I have written an extensive, “comment” and “enhancement” of an article by Benjamini et al. published in the in J. Appl. Meteor. in January 2023. The article was about the results of a fourth randomized Israeli cloud seeding experiment, Israel-4. My “comments” and “enhancement” of Benjamini et al. (2023) posted below would never be published in an Amer. Meteor. Soc. journal. The words are too strong. So, I am going this route, a blog post.
Evidence for such a contentious assertion? Prior experience.
I submitted a paper on the history of Israeli cloud seeding in 2018. The journal, the Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. (BAMS) got but two reviews: “Accept, important paper, minor revisions” by one Israeli scientist, and the second review, an outright “reject” in a long review by an Israeli seeding partisan who signed his review. The chief editor of BAMS did not allow me to revise my manuscript where needed (minor corrections), nor rebut the many specious comments by the seeding partisan.
Why is this behavior by the chief editor of BAMS outrageous and in non-compliance with our science ideals?
Replying to the comments of reviewers of manuscripts following peer-review is standard procedure in science after which a final decision on publication is then reached by the editor based on the responses of the author and the revisions made in the submitted manuscript. This is exactly the process that Prof. Dave Schultz, Chief Editor of the Amer. Meteor. Soc. journal, The Monthly Weather Review, and I are going through right now with a cloud seeding manuscript on the Colorado River Basin Pilot Project sub omitted to the AMS’ J. Appl. Meteor. and Climate (as of January 2024).
As an acknowledged expert on Israeli clouds, weather, and cloud seeding (e.g., Rangno 1988, Rangno and Hobbs 1995a), I deemed this refusal by the BAMS Chief Editor to allow me to respond to the comments of the two reviewers the sign of a corrupted journal process within the Amer. Meteor. Soc.: Certain stories about failed science are not to be told, especially if they involve a country people have strong feelings about, as in this case. My 2018 history describes unimaginably inadequate peer-reviews of the original published reports, those describing ripe for seeding clouds and the cloud seeding statistical “successes” that were all scientific mirages crafted by cloud seeding partisans.
The manuscript below has the same elements as the 2018 submission thus guaranteeing its rejection by a partisan AMS leadership. But I feel strongly that certain things need to be said, and questions asked, to stop seeding partisans in Israel from costing their country so much in wasted cloud seeding efforts as they have over so many decades. Sound implausible? Read on…..
Despite what might be considered some “harsh” language at times, I consider myself a friend of Israel and donate to the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, an organization that regularly counters the negative descriptions of Israel in much of the media today in their “Myth vs. Facts” segments.
=========THE MANUSCRIPT==========
ABSTRACT
The result of a fourth long-term randomized cloud seeding experiment in Israel, Israel-4, has been reported by Benjamini et al. 2023. The seven-season randomized cloud seeding experiment ended in 2020 with a non-statistically significant result on rainfall (a suggested increase in rain of 1.8%). This review puts the results of Israel-4 in the context of prior independent reanalyses of Israel-1 and -2, reanalyses that can be said to have anticipated a null result of both the Israel-4 experiment and the lack of evidence that rain had been increased in the 30 plus years of the operational cloud seeding program targeting the Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) watershed discovered in 2006 by an independent panel of Israeli experts. The published literature that overturned the reports of success in the first two experiments, Israel-1 and Israel-2, was omitted by Benjamini et al., and thus, misled readers concerning those first two experiments.
The lack of cloud seeding success in Israel can be attributed to unsuitable clouds for seeding purposes, ones that form prolific concentrations of natural ice at relatively slight to moderate supercoolings which preclude seeding successes using glaciogenic seeding agents.
The phenomenon of “one-sided citing,” practiced by Benjamini et al. via the omission of relevant contrary literature is addressed. Several corrections to and enhancements of the Benjamini et al. article are also included.
The results of the first two randomized crossover cloud seeding experiments in Israel, Israel-1 and Israel-2, discussed recently by Benjamini et al. 2023, as well as the descriptions of “ripe for seeding” clouds in Israel by the seeding experimenters, had an important role in the history of cloud seeding. For many years it appeared that the viability of cloud seeding to have produced economically important amounts of rain had been established in those two “crossover” experiments conducted by scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJ) (e.g., Kerr 1982, Mason 1982, Dennis 1989). In descriptions of the first two benchmark experiments, ones that created the scientific consensus described above, Benjamini et al. (2023, hereafter, “B23,”) do not tell the whole story in their history of cloud seeding in Israel that preceded their evaluation of Israel-4.
This review is meant to fill in the gaps for the reader left by B23 about those first two experiments that had so much practical impact. For example, the Israel National Water Authority (INWA) began a several decades-long operational cloud seeding of the watersheds around Lake Kinneret (aka, Sea of Galilee) based on the seemingly favorable results of Israel-1 and those in the “confirmatory” Israel-2 experiment that followed (Gabriel 1967a; b; Neumann et al. 1967; Wurtele 1971; Gagin and Neumann 1974; 1976). The INWA began seeding Lake Kinneret’s watersheds in November through April, beginning with the 1975/76, the winter season that immediately followed the end of Israel-2.
The statistical results of Israel-1 and -2 were backed by several cloud microstructure reports over the years that underpinned the idea that rain could be increased substantially by seeding Israel’s clouds (e.g., Gagin 1975, 1981, 1986, Gagin and Neumann 1974, 1976, 1981). These reports caused Science magazine’s reporter, Richard Kerr, to proclaim in 1982 that those first two Israeli experiments constituted the “One success in 35 years” of cloud seeding experimentation. Kerr (1982) also wrote:
“The Israeli II1 data must still be reanalyzed by other statisticians, but most researchers are also impressed that the results make so much physical sense. The clouds that Gagin and Neumann hypothesized would be most susceptible to seeding did indeed produce the most additional rain after seeding.”
These statements are compatible with the history that B23 have provided, but it was to be far from the end of the “story.”
Fifteen years after Israel-2 had been completed it was learned that the random seeding of the south target clouds of Israel-2, a crossover experiment as Israel-1 had been, produced the indication that cloud seeding had decreased rainfall by a substantial amount, 15% (Gabriel and Rosenfeld 1990)2. Gagin and Neumann (1981), however, had claimed that the random seeding that took place in the south target was “non-experimental” and so did not report the results of random seeding there. No one challenged this claim.
Until 1981 the result of seeding in the south target seeding had been described as “inconclusive” (Gagin and Neumann 1976), and prior to that, by (Gagin and Neumann 1974) after the first two seasons of Israel-2, that seeding had resulted in a seed/no seed average rainfall fraction in the south target that was “less than 1,” suggesting rain might have been decreased on seeded days.
However, the crossover evaluation of seeding in Israel-2 was not reported until Gabriel and Rosenfeld (1990)2. The design document, approved by the Israeli Rain Committee and completed before Israel-2 began had, however, mandated a crossover evaluation (Silverman 2001) as had been done for Israel-1. Nowhere did Gagin (1981) or Gagin and Neumann (1974, 1976, 1981) explain why they did not perform the mandated crossover evaluation of Israel-2.
Instead of Israel-2 crossover evaluation replicating Israel-1, where seeding appeared to have increased rainfall by about 15% when the data from both targets was combined (e.g., Wurtele 1971), the crossover evaluation of Israel-2 indicated a slight decrease in rainfall of 2% (not statistically significant). Thus, Israel-2 had not replicated Israel-1 in an important way.
But results of Israel-2 were complex, as noted by Gabriel and Rosenfeld (1990) and left questions that they could not resolve. The most revealing statement in Gabriel and Rosenfeld (1990) in reporting the “full” results of Israel-2 was this enigma (my italics and bold font):
“There is a surprising contradiction between this finding and those of the analyses of Tables 4-17. The difference occurs because the historical comparison of Table 18 ignores the unusually high south precipitation on north-seeded days (as well as the north precipitation on south-seeded days). In other words, it is what happened when there was no seeding that causes the differences between the two analyses. The different choice of “control” days for the south, whether all the rainy days of 1949-60 or the north-seeded days of 1969-75, is what crucially affects the comparison. If such large differences-of a magnitude of several standard errors and clearly significant by the usual statistical criteria-occur by chance, then chance operates in unexpected ways on precipitation and historical comparisons become highly suspect (see also Gabriel and Petrondas 1983). Otherwise, one would need to explain why there was so much more rain in the south when the north was being seeded; as of now, no explanation is available, especially as the prevailing wind direction is from the southwest.”
A “Type I statistical error,” the “good draw,” in Israel-2, heavy rains that affected both targets on north target seeded days3, was there for all to see if they wanted to.
Thus, a severe blow to the idea of randomizing cloud seeding experiments occurred in Israel-2 due to the exceptional random draw described by Gagin and Rosenfeld (1990). Randomization could produce wildly unrepresentative results in which slight, but important, rain increases due to seeding could be forever hidden.
The null result of the combined targets in Israel-2 was due to an apparent decrease in rainfall on seeded days in the south target (~15%) that canceled out apparent increases in rainfall (~13%) in the north target. Despite the new result and the many questions it raised, the INWA continued the commercial-like seeding of the Lake Kinneret watersheds during the winter rain seasons for more than 20 years after Gabriel and Rosenfeld’s (1990) disclosure of the “full” results of Israel-2.
The continuation of seeding of Lake Kinneret watersheds in northern Israel by the INWA despite the Israel-2 null result may have been due to the hypothesis put forward by Rosenfeld and Farbstein (1992)4; “dust/haze” had interfered with seeding in Israel -2 by creating high natural ice particle concentrations in supercooled clouds and that the presence of “dust/haze” even resulted in collisions with coalescence-formed rain (“the warm rain” process) that does not require the ice phase. These cloud attributes, they concluded, meant there could be no increases in rainfall due to cloud seeding in the south target nor in the north target when dust/haze was present. Without “dust/haze,” Rosenfeld and Farbstein argued, the clouds of Israel were as ripe as ever for cloud seeding.
2). The Motivation for a Reanalysis of Israel-1 and Israel-2
The publication and the hypothesis of Rosenfeld and Farbstein (1992) formed the motivation for the Rangno and Hobbs 1995, hereafter RH95a) reanalyses of Israel-1 and -2. This writer had spent 11 winter weeks in Israel in 1986 studying the rain-producing characteristics of Israeli clouds and felt Rosenfeld and Farbstein’s hypothesis had little credibility; a full independent review of Israel-1 and -2 was needed as had been suggested in Science magazine (Kerr 1982). And it would be done by someone who knew the clouds and weather of Israel (Rangno 1983, rejected by the J. Appl. Meteor.; Rangno (1988), Rangno and Hobbs (1988, hereafter, RH88).
I am also experienced in exposing suspect cloud seeding claims in the published literature (e.g., Hobbs and Rangno 1978, 1979, Rangno 1979, 1986, Rangno and Hobbs 1980a, b, 1981, 1987, 1993, 1995b). By the time I began reanalyzing the Israeli experiments in 1992 I had also logged more than 400 flights for the University of Washington’s Cloud and Aerosol Group in studies that mostly concerned ice crystaldevelopment in slightly supercooled clouds in polar air masses similar to those that affect Israel (Rangno and Hobbs 1983, 1991, 1994, Hobbs and Rangno 1985, 1990).
3). The results of the Rangno and Hobbs (1995) benchmark reanalyses of Israel-1 and Israel-2 that went uncited by B23
RH95 concluded that neither Israel-1 nor Israel-2 had produced bona fide increases in rain on seeded days, contradicting the HUJ experimenters’ reports and those contained in B23 that cloud seeding had increased rain in each of these experiments. The conclusions of RH95 were given support by Silverman (2001) and later, for Israel-2, by Levin et al. (2010).
Moreover, in R88 it was strongly indicated that the “ripe for seeding” clouds described repeatedly by the experimenters (e.g., Gagin and Neumann 1974, 1976, 1981, Gagin 1975, 1981, 1986) did not exist. The findings in R88 concerning shallow clouds that rained was not news to Israel Meteorological Service forecasters with whom I spoke nor to the Israeli experiments’ “Chief Meteorologist,” Mr. Karl Rosner. Mr. Rosner wrote to me in 1987 that, “sometimes heavy rain fell from clouds with tops at -8°C.” Thus, in contrast to the many HUJ experimenters’ reports cited previously, it was widely known by weather forecasters in Israel that rain fell regularly from clouds with tops >-10°C (~3-4 km thick clouds) as was documented in R88.
The HUJ experimenters had also reported, contrary to the above, that many clouds with radar measured tops between -15°C and -21°C did not precipitate naturally due to a lack of ice in them or that precipitation formed by “warm rain” (collisions with coalescence) process (e.g., Gagin 1981, 1986) did not occur. Those non-precipitating clouds in this low radar top temperature range were responsible for extra-large increases (46%) in rain on seeded days (Gagin and Neumann 1981, Gagin and Gabriel 1987).
Seeding, they also reported, had no effect on naturally precipitating clouds, a finding compatible with the “static” seeding method carried out by the HUJ experimenters where small amounts of the seeding agent, silver iodide are released. Namely, when seeding took place, it rained for more hours on seeded days than on control days, but it did not rain harder.
B23 also refer to the Israel-2 low radar top temperature partition as having been associated with increases in rain.
(Questions)
Is it possible that Israeli weather forecasters and the “chief meteorologist” of the Israeli cloud seeding experiments had a better idea of which clouds rained in Israel than those whose research careers at the HUJ depended on reliable assessments of their own clouds and their cloud seeding potential? Ans. Probably not.
Why?
This writer, while welcomed at the Israel Meteorological Service in January 1986, was denied access to the seeding experimenters’ radar on the grounds of Ben Gurion AP to obtain echo heights by the leader of the Israeli experiments, Prof. A. Gagin. He insisted in our meeting that my monitoring of top heights would only confirm his cloud reports; that it took deep and very cold-topped clouds to rain in Israel.
It was also learned during January 1986 at about this same time that no less than six attempts had been proposed by outside groups to do airborne studies of the seemingly unique clouds of Israel, as shown in RH88, ones that had responded so well to cloud seeding (Personal communication, Prof. Gabor Vali, University of Wyoming, 31 January 1986). Every one of those attempts to study Israeli clouds had been blocked.
Why? And by whom?
More about Rangno and Hobbs (1995): the most controversial and commented on paper ever published in an Amer. Meteor. Soc. journal and the unusual strategy used by the editor in choosing reviewers
In a moment of brilliance (in retrospect), the editor for our journal manuscript, L. Randall Koenig, chose three reviewers who would be sure to reject the RH95a manuscript and its negative findings concerning cloud seeding. But at the same time, Koenig realized that there would be no easy pass on it; no stone would go unturned by the reviewers, and our findings would be severely tested. In fact, RH95 was significantly better for having cloud seeding partisans, H. Orville, W. Woodley, and D. Rosenfeld, review it (all signed their reviews).
Editor Koenig, himself an expert on weather modification and cloud microphysics (e.g., Koenig 1963, 1977, 1984), was also steeped in the long record of frequent mischief by those in the cloud seeding domain, weighed the arguments of the reviewers and the modifications of RH95a that reflected the reviewers’ criticisms: He made the choice to publish RH95a.
It took courage for Editor Koenig to do that and recognizing who he felt had the better arguments. In RH95a were the first two independent re-analyses of Israel-1 and Israel-2, as had been recommended years earlier in Kerr (1982) but ones that were clearly not going to take place. How many other papers in our journals would be the improved and bogus claims eliminated if editors used the strategy of of Koenig and were as informed about the topic of the manuscript?
Perhaps due to the size of the ox being gored, our paper drew comments by the reviewers of our manuscript and others (1997a, b, c, d, e). The number of journal pages involved in “Comments” and “Replies” on a single article is still a record for an Amer. Meteor. Soc. journal. We draw particular attention to our “Replies” to the many, as we showed, specious “Comments” of Dr. Rosenfeld in RH97a and RH97b, and a B23 co-author.
Let the reader decide where truth lies. We urge the reader to carefully review RH95a and our replies for the considerable evidence we present that the Israel-1 and Israel-2 experiments were both mirages of cloud seeding successes, contrary to the assertions in B23.
Israel-3: enhancing B23’s description
B23 describe the results of the longest randomized cloud seeding experiment ever conducted, Israel-3 (1975-1995), a single target experiment. However, they omit informing the reader that the remarkable “inconclusive” result was a suggested 9% decrease in rainfall on seeded days compared to non-seeded days (Rosenfeld 1998). By omitting the sign of the null result, B23 left the reader to speculate on what the sign of the “null” result was. The suggestion of a decrease in rain on seeded days again points to clouds naturally form precipitation very efficiently in Israel. With the result of Israel -3 in hand, the reader would now learn, with Israel-2 (Gabriel and Rosenfeld 1990), that over a period of 25 plus years (Israel-2 and Israel-3 combined) decreases in rainfall due to seeding were suggested in central and southern Israel by cloud seeding!
B23 state the increase in rainfall during the operational seeding, 1975/76 winter to 1990 reported by Nirel and Rosenfeld (1995) was “6-11%.” In the abstract of the quoted article, the authors state that rainfall due to cloud seeding was increased by 6%, not “6-11%.” This same increase in rain (6%) was also quoted by Sharon et al. (2008).
Moreover, the 6% increase in rain (said to be statistically significant by Nirel and Rosenfeld 1995) was not confirmed by Kessler et al. (2006) in their independent evaluation of operational seeding through the same period. The independent panel reported 4.8% suggested rain enhancement over the same period evaluated by Nirel and Rosenfeld (Figure 1).
Figure 1. The results of operational seeding on the watersheds of Lake Kinneret (aka, Sea of Galilee) as reported by Kessler et al. 2006. (a) is that result of seeding on rainfall reported by Nirel and Rosenfeld (1995), b-d are the results found for various periods, including the very same era evaluated by Nirel and Rosenfeld (1995)5.
What triggered the formation of an independent panel to evaluate cloud seeding?
The panel was created after RH95a was published and then followed by extensive journal exchanges by RH97a, b, c, d, e, in “Replies” to various “Comments” in 1997. The INWA was then inspired to form an independent panel of experts due to these exchanges to evaluate what they were getting from the operational seeding of Lake Kinneret’s (aka, Sea of Galilee) watersheds rather than relying on the evaluations by the seeding promoters at the HUJ (e.g., Nirel and Rosenfeld 1995). The results found by the panel are shown in Figure 1.
Should the lack of seeding results after 1990 shown in Figure 1 surprise? I don’t think so. This sequence of optimistic claims by seeding experimenters concerning their own experiments followed by reanalyses by external skeptics that find the original claims were “scientific mirages” (Foster and Huber 1997, Judging Science) is a pathology within the cloud seeding realm that has dogged it since its earliest days (e.g., Brier and Enger 1952, versus MacCready 1952).
In view of Figure 1, one must ask, “What if there had been no RH95a”?
We suspect that not citing our independent re-analyses of Israel-1 and Israel-2, Silverman’s (2001) conclusions concerning the first two Israeli experiments, and Wurtele (1971) who first drew the attention to a major red flag in Israel-1, combined with the fact that the HUJ experimenters failed to even understand the precipitating nature of their own clouds for decades with all the tools at their command, all pose monumental science embarrassments for Israel, their scientists, and for the prestigious HUJ from which the faulty reports emanated.
Can there be other reasons for not citing the work of external, foreign workers who overturned benchmark experimental science by the home country’s scientists?
Did the background airborne microphysical measurements that preceded Israel-4 justify a new experiment?
B23 cite Freud et al. (2015) as having demonstrated cloud seeding potential in the mountainous north region of Israel through a series of airborne flights; but did it support the idea of strong cloud seeding potential as B23 assert?
No.
I was not asked to review Freud et al. 2015, as one might have expected given my background. Nevertheless, I carried out a post publication “comprehensive review” that can be found under 2017 here.
Freud et al. 2015 was a “Jekyll and Hyde” read; some of the best reporting by the HUJ’s cloud seeding unit was contained in it. But it also contained misleading statements. My recommendation after reading what I considered to be a strongly biased study that was going to mislead the INWA concerning cloud seeding potential: “Don’t do a cloud seeding experiment in northern Israel based on the research of Freud et al. (2015)!”
As the INWA could have suspected, Freud et al. (2015) would not be the first time that cloud seeding researchers at the HUJ had misled the INWA about the clouds of Israel being filled with cloud seeding potential. My conclusion regarding the false picture of “abundant” cloud seeding potential in the northern mountains of Israel painted by Freud et al. 2015 was, in essence, affirmed post facto by the “primary” results of Israel 4. The “abundant” cloud seeding potential in northern Israel described by Freud et al. (2015) was not realized or was imaginary to begin with.
A caveat on airborne sampling: One can “lie” with aircraft measurements by sampling only newly risen turrets and avoiding those that are maturing or in aged states with appreciable ice particle concentrations. Gagin and Neumann (1974), for example, stated that they chose only newly risen turrets, narrow ones at that, and flew research flights on mostly dry days, and those choices misled them and the rest of the scientific community regarding the microstructure of Israeli clouds and their cloud seeding potential. Significant rain days in Israel are comprised of large complexes of convective clouds in various stages of development, “tangled masses,” as they were described by Neumann et al. (1967). To their credit, Freud et al. informed the reader that they sampled only newly risen turrets when reporting the low (<2 per liter) modal ice particle concentrations in those turrets.
Freud et al.’s measurements could not have been more incompatible with uncited by B23 measurements of Levin (1992: 1994; Levin et al. 1996). Tens to hundreds per liter of ice particles were found in six flights on four days in clouds having tops >-13°C. Freud et al. 2015 could not bring themselves to inform their readers of similar high ice particle concentrations that they likely encountered during their 27 flights (that is, if they did not deliberately avoid those high ice particle concentration regions). Freud et al. 2015, therefore, may be a first in the evaluation of cloud seeding potential in which measurements of ice particle concentrations in mature and aging clouds were not reported; the absence of such data made their entire report unreliable.
One of the B23 co-authors (DR) has claimed that ice particle measurements measured in their airborne research were “unreasonably high” in Israeli clouds due to probe caused shattering of ice crystals and thus weren’t reliable. D. Axisa, a representative of the manufacturer, Droplet Measurement Systems, of the CAPS probe used by Freud et al. (2015) stated that this statement was false: “They could have reported accurate ice particle concentrations if they had wanted to.” Dr. Axisa is a former president of the Weather Modification Assoc. It seems likely that HUJ researchers are once again withholding vital information on the clouds of Israel6.
What do we know about cloud seeding in Israel today?
What we know today is that if careful, skeptical and independent analyses of Israel-1 and Israel-2 experiments and equally careful evaluations of the clouds of Israel had been done in the first place by independent Israeli scientists or ones outside Israel that are non-partisan cloud seeding scientists (as was carried out by RH95a, R88, and by Silverman 2001), there would not have been 30 plus years of wasted operational cloud as would be found by independent evaluators in the decades ahead (Kessler et al. 2006, Sharon et al. 2008). Fortunately, we need not guess whether those 10s of millions of dollars were wasted on the seeding of Lake Kinneret watersheds. They were. Inexplicably, the INWA drove through the “stop sign” presented by Kessler et al. (2006) and commercially seeded around Lake Kinneret for another seven years after this report came out according to B23.
Why hasn’t cloud seeding worked In Israel?
Answer: too much natural ice formation in clouds.
B23 failed to mention that the “ripe-for-seeding” cloud foundation for the statistical results of Israel-1 and Israel-2 no longer exists. The mythical clouds described by HUJ researchers were critical in the acceptance of the Israeli cloud seeding rain increases by the scientific community, as quoted in Kerr (1982) earlier and by Dennis (1989).
A review of the Israeli cloud microstructure shows that they are “ripe,” but not for cloud seeding, but for an explosion of ice as the tops ascend to temperatures below -5°C and age. In most cases, precipitation-sized drops have already formed when the Israeli cloud ascend through this level (Gagin and Neumann 1974, Figure 13.4), and the concentration of cloud droplets exceeding the Hallett-Mossop riming-splintering criterion of >23 µm diameter can be inferred to be copious in that -2.5° to -8°C temperature zone. Furthermore, there is an enhancement of the H-M process when droplets <13 µm are present (Goldsmith et al. 1976, Mossop 1985) and such drops would be present in the semi-polluted air masses; initially, shallow cold layers diluted by the warming of the Mediterranean Sea to depths of 3-9 km on shower/thunderstorm days by the time they reach Israel under cold polar troughs.
Without the “ripe for seeding” clouds, ones with great seeding potential to cloud top temperatures as low as -21°C as described by Gagin and Neumann (1976, 1981 and Gagin 1981), there can be no viable increases in rainfall due to cloud seeding. This does not mean that some small, slightly supercooled clouds can’t be seeded to make small amounts of rain as noted by the HUJ researchers, Gagin and Neumann (1981), and by Sharon et al. (2008). However, those small amounts weren’t deemed viable for a cloud seeding operations.
The nature of the reporting of the experiments by the HUJ cloud seeding researchers
The omission of the south target result (Gagin and Neumann 1976, 1981) was tantamount to the cancer researcher who only reports on the 50 mice his treatment cured while not reporting on the 50 mice that died from the same treatment. This kind of behavior in virtually every field but weather modification/cloud seeding, would be termed, “scientific misconduct,” specifically of a type called, “falsification” when data are omitted or adjusted (Ben-Yehuda and Oliver-Lumerman 2017, Fraud and Misconduct in Research)6. Inexplicably, Prof. K. Ruben Gabriel, the Israeli cloud seeding statistician, acquiesced in this omission as a reviewer of Gagin and Neumann’s 1981 paper in which this critical omission occurred.
Moreover, reporting the apparent negative effect on rainfall in the south target of Israel-2 would have raised numerous questions about the clouds of Israel: How could seeding Israeli clouds, described as being filled with great seeding potential as had been repeatedly described by the HUJ researchers, have resulted in what appeared to be a large decrease in rainfall in the south target on seeded days? Cloud tops in the south target in Israel average higher temperatures than those in the north (e.g., GN74; RH95a) making findings of decreased rainfall due to cloud seeding (as Rosenfeld 1989, Rosenfeld and Farbstein 1992 suggested) even harder to explain.
Moreover, while interim “positive” reports of cloud seeding increases in rain emanated from the HUJ during Israel-1 and Israel-2, HUJ researchers clearly felt differently about reporting indications of rain decreases in Israel-2 and Israel-3. For example, the scientific community was not informed of the suggestion of decreased rain due to clouds seeding in Israel-3 by the HUJ experimenters until 17 years after randomized seeding had begun (Rosenfeld and Farbstein 1992). Is this what the HUJ stands for? This chronology demonstrates a pattern that HUJ experimenters have had reporting suggestions of decreased rainfall or null results due to cloud seeding and in correcting their flawed cloud microstructure reports to the scientific community and to their countrymen in the years prior to B23.
Moreover when “good draws” or null results are suggested, the HUJ researchers reach for the magic bag to explain why “cloud seeding did it,” not nature. For example, when the Israel-1 chief meteorologist provided a plume analysis that the buffer zone (BZ) of Israel-1 could not have been appreciably contaminated by inadvertent seeding (a conclusion also supported by Neumann et al. 1967), Gagin and Neumann (1974), however, countered with an opposite explanation; the BZ had surely been contaminated on Center seeded days. The reason and data behind these two different explanations for the difference in the two plume analyses was not given except in general unsatisfactory terms.
When a Type I error and massive “good draw” affected the north seeded days of Israel-2 that also brought heavy rain to the south target, the crossover null result was then explained as due to “dust/haze” that produced different cloud microstructures when present in each target, first proposed by Rosenfeld (1989) in an HUJ report.
When RH95a showed that the results of seeding on the coast of Israel in Israel-1 were too close to the cloud base seeding release point to have resulted in rain practically falling on top on the seeding aircraft that flew in a line along the coast, Rosenfeld (1997) wrote a magical explanation filled with conjectures, one requiring nine steps to be fulfilled to explain the troublesome indication of rain increases in the BZ and in the coastal zone on Center seeded days. Please see my extended “Reply,” p11, to the hypothesis of Rosenfeld (1997) at:
When the independent panel, Kessler et al. 2002, could find no viable increases in rain in the seeding of the Lake Kinneret watersheds in their interim report, the HUJ seeding team then asserted that “air pollution” was suddenly( after 1990) decreasing rain as much as cloud seeding was increasing it (Givati and Rosenfeld (2005). One might ask, “what happened to ‘dust/haze’”?
Ice crystal concentrations measured in Israeli clouds by our best instruments are “unreasonably high” according to B23 co-author, Rosenfeld (private communication, 2018). Rosenfeld’s statement, however, contrasts with that of Droplet Measurement Technologies (DMT), the manufacturer of the Cloud, Aerosol and Precipitation Spectrometer (CAPS) probe used by the HUJ researchers: “They could have reported accurate ice particle concentrations if they had wanted to” (D. Axisa, DMT scientist, personal communication, 2018).
With the certainty of dust/haze days and incoming Israeli shower clouds affected by “sea spray” as Freud et al. 2015 described on shower days during the time the HUJ experimenters were flying their research aircraft in the early 1970s, monitoring storms with their radars, or examining rawinsondes during rain spells, we can conclude confidently that the lack of reporting on shallow precipitating clouds that occurred regularly in Israel is one of the more inexplicable and troubling aspects in the reporting of the Israeli cloud seeding experiments.
Deepening this enigma is that for two winter seasons in the late 1970s, the experimenters measured the depth of raining clouds with a vertically pointed 3-cm wavelength radar with research aircraft overflights to verify accuracy (Gagin 1980). Dr. Rosenfeld, a B23 co-author who studied clouds and radar imagery at this time, is the sole living person who can tell us what happened (Rosenfeld 1980, master’s thesis). One must necessarily ask if the HUJ experimenters discovered clouds they “didn’t like,” and withheld that information from us as they did the results of seeding in the south target of Israel-2? Without conjuring up a stupefying degree of incompetence, it seems likely.
It is not science that we are dealing with concerning the reporting by the HUJ cloud seeding researchers. There will ALWAYS be another problem that prevented seeding from working and if only corrected, seeding will work, as we are sure to learn when the inevitable “secondary” results of Israel-4 are published.
Will I be given a chance to review an Israeli cloud seeding manuscript as an expert in Israeli clouds, weather, and cloud seeding? It seems unlikely with the journal atmosphere we have today.
The on-going journal problem of “one-sided citing” as seen in B23; the equivalent of today’s “cancel culture”
The omission of the work by myself and with Prof. Peter V. Hobbs was shocking to see in B23 since all the B23 authors knew of this work. In human terms, external skeptics from a foreign country that expose faulty science in another country are not going to be exactly welcomed (or apparently cited) by that’s country’s scientists when a scientific embarrassment unfolds, as has happened in Israel concerning cloud seeding. While this may seem like an outlandish claim, what happened could be interpreted as tinged with nationalism has previously been shown to obfuscate science (Broad and Wade 1982, p114).
For journal readers who are used to “one-sided citing” in partisan media, our scientific journals are supposed to be immune from these acts due to a peer-review “filter” that is supposed to eliminate this practice before an article reaches the publication stage.
a). Why do authors, like B23, tell only one side of the story?
In the words of Ben-Yehuda and Oliver-Lumerman (2017) of the HUJ, such deceptions are, “…a deliberate attempt to create a false reality, persuade audiences that these realities are valid, and enjoy the benefits that accompany scientific revelations, whether those of prestige, money, reputation, or power….” The effect of one-sided citing on journal readers is well expressed in the U. S. Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) statement on consumer fraud:
“Certain elements undergird all deception cases. First, there must be a representation, omission or practice that is likely to mislead the consumer [journal reader].”
For the reader, one-sided citing, if it is not obvious, is purposefully done by authors to hide results that they do not want you to see. In effect, B23 performed the same act as Gagin and Neumann (1981) did when the latter authors did not report the results of random seeding of the south target of Israel-2, results that they did not want the world to see, and results that would have raised so many questions.
Regrettably, one-sided citing (a form of deception) is widely observed in Amer. Meteor. Soc. journals and in J. Weather Modification articles on cloud seeding/weather modification:
B23 practiced one-sided citing (defined by Schultz 2009) in their article concerning the Israel-1 and Israel-2 experiments. Inexplicably, our groundbreaking work (e.g., R88, RH88, who pointed out how anomalous the Israeli cloud reports were compared to other clouds, and RH95a) went uncited by B23. Our work, in toto, can be said to have anticipated the both the null result of decades of operational seeding of Lake Kinneret (Kessler et al. 2006, Sharon et al. 2008) and the null “primary” result of Israel-4 reported by B23.
B23 repeatedly misled/deceived readers, the “consumers” of journal science, concerning Israel-1 and Israel-2. If there is something different than what was done by B23 than what is described by the FTC above its not apparent.
Nor did B23 cite Wurtele (1971), Silverman (2001) or mention the critical airborne cloud measurements by one of Israel’s own leading scientists, Levin 1992, 1994, and Levin et al. 1996). The latter measurements were the first cloud ice measurements in Israel since Gagin (1975). Those new, independently acquired cloud ice measurements supported the conclusions in R88, RH88, and those in RH95a, all which contravened the many HUJ experimenters’ fictitious reports of “ripe for seeding” clouds whose tops could ascend to ~-20°C without precipitating.
Later measurements of cloud properties via satellite would also confirm the independent cloud measurements and assessments; that the clouds of Israel formed precipitation far more readily and at much higher cloud top temperatures (Ramanathan et al. 2001) than the HUJ experimenters could discern over many decades.
In 2015, the HUJ cloud researchers discovered that “sea spray” in the Mediterranean makes the cumuliform clouds invading Israel precipitate more efficiently and at the high cloud top temperatures like those reported in R88 (Freud et al. 2015). We can be quite sure that Mediterranean Sea spray has been occurring and affecting clouds that move into Israel for millions of years, and of course, did so during the 1970s when the HUJ scientists were performing their aircraft and radar cloud studies. Yet, they could not detect, or did not report, on those clouds that would have erased most of their seeding potential.
The shame of one-sided citing in B23 is that the authors could have added a single sentence following their repeated claims of rain increases in Israel-1 and -2: “However, these results, and the cloud reports that gave the statistical results credibility, have been questioned/overturned,” followed by a string of citations.
But B23 could not bring themselves to do that.
b) Why should we care about one-sided citing?
Knowledgeable readers of a specific topic like this writer will know that an article has been skewed to deliberately mislead readers due to omissions of contrary findings that go against what the authors assert. But less informed readers will not know, and their knowledge will be truncated regarding an important public policy, as when their state or local government considers a cloud seeding program. They will want to know the unabridged findings about the Israeli experiences as a tale of caution about accepting claims by promoters of seeding that have not been closely scrutinized by outside experts.
Moreover, “one-sided citing” sullies the reputations of all the authors even those who may not have agreed with doing it, and likewise sullies the reputations of institutions represented by the authors who practice it by suggesting that those institutions do not uphold standard science practices by those who work there. It also damages the authors whose work goes uncited since one’s impact in science is measured by citation metrics. Finally, even the journal in which one-sided citing occurs can be considered to have been damaged since unreliable findings have been published in it.
Nevertheless, it would appear that reviewers, editors, and journal management do not care so much about this issue. No statement in our Amer. Meteor. Soc. ethics statement addresses the question of the pernicious practice of one-sided citing as seen in B23. Its intellectually dishonest to omit relevant findings for your science audience just because you don’t like them
c) Who’s responsible for “one-sided” citing in journals?
“One-sided” citing, specifically as observed in B23, is due to poor peer reviews of manuscripts by seeding partisans or reviewers ignorant of the literature they are supposed to know. However, it is also due to those that do know the literature but do not get those manuscripts to review. For example, even though I would be deemed an expert on Israeli clouds, weather, cloud seeding, and on cloud microstructure, I was inexplicably not asked to review a manuscript in my specialty; that by B23 which would have made these comments unnecessary.
The reviewers of B23 manuscript were either ignorant of the literature they were supposed to be knowledgeable about or were cloud seeding partisans that also desired that the “other side” of the story for Israel-1 and Israel-2, as represented in the peer-reviewed literature by R88, RH88, RH95a, RH97a, b, c, d, e, Silverman (2001), Wurtele (1971) and Levin’s cloud measurements (e.g., Levin et al. 1996), be hidden from the journal readers.
At the top of the “responsibility pyramid” for one sided citing in journal articles, however, must reside the editor of the journal who chose the reviewers that allowed this to happen. Whomever this was at the J. Appl. Meteor. Climate, should not be allowed to be an editor who disburses cloud seeding manuscripts again.
d) Concluding remarks on one-sided citing
While all the B23 authors are technically responsible for its misleading content, one suspects some were likely “drug along” by stronger author personalities or authors who have funding power over them. As is done in Geophys. Res. Letts., the actual contributions of each author to this article should have been listed so we can truly know who was responsible for providing one-sided histories for Israel-1 and Israel-2 and other misleading statements.
We know, too, seeding partisans at the HUJ that have cost their own country so much will not let the “primary” null result of B23 stand; there will be “secondary” and “tertiary” stratifications of Israel-4 data perhaps designed to mislead the INWA into another randomized cloud seeding experiment or to resume operational seeding of Lake Kinneret.
It will be critical that if a new experiment is conducted at the behest of the HUJ seeding partisans, that outside, independent experts conduct it! It is also critical that prior to a new experiment that new airborne measurements of the clouds of Israel also be undertaken by outside, independent and experienced researchers in view of the problems that researchers at the HUJ have had over several decades, right up to today, in reporting ice particle concentrations in their clouds and their clouds’ actual seeding potential.
The major question we must now confront to avoid further science mischief by HUJ cloud seeding researchers, is how was it that they were not aware of the natural state of their clouds, namely, that clouds with tops warmer than -10°C that regularly rained, a finding that seriously limits cloud seeding potential? To date, no explanation has been put forward. And what evidence will they skew or miss in a likewise manner in the inevitable Israel-4, “secondary” results article?
=========================
Lastly, a note of scientific etiquette for B23 and young researchers: B23 cite the work of French et al. (2018) in demonstrating cloud seeding efficacy via the use of mm-wavelength radar.
The first use of mm-wavelength radar of the type used by French et al. (2018) was used by the Cloud and Aerosol Group at the University of Washington in a “proof of concept” experiment (Hobbs et al. 1981). Scientific etiquette means citing those that went first (Schultz 2009) Thus, a citation to the Hobbs et al. (1981) article should have preceded that of French et al. 2018)8. Our experiment proved that cloud seeding works in limited situations as in those described by French et al. (2018).
=================FOOTNOTES=====================
1The Israeli experiments have had several names over their history. We use the latest terms for them here, e.g., Israel-1, etc.
2Pressure was applied in 1986 on the HUJ researchers by the Israeli experiments’, “Chief Meteorologist,” Mr. Karl Rosner, who began a letter writing campaign to have the important results of seeding in the south target published by Prof. Gagin. Mr. Rosner told Professor Hobbs and myself in a Seattle visit that he felt that Prof. Gagin’s co-author, Jehuda Neumann, was “drug along” as a co-author of Gagin’s papers.
3This author believes that it is critical that a certified copy of the list of random decisions for Israel-2 be compared against those days used in the experiment. The remarkably unlikely random draw described by Gabriel and Rosenfeld (1990) could be explained if the original list was violated by the experimenters: draws were made and assigned to “seed” days when heavy storms were forecast.
4Rosenfeld (1989) in an unpublished HUJ report argued that the divergent apparent effects of cloud seeding were real.
5The findings of Kessler et al. were challenged by seeding partisans at the HUJ and who claimed that “air pollution” had decreased rain as much as cloud seeding had increased it after 1990. While this was a convenient explanation, it was not found credible by many subsequent independent investigators, including by Kessler et al. (2006).
6Ben-Yehuda and Oliver-Lumerman’s 2020 book, Fraud and Misconduct in Research, should be required reading for B23. Ben-Yehuda and Oliver-Lummerman are professors at the HUJ.
7I suggested the use of our vertically pointed, mm-wavelength radar for cloud seeding use to Prof. Larry Radke and Peter Hobbs, after seeing virga signatures pass overhead of that radar, realizing that creating lines of seeding in supercooled cloud layers that passed over such a radar could prove the viability of cloud seeding in a new way. I also carried out this experiment as flight scientist/meteorologist in the seeding/monitoring aircraft. However, I was not credited for this idea by Prof. Hobbs in the Science article.
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My self-funded trip to Israel was one of 11 weeks, from January 4th through March 11th, 1986. I loved my time in Israel and would go back in a heartbeat any winter to see those beautiful Cumulus and Cumulonimbus clouds rolling in off the Mediterranean again!
Following my return and for the rest of 1986 I lived off my savings in Seattle to write up an analysis and draft of what I had found. Despite my resignation, Prof. Hobbs and I retained a civil relationship as I also finished grant work that I said would before resigning (which ended up being Rangno and Hobbs 1988, Atmos. Res., “Criteria for the Onset of Significant Ice Concentrations in Cumulus Clouds.” In this short 1988 paper, it was noted that the reports from Israel concerning the onset of ice in clouds was sharply at odds with similar clouds. I discussed why that might have been in the paper.
Prof. Hobbs also agreed to look over my drafts and figures of the Israeli cloud investigation as I brought them in to the University of Washington from time to time. Being who he was, Prof. Hobbs greeted me when I first dropped by the University of Washington upon my return from Israel with, “I doubt you’ll get a paper out of your trip.” However, I knew exactly what I had to do to pass journal muster because of the rejection of that 1983 paper. It was also evident that no American Meteorological Society journal was likely to accept a paper like the one I was putting together; too many potential reviewers had heard at conference or read in journal articles on too many occasions how Prof. Gagin had described Israel’s hard to rain natural clouds.
That I got any Israeli data at all to take home and analyze was to the credit and magnanimous view of my outside cloud inquiry by the Israel Meteorological Service (IMS), Director, Y. L. Tokatly, who gave me pretty much a free reign to examine historical balloon soundings and synoptic maps within their Climate Division. The Climate Division was headed by Sara Rubin, who was also friendly and extremely helpful. I was even given a little desk space in the climate division! I went there every day that there wasn’t a storm to experience, clouds to assess with this experienced eyeball and photograph while traveling all over central and northern Israel on their stupendous bus system. I had also crated my bicycle to Israel for local travel.
Here is the IMS Headquarters building I worked in and the little desk space they gave me, two of the several officemates I had, and a shot of the IMS map and briefing room.
Zohar Moar (?) working next to my little desk space in the Climate Division office of the IMS.
Ronit Ben-Sara and Geulah Siles in the climate division office.
Forecaster Uri Batz in the IMS map room.
Below these is a list of the bus rides I took on ONE storm day, always sitting behind the driver and looking out the front window, recording drop sizes and nature of the rain on the front window::
In some interesting cases, such as in the hill region and the Golan Heights, I would get out and walk around in the wind and clouds, the latter often topping a hill region such as Jerusalem. I had my heaviest clothing, but it really wasn’t enough to keep me warm, and I had no gloves. Temperatures during storms were usually in the low 40s in Jerusalem with winds of 20-30 mph and passing showers. Once, I could not pull the shutter lever on my Rolliecord film camera to take a cloud photo my fingers were so cold.
This weather, too, really put an edge on those Bible stories. I could not imagine how miserable it really was for people living here in the winters. It even snows in Jerusalem from time to time as I saw myself in a January 1986 storm pocked with thunder. I listened to the IMS weather briefings most mornings, too. I was in heaven.
First Impressions
What was particularly interesting to me was that I encountered more skepticism about Israeli cloud seeding efforts in the IMS than there seemed to be in the entire world outside of it!
My first meeting with Prof. Gagin: January 10, 1986
It was an extremely cordial meeting in his office at the Rivat Gam branch of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem at the end of a dry week in Israel. That was followed by a family dinner at his residence where he regaled me with so many interesting stories. I really thought at that time that he didn’t mind my intrusion into his cloud seeding world, and I began to feel some guilt about it since he was so nice to me! But I had to persevere in my “task” I thought.
Prof. Gagin took this photo atop the HUJ satellite campus at Rivat Gam during that first meeting. He would not allow me to take his photo. I also suggested at this time that if I “found something” that perhaps we could co-author a paper. He deferred.
Not too surprisingly, all the weather forecasters I spoke with in the Israel Meteorological Service in 1986 were well aware that clouds much shallower than Prof. Gagin was describing as seeding targets, that is, those with tops >-10°C rained. It must have seemed bizarre to them that I had come 7,000 miles to document something they deemed so ordinary!
But where were Tel Aviv University atmospheric scientists in in these matters? Think how embarrassing it might be to all Israeli scientists to think that a minor foreign science worker had traveled thousands of miles to inform them about the true nature of their own clouds as they were described in the peer-reviewed literature!
You may have guessed the possible answer to this puzzle about the lack of involvement of other scientists in questioning or overturning Prof. Gagin’s cloud reports.
It turned out that considerable funding from cloud seeding operatives in Israel went to Tel Aviv University (Z. Levin, 1986, private conversation). He simply could not openly help me, he stated, in our one and only meeting. He also had trouble believing at that time that my cloud assessment (ice particles onset in Israeli clouds with tops between -5°C and -8°C, and that concentrations of “50-200” per liter were present by the time cloud tops reached -12°C, was correct. I wrote this same assessment following my 2nd meeting with Prof. Gagin to Professors Roscoe R. Braham, Jr., at North Carolina State University, Gabor Vali, University of Wyoming, Peter V. Hobbs and Lawrence F. Radke at the University of Washington, and to Dr. S. C. Mossop (of the Hallett-Mossop riming and splintering process). Why I wrote to them will become clear in the next segment.
January 19, 1986: My second meeting with Prof. Gagin
There had been several shower days in Israel when Prof. Gagin and I met for the second time. He asked me at the very beginning, after handing me a cup of coffee, “What have you found?”
I unloaded a boatload of findings contrary to his cloud reports. Suffice it to say, our meeting did not go well after that. In a sense, I was Professor Gagin’s nightmare; an under-credentialed worker coming to “his house” to expose faulty cloud reports. But, with his radars and aircraft, how could he possibly not have known that his reports were faulty?
I had also felt true drizzle falling in Jerusalem in the early morning hours during the very first storm. Drizzle tiny (<500 um in diameter) drops that are close together was something that was not supposed to occur in Israel due to the polluted nature of the clouds reported by Prof. Gagin. I certainly did not expect to see it, and when I stuck my hand out of my apartment window, I yelled, “drizzle?” to no one in particular.
Then, when I came down from Jerusalem on a bus that morning to the coastal plain, I was amazed by shallow, glaciating clouds (modest Cumulonimbus clouds) rolling in from the Mediterranean Sea. Namely, in less than three hours of the first storm, I had seen all I needed to know that Prof. Gagin’s clouds reports had described non-existent clouds.
In this 2nd meeting, I had brought with me an IMS sounding from Bet Dagan when rain was falling lightly throughout the hill region of Israel that had a cloud top, marked by a sharp inversion and strong drying, at -5°C. Professor Gagin was non-plussed by the sounding, stating that balloon soundings are unreliable for the purpose of assessing cloud top temperatures.
Prof. Gagin Had Heard Enough.
He informed me how offended he was by my visit to check his cloud reports. He asked me, “Who do you think you are, the Messiah, come to expose the liars?” He immediately then asked, “Did Hobbs send you?”
Peter Hobbs had not sent me5! !
I was reeling at that point in my meeting with Prof. Gagin, almost speechless even though I knew something like this, being bawled out, might happen. However, I did cough up an admonition: “Don’t be like Lew Grant,” referring to Grant’s stubbornness in accepting new information. Prof. Gagin replied, “I don’t appreciate the comparison.” This is the first time I have mentioned this quote. Prof. Grant deemed Abe Gagin a good friend and wrote a testimonial on his behalf when Prof. Gagin died. I would be willing to bet that Prof. Gagin later deeply regretted uttering that about Grant.
Before many more words were spoken, Prof. Gagin was escorting me out of his office and telling me not to come back; “Do your own thing,” he said. I went back to my apartment and wandered down King David boulevard in Jerusalem in kind of a haze.
For me, to “do your own thing” was continuing to gather historical data at the IMS on fair weather days and travel around eye-balling and photographing clouds and rain on storm days. I decided I needed to alert my former colleagues at the University of Washington and other scientists in this field about what had happened and what my so-called, “findings” were. I wrote to five leading scientists of the day, Prof. Peter V. Hobbs and Prof. Larry Radke at the University of Washington, the leaders of my former group, to Professor Roscoe R. Braham, Jr., at North Carolina State University, Professor Gabor Vali, at the University of Wyoming, and to Dr. S. C. Mossop at the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Organization in Australia. All wrote back except Hobbs and Radke who were on a field project in North Carolina.
All that replied supported what I was doing. Vali described my investigation as “spectacular,” and Mossop stated that I was a “genius for discovering sometimes unwelcome results.” Mossop was alluding also to my discovery of that an aircraft can create ice in clouds at temperatures around -10°C (Rangno and Hobbs 1983, J. Appl. Meteor.) a paper that had little credibility until confirmed in trials eight and 18 years later, it was that unexpected.
I felt an obligation to tell ASAP what had happened with Prof. Gagin to IMS Director, Y. L. Tokatly, in case he might wish to revoke my visitor privileges. He did not! He replied that it was just a difference of opinion, and I could continue to visit the IMS and gather data! How magnanimous was that?
February 3rd, 1986: My Third and Last Meeting with Prof. Gagin Takes Place at His Ben Gurion AP Radar.
A third meeting was arranged, despite what had happened in our 2nd meeting, after I learned that Prof. Gagin and his cloud seeding group had their own radar located on the outskirts of Ben Gurion AP. I did not even know that Prof. Gagin had his own radar at that point until informed of the “private radar” by an Israeli air traffic control person when I was looking for pilot reports of cloud tops! I had to call Prof. Gagin, as hard as that would be, and ask him about visiting it. A third meeting was arranged. Prof. Gagin was cooperative.
But what about that radar, located on the outskirts of Ben Gurion Airport? That radar would surely prove that Prof. Gagin was right and I was wrong; that rawin soundings indicating high cloud top temperatures of precipitating clouds were, indeed, unreliable as Prof. Gagin asserted.
I bicycled from my Riviera Hotel in Tel Aviv to this meeting. The sky was overcast in deep Altostratus (a mostly ice cloud) underlain by Altocumulus opacus clouds. A storm was approaching, but it would be hours before rain arrived. Below, a vertical look at those clouds from the site of the Ben Gurion radar as I was leaving.
The main thing I wanted to ask Prof. Gagin in our third meeting was whether I could go to this radar during storms and see cloud top heights. He said “no,” giving “airport security” as the reason. He repeated to me how (understandably) offended he was by my visit to Israel to check his cloud reports.
But, “airport security?” I had just bicycled to his radar on the outskirts of Ben Gurion; no problem! Later, a grad student at Tel Aviv U. in Professor Zev Levin’s group, Graham Feingold, would erupt over the “airport security” claim as a lie, as it clearly seemed to to be at the time.
Prof. Gagin further assured me in this meeting at his radar that radar top measurements would only confirm his reports (that is, if I could only view those top heights on his radar!)
I also informed Prof. Gagin that due to his behavior in our 2nd meeting that I had asked several scientists around the world to intervene with him on my behalf. He asked me who I had written to and I told him (those listed earlier).
How crazy was this episode?
A minor, but well-known cloud seeding critic, as I was at that time, could be easily convinced that he was wrong by examining Prof. Gagin’s radar top height measurements. But he was denied the opportunity to be proved wrong!
Learning about private flying in Israel and then getting a pilot to be on “standby” for cloud sampling
Late in February, I learned that there was a robust private aircraft touring business in Israel. I had assumed, based on the reports of Professors Mason, Hobbs, and Vali, that research groups weren’t able to get in, that flying around in Israel to sample clouds couldn’t be done due to security issues. But then, how could there be a strong tourist flying program?
I then went to one of the aircraft touring sites at Sade Dov Airport near Tel Aviv, and found that I could get a single engine aircraft and pilot, Yoash Kushnir, who would sample the tippy tops of clouds along the coastline of Israel with me along. He said it would cost $250 an hour and I was willing to spend about $500 to do give it a try. His aircraft had a ceiling of about 14 kft as I recall, just “high enough” to sample cloud tops that would average >-10°C. Tippy tops is not the best place to find much ice. Higher concentrations of ice are found lower down when ice is developing, as a rule, unless the top has completely glaciated.
The pilot I had on standby, incidentally, was angry that it was believed outside of Israel that you couldn’t fly research in Israel and sample clouds. It was a presumption I had, too, because the University of Wyoming and the British teams were not able to get in to sample Israeli clouds. This pilot regularly flew tourists to view ruins at Masada and other historical sites in Israel.
While Prof. Levin felt he could not openly support my efforts due to funding issues, he did provide me with a graduate student, Graham Feingold, who was willing to go along on a flight. He would act as a witness to what was found in those “tippy tops.” I had planned to use the “black glove” technique used decades earlier in sampling clouds for the presence of ice. You literally stick a black-gloved hand (or a black stick) out of the window of the aircraft and look for what hits.
You can only imagine how crazy these people thought I was! Years later I learned that I had been described by Graham, who was to become my friend, as, “that cowboy from America.”
No flight ever took place as the weather dried out by the time l learned I could hire an aircraft to sample cloud tops. Ironically, the only rain after having Yoash Kushnir on standby fell briefly from clouds whose tops were near the freezing level, and likely, if I had flown that morning, no ice would have been found in them! It was a surprise weather event that produced barely measurable rain.
My Meeting with Israeli experiments’ “Chief Meteorologist,” Mr. Karl Rosner
Late in my 1986 cloud investigation, I met the Israeli cloud seeding experiments’ “Chief Meteorologist,” Mr. Karl Rosner. It was IMS’ scientist, Alexander Manes, that got me in touch with him. I learned that the chief meteorologist, too, knew that Israel clouds rained having tops warmer than -10°C! It then seemed that the only three people in Israel who did not know that rain fell from such clouds were those who studied them in great detail, Prof. Abe Gagin, his frequent co-author, Jehuda Neumann, and Prof. Gagin’s only graduate student, Daniel Rosenfeld!
But Mr. Rosner had a more important and astounding thing to tell me: Prof. Gagin had refused to publish the result of the south target random seeding for Israel-2. Mr. Rosner had launched a campaign to see that it got published. The results of the “full” Israel-2 experiment were published by Gabriel and Rosenfeld (1990). Prof. Gagin, his co-author, J. Neumann, had stated in their 1981 journal paper that the seeding of the south target was “non-experimental.” They wrote that this was due to the lack of a suitable coastal control zone like the that they used to evaluate the north target’s random seeding. Previously, in 1974 these authors had given the result of random seeding in the south target as suggesting a decrease in rain after two rain seasons, and by 1976 at conference, stated the south target results were inconclusive for the full Israel-2 experiment.
So, here I was questioning the cloud reports and then learning from Mr. Rosner that half of the Israel-2 experiment had not been reported! In Gabriel and Rosenfeld’s 1990, we learned that the “full” result of Israel-2 was a -2% suggested effect on rainfall; it had not replicated Israel-1 as was previously believed based on the partial reporting of Israel-2.
Some Speculation About Why Prof. Gagin Might Not Known Have Known About the Natural Precipitating Nature of Israeli Clouds
It may be that Prof. Gagin’s graduate student knew the true cloud/rain situation but did not pass that crucial information along. It does happen that lab directors and important scientists have staff and students who do all the research, and upper echelon scientists are not close to what’s being done by the lower echelon staff; the latter might not pass along all the relevant information if it goes against the beliefs of their bosses.
One must conjure up a dizzying amount of incompetence concerning the three principal Israeli cloud seeding researchers (Gagin, Neumann, and Rosenfeld) who could not identify the most basic aspects of their clouds; the depth and cloud top temperatures at which they started to rain.
But is an “incompetence” hypothesis credible? Or was it that a knowing graduate student did not pass along to Prof. Gagin information that would have eroded his cloud reports? Read on….
Prof. Gagin and his student had monitored cloud tops with a vertically-pointed radar with tops having been confirmed by aircraft flyovers. This was done for two rain seasons in the late 1970s (Gagin 1980, Atmos. Res.) Prof. Gagin made no mention in his article of the shallow raining clouds that violated his cloud reports, ones that had to have passed over his radar during those two rain seasons.
Dr. Rosenfeld studied radar data and satellite cloud patterns in his 1980 master’s thesis and 1982 Ph. D. dissertation2. Yet, he did not bring to his country’s attention or to the scientific community, those shallow raining clouds with relatively warm tops, either. Such reports, if outed, would have had a profound effect on the viability of cloud seeding to increase rain in Israel, perhaps saving the country 10s of millions of dollars in wasted seeding efforts, as we now know happened when an independent panel (Kessler et al. 2006) found no via evidence that cloud seeding for 27 rain seasons had increased runoff into Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee).
Moreover, these researchers were recording echo top data from their Enterprise 5-cm wavelength radar at Ben Gurion AP after it had been deployed in support of cloud seeding efforts in the late 1970s. Dr. Rosenfeld cited 1986 recorded radar top data in his 1997 “Comment” on the Rangno and Hobbs 1995 J. Appl. Meteor. paper. Another enigma.
A regret about stridency
My last communication to Prof. Gagin following my cloud investigation trip was from Seattle in June 1986. In that long letter I recapitulated the elements of my cloud investigation. This letter was copied to Prof. Peter Hobbs, Roscoe R. Braham, Jr.3, at North Carolina State University, and Prof. Gabor Vali at the University of Wyoming.
The one thing I came to regret was how I closed that June 1986 letter. I closed it with a challenge: That I, myself, would leave the field of meteorology, all aspects, if my Israeli cloud observations were wrong; that ice was not forming in high concentrations in Israeli clouds with top temperatures >-12°C (eyeballing 50-200 per liter as I wrote in my letters from my experience sampling glaciating clouds at the University of Washington). I then challenged Professor Gagin himself to leave the field of meteorology instead of me if my observations were later proved correct:
So, there I was, the person who was told to give up meteorology by Joanne Simpson, who believed that “statues will be raised in his honor” challenging that very professor to quit the field.
Joanne likely never remembered who I was, and I had a couple of cordial correspondences with her due to my cloud seeding reanalysis publications that began reaching the literature in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Later, when it was thought there was some overarching claims about “global warming,” she sent me her banquet talk given in October 1989 to a statistical conference, shown here to indicate this cordial relationship:
1This was, and is even today (!), a sore point for me; that someone might believe this. Prof. Hobbs was clueless about Israeli cloud anomalies and the Israeli experiments except for those plots and information that I relayed to him while studying those experiments on my own time. As most professors would do, he read in the peer-reviewed literature and took it at face value.
2Rosenfeld’s works are in Hebrew and have never been translated into English, but should be.
3The full letter, and others that I wrote to Prof. Roscoe R. Braham, Jr., are in an archive of his professional correspondence at North Carolina State University.
[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.
________, 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. No doi.
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.
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
_____________, 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.
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., available from the National Research Council, Washington, D. C, 258 pp.
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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.
__________, 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
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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.
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 End at last.
About real clouds, weather, cloud seeding and science autobio life stories by WMO consolation prize-winning meteorologist, Art Rangno
