Reality Check
The Future of Meteorology
No matter how poor your local weather reporter's track record is, you can rest assured that meteorology is based more on science than on chance. Faster microprocessors enable meteorologists to make increasingly accurate forecasts based on sophisticated computer simulations, and weather satellites offer data-rich views of our atmosphere in motion. Of course, the best way to predict the future is to create it; scientists are also studying methods to do something about the weather by messing with Mother Nature. Wired asked four experts for the long-term outlook.
| Accurate One-Month Forecasts | "Rainmaking" for Drought Relief | Global Warming of 3 Degrees Fahrenheit | Fog Dissipation at Airports
| Branscome | unlikely | unlikely | 2050 | now
| Glickman | unlikely | unlikely | unknown | now
| Henderson | 2001 | unlikely | 2050 | now
| Taylor | 2050 | unlikely | 2100 | now
| Bottom Line | unlikely | unlikely | 2067 | now
Meteorologists don't have much up on The Old Farmer's Almanac when it comes to the accuracy of long-term predictions. "There is just too much variability in nature," Glickman says, acknowledging however that "climate forecasts" of average temperature and precipitation per month are improving. In agreement, Branscome notes that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate Prediction Center recently began providing this kind of probability-based outlook. Taylor, on the other hand, believes improvements in satellites that measure the atmosphere from space, combined with faster computers to model weather systems, could eventually lead to accurate one-month forecasts.
If your crops are dying of thirst and the sky remains clear, performing a rain dance may still be the most effective way of creating a downpour. Currently, weather modification is primarily limited to cloud seeding, a method Henderson describes as "imitating nature's own mechanism for producing precipitation." The procedure, which consists of dispensing a chemical to accelerate the creation of raindrops, has been demonstrated to increase rainfall (and snowfall) by 15 to 20 percent and may even reduce hail. But, our experts point out, 15 percent more of nothing doesn't add up to a drizzle. Seeding, Branscome says, "may work in situations where clouds (and rain) already occur, not in drought-stricken areas." Besides, Glickman notes, "weather modification's socioeconomic, ecological, hydrological, and legal ramifications must be considered and assessed."
Did you give up using fossil fuels for nothing? The jury is still out, our experts say, on whether global warming is a real phenomenon. But Taylor does believe that "man-made effects" will likely cause the global average surface temperature to increase by 3 degrees Fahrenheit in 100 years, although natural variations in atmospheric temperature are typical and may be larger in magnitude. Numerous factors influence the climate system, Glickman explains, and "differences from year to year and decade to decade are typical." But, Branscome adds, "We probably won't understand this problem until the warming rises above natural levels of climatic variability. By that time, it will probably be too late to react."
Even in the calmest of weather, a light fog over an airport can prevent planes from taking off and landing. At US Air Force bases and some commercial facilities, cold fog is dissipated by seeding clouds with dry ice so that the suspended droplets are converted to ice crystals, which fall to the ground like snowflakes. But warm fog is a harder and, according to several experts, "much more expensive" problem. For visibility to increase, warm fog droplets need to grow enough in size to fall like rain. More than a thousand pounds of salt crystals – versus a few dozen pounds of dry ice for an equivalent area of cold fog – is required to dissipate warm fog, Henderson explains. "Warm fog dissipation is much less common because, for one thing, the seeding materials are corrosive, and as they fall down from the cloud they can damage airplanes and automobiles. People don't like that too much."
Lee E. Branscome PhD; president of Environmental Dynamics Research Inc.
Todd Glickman assistant executive director of the American Meterological Society.
Thomas J. Henderson president of Atmospherics Incorporated.
George Taylor Oregon state climatologist.
