under investigation.
Here’s why: CSU statistician, Prof. Paul Mielke in 1979J. Amer. Stat. Assoc., while withdrawing the claims that the Climax experiments had increased snowfall, observed that both experiments, Climax I and II, had experienced favorable draws that created the impression that snow had been increased on seeded days. It was a courageous post. Here’s what he wrote:
“Very recently, in connection with design studies for a possible experiment of this type in central and northern Colorado mountains, station-by-station precipitation analyses of the Climax I and II experimental units were made for all available hourly stations in Colorado. The resulting maps of seeded to non-seeded mean precipitation amount ratios and non-parametric teststatistic values plotted over the western half of Colorado indicated (for meteorological partitions such as warm 500 mb temperatures) that the Climax experimental results were part of a region-wide pattern (emphasis by ALR) rather than an isolated anomaly produced by seeding. In particular, these recent results cast serious doubts on consistency of apparent effects associated with replicated five-year winter periods of the Climax I and Cllimax II experiments.
Later, however, while looking for something else, I ran into this statement at the very end of the article by Mielke et al. (1970, J. Appl. Meteor.), an article accepted for publication on June 30, 1969:
“In an attempt to better define the area extent of the differences between the seeded days and non-seeded days beyond the boundary of the experimental network, available data from all Weather Bureau stations in Western Colorado are currently being investigated.”
Mid-1969 was a time that large contracts were being formulated by the BuRec and signed by contractors involved with the CRBPP. One, at least, had already been signed in 1968, the one with CSU scientists for a CRBPP design document, whose interim document was released in October 1969.
What to do after I ran into what seemed to be a “smoking gun”?
It seemed inappropriate to me to have the CSU scientists answer such a profound question on which millions of dollars might depend on the answer: “What happened to the 1969 study that was “underway”? So, I stewed for quite awhile on this seeming “smoking gun.”
Millions of dollars would have been saved, of course, if the CSU scientists had discovered/reported in 1969 the evidence that Climax I had been compromised by a “lucky draw.” It can be assumed that the BuRec would have backed off their plans for the randomization of the CRBPP; perhaps had gone into a research mode with ground and air measurements, or canceled the project altogether to ruminate on what really happened in Climax I. Note: it was well known at E. G. & G., Inc, and by the BuRec that CSU scientists opposed randomization of the CRBPP on the basis that, “it’s already been done” (in their own experiments). Imagine what would have been the situation if the BuRec had listened to that CSU argument and went commercial seeding in the CRBPP!
Ultimately, in 1983, following a negative reaction to the CSU scientists’ responses to my friend, Owen Rhea’s reanalysis of the Climax II experiment, I wrote up my request and sent it in to several organizations including CSU, the AMS and NAS. The AMS didn’t know how to go about this (D. Landrigan, personal communication) and I got no response from the NAS.
There was, however, an internal investigation by a CSU faculty panel that found no problems in the reporting of the Climax I experiment. I also received a threat of legal action by then Acting Colorado State University President, Robert Phemister if I persisted in my calls for an investigation of the CSU reporting. I didn’t. I still wish that there had been a wider look besides that by CSU faculty, one of whom was a co-author of a seeding paper.
I really hated to do it, knowing the fallout. But, what would you have done if you found the 1969 Mielke et al. “smoking gun?” I just didn’t think they should answer a question with millions of dollars riding on the answer.
I let this issue go downstream, but you can only imagine how CSU and their sympathizers that found out about my unprecedented action might have felt about me. I had asked for an investigation of the most beloved persons in all of weather modification, Lewis O. Grant and Paul Mielke, Jr., both of whom I actually liked as people!
Peter Hobbs, when he found out, was livid; he was not involved because he was on sabbatical in Germany. No one was involved but me. But, I got a raise the next year, 1984. ??
I presented a paper at the Park City, UT, weather mod conference in 1984 with all those present from CSU who knew what I had done. It was the “kitchen.” Gads, how did I make it through that one! The tension was so thick. My paper, one that later became part of an AMS Monograph with the other presentations, was titled (I had been assigned this title), “How good are our conceptual models of orographic cloud seeding?“
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38. Tension highlight at Park City with Prof AG
It was during this conference that Prof. A.G. from Israel took me aside and sternly lectured me about how wrong I was about the clouds of Israel (from my 1983 rejected article by the J. Appl. Meteor. that asserted they weren’t being described correctly. It was also at that time that he informed me that he had been a reviewer of that submission, one of course, that helped reject it. His lecture had no effect whatsoever on what I thought about those clouds. I hopped a plane to Israel two years later.
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If you have read our papers on the Climax experiments, you will know that there was suggestions of a data reduction bias that favored the appearance of a seeding effect with the key NOAA target gauge precipitation data in Climax II (Rangno and Hobbs, 1987, 1995, J. Appl. Meteor.) The values used by the CSU scientists in their analyses were not the ones that were published by NOAA for the independently maintained gauge in the center of the target; the values that the experimenters used increased the supposed seeding effect a modest 4%. There were also many other discrepancies in the 500 mb temperature assignments for storms from those published by NOAA that also “helped” the Climax II experiment “replicate” Climax I.
In contrast, errors were negligible in Climax I; all the precipitation data were the same as in the NOAA publications, for example. Climax I benefitted by a lucky draw of storms with NW flow at mountain top levels on seeded days with high 500 mb temperatures (the latter, the category where strong, 50-100%, increases in snowfall were reported due to seeding. But NW flow is also the direction from which Climax receives it greatest natural daily precipitation and the set of control stations chosen by the experimenters (halfway through the experiment), the least. Climax II had no such luck. Check it out below:
Percentage of the experimental seeding season precipitation at Climax I (a)and II (b ) for three wind direction categories using the winds at mountain top level 4 km ASL or 600 mb level, whichever was available in the NOAA publication, “Daily Series, Northern Hemisphere Data Tabulations, Radiosonde and Rawinsonde Checked Data.” The solid bar is for seeded days, and the cross hatched ones for control days with the 500 mb temperature GE -20°C. Climax receives its greatest average daily amounts in NW flow. (From an unpublished manuscript rejected by J. Appl. Meteor. in 1983, B. Silverman, Ed., personal correspondence.
To my knowledge, the results of the 1969 Mielke et al. investigation of all western Colorado precipitation gauges in the Climax I experiment was not made known to the BuRec until Mielke’s 1979 J. Amer. Stat. Assoc. comment.
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Why would anyone do call for a behind the scenes investigation that would only have negative fall out for everyone involved? I felt I was representing those people outside the cloud seeding community who really paid for the CRBPP. That, too, was the way I felt about my trip to Israel. OK, I know you’re rolling your eyes now, but it was true, I really did think, “Someone has to do something about this!” If I was arrogant (“confident” is a better word) it was because I thought I could do something given my particular cloud-centric background. I think a lot of “activists” think this way; that they can do something.
39. Intermission and time for a “Get a life!” note
Following the above comments, it seems like an appropriate point for a reader to erupt with, “Get a life!” See the note at the very end of the science portions of thes piece if that’s what you might be thinking at this point, which is not an unreasonable thought at all. 🙂
I did have an outside life somehow. I was single during most of this time, too. There’s no way you could be married/have a partner, and be doing what I was driven to do. Playing baseball, doing some extracurricular forecasting on the radio and for the Washington Huskies comprised most of that outside life.
OK, enough intermission….
40. A “fruitful perception”
Not trusting cloud seeding peer-reviewed literature, no matter how highly regarded it was, was a fruitful perception. I think you can see why by now!
Over the following twenty years after Durango I reanalyzed, with Prof. Peter Hobbs as my co-author on all but one article, no less than six peer-reviewed, journal published cloud seeding experiments. Not one was the success the original experimenters claimed it to be! PDFs of these reanalyses, and other commentaries on cloud seeding in the literature can be found here:
Important Footnote: To fill out my CV even further on the above page, I have even included my rejected papers and non-submitted reviews as well to make it look bigger than it really is. Of course, those latter items REALLY don’t count in official CVs except to ME. I am hoping to one day to have, as other scientists do, a subset of my papers published: “The Collected Rejected Papers of Arthur L. Rangno.” The volume would be quite thick.
All those published reanalyses and commentaries, and articles/reviews that weren’t accepted or not even submitted, was a vast amount of material I had created, and they were accomplished on my own initiative, my own time (except one, the Skagit reanalysis, was on Peter Hobbs’ time, but my initiative). That is, I worked on these kinds of things on my weekends, evenings, before work, after work at the office, etc. , on and on over years, probably amounting to thousands of volunteer hours to evaluate and “out” faulty cloud seeding claims and to get my views of the cloud seeding arena into print. I even drafted most of my own figures. (Crackpot alert!)
I had no funding, of course, for these, well…”altruistic” efforts, as I thought of them. I just felt I had the skills to expose faulty cloud seeding literature being a forecaster and a “cloud man.” I also felt I had a duty to do it since it was likely that no one else would.
To readers: anybody down here?
41. The payoff for decades of “volunteer” work due to that “fruitful perception”
But there was an eventual payoff for all that self-initiated work that came in 2005, as seen below. My apologies in advance for my large face shot in the first link. I didn’t do it! I post these solely for a modicum of credibility.
The $20,000 prize was also for the mountains of constructive work in cloud seeding done by Peter and his “Cloud Physics Group”, starring Lawrence F. Radke, Dean Hegg, for mostly aerosol work, and John Locatelli in ice crystal studies, the former the leaders of our airborne crews in those days. The Group’s published work was supportive of cloud seeding effects in the early 1970s “Cascade Project”, though no randomized experiments were carried out.
In fact, Peter Hobbs was pretty ebullient about the possibilities of orographic cloud seeding just after his Cascade Project had ended. He had been a panel member of the 1973 National Academy of Sciences report mentioned earlier that was also so ebullient about the CSU cloud seeding work. Peter Hobbs had also gotten the panel to insert the non-randomized Skagit cloud seeding project into that report due to its stunning apparent indication of having increased precipitation. However, the Skagit Project would also fall apart in future years, “upon further review” by “you know who.”
42. Why the recurring thought: “Somebody has to do something about this, dammitall!”
A question I ask myself is WHY I was so energized, worked up, to do all this volunteer work concerning faulty cloud seeding claims in the literature when the rest of the scientific community more or less yawned at them or absorbed them; no one really dug into them the way I did with rare exceptions. I think the activism on the war in Vietnam and in civil rights in those days of the late 60s and early 70s led one to believe that you should jump in and do something when you see things that aren’t right. That was certainly a thought I had (and still have I guess, from this mighty effort!)
In Colorado the answer was simple enough.
I knew the “territory” of the CSU cloud seeding experiments, and a lot about them, and felt I had a duty to reanalyze them since I came to doubt that those results could be valid based on the experiences and data gained in the CRBPP. I was pretty sure no one else would do this, too, based on the de facto “Code of Silence” ethic in this realm. So, I took the 75-76 winter off in Durango after the CRBPP to dig into the Wolf Creek Pass experiment, living off my savings until getting a summer commercial seeding job as a “radar meteorologist” with Atmospherics, Inc., in SE South Dakota. I was running out of savings.
I should add, too, that as a kid, the printed word in journals was precious to me. I subscribed to a journal when I was just 13 (1955), “The Monthly Weather Review,” and tried to memorize all that I read even if I couldn’t really understand all that there was in one, especially if there were equations. Haha–I still skip articles with too many equations in them.
The authors of articles, and the founders of modern meteorology, like Jacob Bjerknes (whose autograph I tried to get when he was at UCLA) and “stars” like Tor Bergeron (had my picture taken with him), or Jerome Namias, etc., were heroes to me somewhat like baseball players were to other kids. And, I was already writing stuff about ice in clouds in weather diaries in the 50s.
So, was this combination of traits the reasons why I reacted so strongly to faulty literature? I dunno.
Learning how seductive and corruptive the effects of confirmation bias could be as I saw in Durango and in the commercial seeding projects I worked on, also augmented my inclination to closely examine cloud seeding papers. To claim, or believe, that you had changed the weather by increasing precipitation was a very potent euphoric.
What was the likely driver of ersatz seeding success claims that were later overturned?
Ans. 1: No one ever got a job saying cloud seeding didn’t work.
Ans. 2: Experimenters were damn sure seeding worked beforehand, by god, they were going to strangle the data until they found signs of it, or post-select controls to “prove seeding.”
Yes, almost certainly, as Donald Kennedy observed in his Science editorial, Research Fraud and Public Policy in 2003, it was mostly “career enhancement” that drove fraudulent science (or “career maintenance” as it might be in the cloud seeding realm). Of course, they could also be well-intentioned, deluded people, unreceptive to new facts.
43. Peter V. Hobbs and his group’s work in cloud seeding
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44. Life beyond science volunteering: “sports and weather” with some humorous, maybe, anecdotes concerning the Seattle Mariners and some radio work
The almost fanatical activity described above can be also be seen as a “crackpot alert.” But, maybe a good one? Yes, and you might well be thinking, as noted, “get a life!”
Well, I did have some outside activities, like playing baseball in a hot semi-pro league called the Western International League, so there. Eight guys were signed off my team over the several years I played on it; one, Mike Kinunen, was pitching for the Twins the next (1980) summer and the guy that batted 3rd in front of me, made the last out of the 1980 college World Series in Omaha playing for the #5 Hawaii Rainbows (defeated by the Arizona Wildcats!) I was the oldest starting player in that league in those halcyon days of my late 30s. In case you don’t believe me:
In my last playing year, I was the recipient of the Jim Broulette “Mr. Hustle” Award in 1980. No, it wasn’t for being a great player, but rather for being an “inspirational” one, which is not as good as being given an award for being great (I had an off year..). FYI, this what I looked like during the era of ruining cloud seeding papers except I wasn’t wearing a baseball uniform when I was doing that.
In a further nostalgic sports report and waste of your time, after the WIL, I pitched batting practice for the Seattle Mariners, 1981-1983. An anecdote about that:
I showed up for a tryout at a workout they were having on the U of WA Husky baseball field in 1981 after the MLB strike had ended and, after pitching BP there, I got to be one of the regular Mariner BP pitchers in the Kingdome, an unpaid job, btw. You get tickets behind home plate. It was so much fun, but stressful. There was an uneasy quiet if you threw as many as three balls that weren’t smacked.
They released me at the end of 1983 because the “guys” were complaining that my ball had too much movement in BP; I was “cutting the ball”, giving it extra spin (private communication, Steve Gordon, backup catcher, 1983). (Unbelievable).
The Mariners of note in those days were Tom Paciorek, Dave Henderson, Bruce Bochte, Richie Zisk and Gaylord Perry, the latter who said my BP was “horrible” in 1983 after he joined the Mariners– he didn’t hit it so well. Of course, he was a washed up pitching buffoon in those days–what would he know about hitting? (Just kidding, Gaylord.) I did throw harder than normal BP pitchers and off or near the pitching rubber, just like I did for my WIL teammates who loved my BP. They wanted zip on the ball like real pitching and I thought the MLB players would, too. And they did, too, that’s why I got “hired” in the first place.
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Forecasting for the Washington Husky baseball and softball teams.
I was also the de facto weather forecaster for Washington Husky baseball and softball teams calling rain delays, tarp placements and removals and such beginning in the mid-90s. I had met the Husky baseball coach during my WIL experiences and began forecasting for softball during the 1996 NCAA regional tournament in Seattle which was impacted by numerous showers and even a thunderstorm.
The weather during these spring sports seasons is occasionally showery in Seattle, lots of Cumulonimbus clouds form on those kinds of days, rather than the easy to predict day-long rains from fronts. Radar was pretty useless in showery situations. Why? Because the lifetime of showers is short, and the Huskies could play in SOME rain, just not too hard. So, an incoming shower had to be evaluated by eyeball to assess whether it was dissipating or not; was it all ice or what, and would it rain hard enough to require a tarp and a rain delay? So that’s how I did it, almost completely by eyeballing showers, their movement and growth pattern and assessing their stages.
When the tarp was on the softball diamond during showery days, it was almost harder to call when it should be removed since it took about 45 min to get the game going again; the players had to warm up, besides taking the tarp off themselves. This meant predicting whether a shower would even form in that 45 min time frame, and if so, would it affect the game? The worst possible scenario was that you said to remove the tarp, everyone warmed up again, the crowd came back into the softball stadium, and then it rained hard right after that. It was a stressful volunteer job. Fortunately, that did not happen. I was lucky.
It sounds disconnected, but this was exactly the kind of skill I took to Israel in 1986.
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Before the Husky forecasting era, I had been a forecaster on two different radio stations in Seattle, KUOW-FM (1987-1992), an NPR affiliate in which I came on during “Weekend Edition”, and on a local rock station, KZAM-FM, M-F, for about six months in 1982. For both stations I was doing very short-term forecasts for Seattle using the time of day, such as “no rain through 11 AM, then rain beginning between 11 AM and 2 PM”, etc. When I started these efforts, Seattle had no dedicated weather radar! Doppler weather radar became available only in 1992. In place of radar, you had to use upwind station reports, satellite imagery, know the “territory”, and eyeball the cloud situation along with knowing what the computer model predictions were, and then evaluate how the cloudscape, obs, and how the model predictions were meshing with what the sky was doing.
Perhaps, for sophomoric entertainment, you would like to hear one for KZAM-FM in 1982. In listening to this (sorry, its not real clear), we have to remember that, as the LA Times wrote in 1981, weather forecasting at that time was an era of “clowns and computers” as they headlined. You were expected to come up with some “schtick” if you were a media weather forecaster. And I was encouraged to do so by KZAM-FM. It got a little wild, as you will hear. To stay with the theme of “sports and weather”, I reprise my “sports-like” 1982 weather forecast on KZAM-FM, one that mentioned Gaylord Perry in context with a low pressure in the Gulf of Alaska with “moisture and rotation on it.” GP was known for cheating by throwing spitballs. And damn him for criticizing my BP! It’s a little muffled, but you’ll get the idea. Remember I was forced to do this by the forecasting motif of the day…. 🙂
OK, I am having more fun now as I remember those crazy days….I still worked at the U of WA cloud group full time during these efforts, too. Good grief, how did I manage all this?
The “ENs” denote those winters with significant El Niñoes. The biggest of all, back in 2015-16, didn’t do much as far as SW weather goes. Generally, as you can see, they are very powerful “weather actuators” for us.Our poor summer rains kept this from being a truly spectacular water year. Still, over 20 inches is very good. Our bountiful September rains kept this summer from resembling one of those from the early and mid-90s.
Mr. Cloud Maven person doesn’t have to tell you, the advanced Cloud Maven Juniors, where he gets such an outrageously distant forecast that most meteorologists are afraid to make; it originates with clustered lines on something we call the “ensembles”, plots representing the greatest advance in computing and weather forecasting since the Intel 486 chip could be had at 386 prices. In case you don’t believe me again…..
Here’s what I am talkin’ ’bout, the “ensembles” or fondly, “spaghetti plots” for 5 PM AST, the 27th of December, two weeks from now:
The red lines are about where the middle and southern edges of the core of the jet stream is, so, its going to be way south of us, “way” being at least a few hundred miles in its average position by then. That means RAIN here! “Whey” is something else, we don’t what; you should make that clear if you’re pronouncing this exact forecast to someone.
We ignore immediate weather and the possibility of rain on the 16th and again on the 18th ; the TV men and women of weather always have that well-covered.
Looks to be shaping up to be a very good spring wildflower season I’d say. Tell your friends.
The End, except for some recent cloud photos:
From a few days ago, little fluff-fluff cloud on Samaniego Ridge.
Be thankful we live in Catalina. Here the TUS urban plume exits TUS borne on SE winds toward Continental Ranch and points W and N. Rarely affects Catalina. Sometimes this urban plume is referred to as the Mark Albright smog plume, named after a well-known U of WA meteorologist who accidentally bought a house over there.
December 11th. A band of Cirrus spissatus with almost regular virga trails graced the evening sky.
Finally, also from December 11th, this beauty:
Altocumulus castellanus with heavy virga trails. As a cloud maven, you would estimate cloud top temperatures are less than -20°C, and probably closer to -30°C.
About real clouds, weather, cloud seeding and science autobio life stories by WMO consolation prize-winning meteorologist, Art Rangno
I’ve never had a job I loved as much as that summer one at NAWC, or people I had so much in common with there. I also had a chance to meet the head of NAWC, the famous Robert D. Elliott, whom I came to admire so much while at NAWC. My assignment at NAWC was mainly to draw weather maps of frontal systems coming into southern California and “lake effects” for the Great Salt Lake in winter. I was in heaven.
Right out of Computer Shopper magazine, too! You can’t find deals like this today, that’s for sure.
