Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Of course, the media are advancing all kinds of claims about the current drought affecting much of the US, because it is the “worst in fifty years”. They claim that it is clear evidence of global warming, that it shows how much things have changed, that this is the face of global warming.
Figure 1. “Drought in Australia”, or as it is known there, “Australia”.
Does this drought show how things have changed? Yes, for the better. The US drought situation was worse in the 1950s. And before that, it was worse in the 1930s. And before that? Among the first entries when I google “megadrought are these:
Tree rings document ancient Western megadrought
Sierra Nevada 200-year megadroughts confirmed
Scientists find evidence of ancient megadrought in southwestern U.S.
I don’t want to minimize the suffering of those in the drought-affected areas. Droughts are bad news for the people affected. But this is not the worst drought in 50 years—it’s among the best droughts in 5,000 years. So the claim that big droughts are evidence of human-caused warming is a sad joke.
But that’s not my favorite drought joke. It’s this one:
As reported by Agence France Presse (AFP)
Iran drought part of ‘soft war’ by West: VP
The drought in southern Iran is part of a “soft war” launched against the Islamic republic by the West, the Fars news agency quoted an Iranian vice president as saying on Monday.
“I am suspicious about the drought in the southern part of the country,” Hassan Mousavi, who also heads Iran’s cultural heritage and tourism organisation, said at a ceremony to introdue the nation’s new chief of meteorological department.
“The world arrogance and colonist (term used by Iranian authorities to label the West) are influencing Iran’s climate conditions using technology… The drought is an acute issue and soft war is completely evident… This level of drought is not normal.”
You probably didn’t realize that the US was that Machiavellian. You didn’t know we were using our secret weather control technology to create a drought in Iran, while simultaneously not using the same technology to turn off the drought in the US.
That way, you see, we had hoped to throw off Iranian suspicion. We figured that if we had a drought at the same time our secret weather machines were causing the Iranian drought, the Iranians would be fooled into thinking that we couldn’t control the weather… but the crafty Persians are the representatives of an ancient civilization, they were too quick-witted to be taken in by that transparent ploy.
That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it …
w.
You’ve got your Hanrahans too it seems-
http://www.middlemiss.org/lit/authors/obrienj/poetry/hanrahan.html
It’s the weather that brings them out in their droves.
“…our secret weather machines …”
I knew it !
“The world arrogance and colonist (term used by Iranian authorities to label the West) are influencing Iran’s climate conditions using technology…”
Um… translation is always a tricky business, and nuances tend to be missed. In the original, this could simply be a complaint that the West have industrialised heavily and pumped out lots of CO2, which is causing Iran to suffer a drought. Equally wrong, but a much more understandable claim….
Southern Iran has been in a drought since about 2007. In 2009, the Iranians built rammed-earth dams in the Zagros Mountains along their border with Iraq to divert the streams flowing into Iraq into reservoirs on the Iranian side. When Baghdad complained, Tehran just said, “Tough.” Or whatever the Farsi equivalent is.
Machiavellian is as Machiavellian does…
Perhaps there isn’t an OFF position – so having ‘tested’ the machines in the US first, the situation can only get worse!
No it’s Hillary’s carbon footprint:
“Since becoming secretary of state in 2009, Clinton has logged 351 days on the road, traveled to 102 countries and flown a whopping 843,839 miles, according to the State Department”
Australia has been in a drought situation for as long as it’s been Australia….
Willis,,,
You may find this most interesting. Note his comments re: Midieval Warm Period, and Little Ice Age about societal well being– from Robin Tausch..
http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pep/climatechange/Tausch/index.html
More evidence of colder/drier extended droughts in the Great Basin region..
https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2005AM/finalprogram/abstract_89746.htm
….. Leaving me curious as to why people have this idea that we need a cooler climate?
Bill Tuttle says:
July 17, 2012 at 8:48 am
“Southern Iran has been in a drought since about 2007. In 2009, the Iranians built rammed-earth dams in the Zagros Mountains along their border with Iraq to divert the streams flowing into Iraq into reservoirs on the Iranian side.”
I find this a bit odd…the border between Iran & Iraq runs along the drainage divide of the Zagros for the most part. In order to divert water back to the Iranian side, the Iranians would have to enter Iraq and dam the headwaters of streams that flow down the Iraqi side of the divide.
Awww man! Coffee on the keyboard!!! 🙂
“All your weather are belong to us!”
“Someone set us up the drought!”
If it’s global warming, why is England so cold and wet?
TomRude says:
July 17, 2012 at 8:53 am
No it’s Hillary’s carbon footprint:
“Since becoming secretary of state in 2009, Clinton has logged 351 days on the road, traveled to 102 countries and flown a whopping 843,839 miles, according to the State Department”
[SNIP: You may well be right, but this doesn’t add to the topic at hand and really is a bit too far. -REP]
Antagonizing anybody whom you even *suspect* of having the power to control the weather has always been a bad idea.
Ask Lucifer.
Ask Zeus or any of the lesser denizens of Mt. Olympus.
Some progress anyway… the American media are consistently hitting the “worst since 1956” line instead of their normal “UNPRECEDENTED! HISTORICAL FIRST! WORST SINCE THE BIG BANG!” nonsense. When they emphasize the repetitions, it’s easier for listeners to remember that Nature goes in cycles.
How many acient American Indian cultures were lost due to severe droughts?
“All your weather are belong to us!”
“Someone set us up the drought!”
Post of the week. Thanks! You owe me a monitor…
Another excellent video from Climate Crocks
[ http://youtu.be/b0NrS2L6KcE ]
REPLY: I wouldn’t call it “excellent”, bear in mind that the purveyor of these is an Al Gore trained climate activist. His intent is to smear, not to enlighten. And, he’s missed the most important fact of all, that the Washington DC derecho is not anything new and that climatology shows it to be about a 1 in every 4 years event. But that doesn’t support his “OMG the sky is falling worst in history run for your lives” argument. Crock indeed. – Anthony
Went to college in Socorro, New Mexico. After about three years living there, you can tell when the desert turns green in the Spring. For all two or three days of it. Drought in the Southwest? We’ve had a drought in the Southwest for 800 years! That pre-dates the Industrial Age by a little bit.
There you go, – to anybody who ever thought they could keep a “Weather-machine” secret for very long, I can only quote W C Fields: “Think again!”
Oh and more soylent green! says on July 17, 2012 at 9:35 am:
“If it’s global warming, why is England so cold and wet?”
===========
That’s down to the “Jet Stream” giving CAGW a rest bite for now. – Just you wait and we’ll all be “bar-be- qued”
Bravo for a larger perspective.
Droughts and mega droughts are very much normal!
And I don’t see any science to believe increased global temperature
has a significant bearing on drought frequency.
Part of the problem is that heatwaves ( which last from days to weeks ) and droughts
( which last from years to centuries ) are not particularly well understood.
Other things remain constant, but the circulation changes to leave some areas
persistently hotter or drier for extended periods.
In such situations where scientific explanations are weak, superstitions
and plausible but unproven ideas are bound to encroach.
Like sacrificing virgins, or modern economies.
Across the Columbia basin from my ranch is an area of sand dunes now covered with pine trees. Obviously a dryer time (drought?) existed that did not erode away prior to the pine trees taking over. Evidence of less rain/snow. Do deserts have droughts or are deserts the result of extended drought? Maybe drought is the norm and wetter is not the norm. Not sure how to post the picture so all can see how interesting it is. (scenic as well 🙂 )
“The drought in southern Iran is part of a “soft war” launched against the Islamic republic by the West..”
The claim that the west has launched a drought against Iran is no more bizarre than claiming the world’s climate is out of control because of drivng your SUV, or that building a wind turbine will fix it. Iranians are just like us.
more soylent green! says:
July 17, 2012 at 9:35 am
If it’s global warming, why is England so cold and wet?
____________________________________
YOU STOLE that rain from IRAN, just ask them.
Here is how the UK stole that rain from the middle east. link
The folks at the Weather Channel have felt compelled to chime in
http://www.weather.com/news/drought-disaster-new-data-20120715
2012 Drought Rivals Dust Bowl
Of course the article doesn’t really provide much to support the headline
“However, when excluding areas in “moderate” drought, the historical rankings change a bit. Some historical droughts were extremely intense, but more focused on specific regions rather than sprawling across large swaths of the country.
For example, infamous droughts in 1988, 2000, and 2002 each included over 35% of the country in the “severe” to “extreme” drought categories on the Palmer drought scale. By comparison, severe to extreme drought covers 32.7% in June 2012.
In short, the overall 2012 drought now covers more territory than any drought since the 1950s; but the more severe drought categories don’t cover quite as much land now as did the droughts of 1988 and the early 2000s.”
Actually, drought conditions in Iran are completely normal for this time of year. But their monitoring computers have been infected with the “droughtnet” virus, which exaggerates all reported readings: dry becomes extremely dry; wet becomes extremely wet; etc. This is supposed to undermine the country by promoting panic, wasted expenditure of resources, insider power struggles, etc. Similar to Stuxnet, droughtnet is capable of moving from system to system until it finds one with the right indicators to identify it as a weather reporting system. Once safely nestled there, it hides and waits for orders. It is capable of updating with new variants and usually disguises its data alterations by marking them as “statistical adjustments”, with impressive-sounding names. It is also capable of altering older records in the database, which in turn generate alarming, but false, trends.
Some initial analysis of the virus suggest it can also infect computers used in architectural design and planning in order to subtly prefer weather monitoring sites with specific defects which also serve to exaggerate readings, particularly temperature.
The inspiration for the droughtnet virus is not known, but one source claims extensive contacts were made with climatology researchers worldwide during the 2-4 year period before its first known appearance. Since then, the virus has manifested four distinct revisions and there are indications a fifth major variant is in the works.
No group or nation has officially claimed responsibility for “droughtnet”, but informed suspicion centers on the US, Israel, and Pennsylvania State University. Normally, we would expect some loose lips in the Obama administration to leak details of US involvement, but in this case senior officials may squelch any suggestion the drought is not both real and unprecedented, unless claiming otherwise would enhance the President’s re-election prospects.
/sarc off
steveta_uk says:
July 17, 2012 at 8:52 am
Perhaps there isn’t an OFF position – so having ‘tested’ the machines in the US first, the situation can only get worse!
Ah but we found out how to put ours in reverse in the UK!
BTW in regard to my comment above, TWC’s graphic for Peak % Area in Severe to Extreme Drought shows July ’34 at 63.1% versus 32.7% currently, which would seem to indicate that 2012 “rivals the Dust Bowl” about as closely as I “rivaled” Kareem Abdul Jabbar for No. 1 center in the NBA BITD.
.Mike Bromley the Kurd says:
July 17, 2012 at 9:10 am
I find this a bit odd…the border between Iran & Iraq runs along the drainage divide of the Zagros for the most part. In order to divert water back to the Iranian side, the Iranians would have to enter Iraq and dam the headwaters of streams that flow down the Iraqi side of the divide.
The border meanders, and it’s mostly defined by the high ground — about half the streams and small rivers between Kirkuk (many of the Kurds Saddam relocated are moving back, in case you were curious) and Baghdad have their sources in Iran.
Mike — were your folks Kurmanji or Sorani speakers?
Gail Combs says:
July 17, 2012 at 11:48 am
YOU STOLE that rain from IRAN, just ask them.
Here is how the UK stole that rain from the middle east. link
I like that link and it made me think that if a cyclone is a depression (because we get depressed when it rains) then an anti cyclone should be an elation!
Not American weather machines. Dick Cheney’s weather machine. The same one that spun up Katrina and aimed it directly at New Orleans. Of course that evil man doesn’t care that he has it set to create drought here, to!
I joke of course, but there are people who will believe anything.
Meanwhile, this side of the Pond we have had the wettest summer in living memory – hot on the heels of a spring dry spell that we were solemnly assured was going to persist forever.
All a result of global warming, naturally.
When I see a headline such as: “Worst drought in 50 years” my immediate reaction is that 51 years ago it was worse than today. This does *not* make me believe that modern CO2 production has made things worse. No proof nor even an indication that greater CO2 has an effect.
Minor typo in the Yahoo/ Agence France Presse (extra characters at the end) result in an error.
[Thanks, fixed. -w]
Yes we stole the rain from Iran and now we cannot get rid of it. /sarc
What really puzzles me is that every evening at present here the Sun puts in a brief appearance some time before sunset as if to say yah-boo sucks to you.
Why just every evening?
Personal opinion: Droughts are less severe at places such as Aus and US because vast tracts of land are now farms. Irrigation and water storage systems means more evaporation and evapotranspiration, hence less severe droughts.
I wouldn’t be surprised if temperatures were slightly lower than say 100 years ago in and around these farming regions.
Jim G says:
July 17, 2012 at 9:40 am
TomRude says:
July 17, 2012 at 8:53 am
No it’s Hillary’s carbon footprint:
“Since becoming secretary of state in 2009, Clinton has logged 351 days on the road, traveled to 102 countries and flown a whopping 843,839 miles, according to the State Department”
“[SNIP: You may well be right, but this doesn’t add to the topic at hand and really is a bit too far. -REP]”
Agree it added nothing to the topic other than possibly humor, depending upon your politics, but “too far”, come on, there was much, much worse in the news accounts of those days. But all that aside, mea culpa.
It rained .94 of an inch in Midland, TX last night. I don’t care how it got there.
Study says Mayan civilization was wiped out by drought:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/228799.html
“The research published in the journal Nature says a continuous 25 to 40 percent drop in rainfall reduced water supplies in the homeland of the ancient Maya civilization located in what is now southern Mexico and Guatemala.
Researchers at the Yucatan Centre for Scientific Research in southern Mexico and the University of Southampton used modeling techniques in order to estimate the rates of rainfall and evaporation between 800 and 950 CE, the decline period of Maya civilization.”
In Australia – it’s Floods, Floods, Floods – are all caused by AGW.
Of course, when we had the droughts – it was Droughts, Droughts, Droughts are all caused by AGW….
Nothing changes with the Alarmists except the content of their lies
Attempting to generate political capital from an instantaneous weather event…now wherever did the Iranians get that idea?
With wheat prices at record highs due to weather issues, its interesting to look at what they are for the 4 biggest wheat exporters.
USA – drought
EU – too much rain and flooding
FSU – drought
Australia – cold and frosts
If you are surprised by cold weather, its because wheat grows through the winter in Australia.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/13/australia-wheat-weather-idUSL3E8ID1NL20120713
with apologies to the Kingston Trio
They’re rioting in Africa
They’re starving in Spain
There’s hurricanes in Florida and Texas needs rain
The whole world is festering with unhappy souls
The French hate the Germans
The Germans hate the Poles
Italians hate Yugoslavs
South Africans hate the Dutch
And I don’t like anybody very much
But we can be tranquil and thankful And proud
for man’s been endowed With a mushroom shaped cloud
And we know for certain that Some lovely day
someone will set the spark off And we will all be blown away
They’re rioting in Africa
There’s strife in Iran
What nature doesn’t do to us will be done by our fellow man
I wouldn’t dismiss the Iranian claim so quickly. Southern Iran is downwind from Eastern Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Both of which have undergone recent rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, especially fossil fuel intensive industries. There will have been substantial increases in aerosols from these places and aerosols are known to have large effects on precipitation downwind from their source.
Regardless of what the Iranians say, the drought in the US is real and severe. Many areas expect 50% or more loss in corn crops. This WILL have an impact, nationally and internationally. See the USDA crop reports: http://usda01.library.cornell.edu/usda/current/weather_weekly/weather_weekly-07-11-2012.pdf
By the way, according to Flannery, expert in soil moisture physics, the dry soil in the above photograph can’t get wet again when it rains, because it is ‘too hot’ from the drought, so the rivers won’t run, and the waters won’t reach the dams.
Don’t laugh, this sort of argument was used to build costly desalination plants instead of cheap dams, which the taxpayer in Australia is now paying for.
As a teenager a friend of mine supported a book which said that Cyclone Tracy’s erratic course before it smashed straight into Darwin was clear evidence of being steered by the ‘Illuminati/World Government’ using secret weather technology originally developed by Tesler. It was called the Cosmic Conspiracy.
Paranoid delusions feed on themselves, they only need the slightest rationale for whatever suits the delusion. Air could be invisible because your enemy made it that way.
20 years later, he is now (still) more or less unemployable.
Shows what it takes to get a job as head of Iran’s Cultural Heritage and Tourism. Why is political point scoring so self-perpetuating and reinforcing?. Whoever designed this nature of ours has a lot to answer for.
Is it too late in the growing season for corn to create a drought in the corn belt of the US to stop the corn harvest? The ethanol mandated by the government in my gas is costing me a small fortune in my MPG (miles per gal) reduction.
The Iranians may be right. The US has run amuck!
“Drought in Australia”, or as it is known there, “Australia”.
Except when Queensland turns into Lake Queensland.
Many years ago Dorothea Mackellar wrote a poem about Australia that all Aussies are familiar with that I would like to share with this mob here
http://www.imagesaustralia.com/mycountry.htm
Says it all really , climate-wise it`s business as usual downunder , unless yer names Tim Flannery , in which case You run around like a headless chook , screaming “We`re all doomed to permanent drought forever……”
I just watched that movie! It was about this pressure thingy that could control a thunderstorm cell and move it to wherever they wanted and then turn it into a huge hurricane! I nearly “Pirates of Penzance”! I think we should send a care package to this towel head Hassan Mousavi complete with popcorn and a movie. And put a magazine mixed-print pasted message in there telling him it was actually a documentary and we have corrected the flaws in the design of the pressure thingy.
@ thingadonta says: July 17, 2012 at 4:42 pm
Cyclone Tracy was 1974 – so that would be 38 years ago – not 20 !!! How time flies when we are enjoying oursleves.
So, the Iranians have finally caught on to the effects of the Stuxdrought virus.
That can’t be a photo taken during a drought in Australia as there is clear evidence of dead grass still poking out of the ground. After any sort of decent drought in Australia, there is only bare red earth visible, no stubble. It is probably just a typical Summer Scene at Molong in N.S.W.
Figure 1. “Drought in Australia”, or as it is known there, “Oz”.
Fixed.
After spending most of 60 years in the midwest, I had the premonition a few months ago that we were in trouble. Early springs are not that unusual, but the extended periods of low humidity were not typical, and many mornings with no dew. With all the brain power this site has to offer, I kept watching for some confirmation of my suspicions, and then bought corn on the futures market at under six bucks. But no, La Nina was on the decline. Sheesh
Well I don’t know about droughts but the US does have a history of weather warfare. Operation Popeye for example.
” Weather warfare is the use of weather modification techniques such as cloud seeding for military purposes.
The Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques (Geneva: 18 May 1977, Entered into force: 5 October 1978) prohibits “widespread, long-lasting or severe effects as the means of destruction, damage or injury”.[1] However it has been argued that this permits “local, non-permanent changes”.
Prior to the Geneva Convention, the United States used weather warfare in the Vietnam War. Under the auspices of the Air Weather Service, the United States’ Operation Popeye used cloud seeding over the Ho Chi Minh Trail, increasing rainfall by an estimated thirty percent during 1967 and 1968. It was hoped that the increased rainfall would reduce the rate of infiltration down the trail.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_warfare
I suppose if you can seed clouds you could also make them disperse.
The droughts in the US look like global warming, while in the UK the p*ssing down rain and cold weather look like… global warming. At least according to Peter Stott of the Met Office.
Clearly the CIA aren’t affecting Iran’s climate with technology, they’re doing it with anagrams.
That was nothing compared to the Raman Climate Optibum. And that wasn’t a patch on the Moanin’ Warm-Up!
Or SLT.
I suppose if you can seed clouds you could also make them disperse.
If you get precipitation from seeded clouds in one place. There’s another place or places downwind that doesn’t get a comparable amount of precipitation.
Which was my point about aerosols from the industrialisation of the south side of the Persian Gulf.
thingadonta says:
July 17, 2012 at 4:33 pm
By the way, according to Flannery, expert in soil moisture physics, the dry soil in the above photograph can’t get wet again when it rains, because it is ‘too hot’ from the drought, so the rivers won’t run, and the waters won’t reach the dams.
Don’t laugh, this sort of argument was used to build costly desalination plants instead of cheap dams, which the taxpayer in Australia is now paying for.
In the future our grandchildren won’t know what dams were built for!
Last year, it was the Europeans who were “emptying the clouds so that Iran would have no rain” (Iranian Prez. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, respected leader of the world’s next nuclear power, May 2011)
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2945.htm
Art imitates life. We made it rain in Vietnam along the trail???? Really???? We made it rain more in a hot, humid, rainforest. And in Iran we are accused of making it rain less in a hot, dry, desert. Whose bad! Whose bad!
What’s next? Insect bombs? If I remember right, during WWII, was it the German’s who came up with the idea of bat bombs?
Dan in California says:
July 17, 2012 at 1:27 pm
When I see a headline such as: “Worst drought in 50 years” my immediate reaction is that 51 years ago it was worse than today…..
___________________________________
Sort of makes me think the PDO cycle might have something to do with drought conditions or perhaps the Arctic Oscillation (AO) or the AMO….
Persistent influence of the North Atlantic hydrography on central European winter temperature during the last 9000 years GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 34, L02704, 4 PP., 2007
More on the subject of the AMO + PDO: http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=2952
Sean says:
July 17, 2012 at 2:52 pm
Study says Mayan civilization was wiped out by drought…
____________________________
More to the point is the 24 year drought that caused the Anasazi to move to better land Beginning in 1276, a 24 year drought began in the area of Four Corners… By 1300, the Anasazi had abandoned Mesa Verde.
Of course there is another theory that the move was caused by a religious crisis as divisive as European medieval heresies. In some scenarios, the Anasazi were pulled farther south en masse by an attractive new religion. Trying to recreate ideology from artifacts requires huge stretches of the imagination….
The first article also points out.
Add in a 24 year great drought and I can certainly see why the Anasazi people might have a problem with their religion esp. if said religion was supposed to influence the harvests and the rain. (They died before the age of 40 so we are talking close to a generation of drought)
Leo Norekens says:
July 18, 2012 at 2:27 am
Last year, it was the Europeans who were “emptying the clouds so that Iran would have no rain”
========
And four years ago it was the Chinese:
http://www.universetoday.com/16728/the-chinese-weather-manipulation-missile-olympics/
I don’t recall anyone piling ridicule on the idea at the time:
http://www.google.com/search?q=china,+olympics,+cloud+seeding
Paul R says:
July 17, 2012 at 10:35 pm
That there used to be (and in some countries still are) laws against witchcraft doesn’t mean witchcraft works.
Beale says:
July 18, 2012 at 8:01 am
Paul R says:
July 17, 2012 at 10:35 pm
“That there used to be (and in some countries still are) laws against witchcraft doesn’t mean witchcraft works.”
Does’nt mean it does’nt work either. I’m not real sure about shaking a rattle over someone but those witches brews with snake venom or peyote could be pretty potent I suspect.
“The world arrogance and colonist (term used by Iranian authorities to label the West) are influencing Iran’s climate conditions using technology …”
Are they saying we have our heads where the sun doesn’t shine?
The drought is severe. We went into this season with very low soil moisture, and we’ve had almost no rain compared to normal. A friend of mine says his farm has gotten 1/10 inch of rain, in July we normally get 4-6 or more.
Pamela Gray says:
July 18, 2012 at 5:08 am
What’s next? Insect bombs? If I remember right, during WWII, was it the German’s who came up with the idea of bat bombs?
Nope, Operation X-Ray was Dr. Lytle Adams’ brainchild, who convinced FDR to give it a go. The idea was to strap incindiary time bombs to bats, then drop them over highly-flammable Japanese cities, on the theory the bats would roost in the buildings — when the timers hit zero — poof — multiple cities in flames. The Army Air Force got the mission to develop a bat-sized firebomb.
http://www.bu.edu/cecb/files/2009/08/bookreviewlhomme1993.pdf
During the final trial run near Carlsbad, NM (during which several hundred patriotic bats gave up their lives), the bat kamikazes succeeded in burning down both the hangar housing the aircraft that dropped them and the staff car of the general officer who was there to observe the mission.
The AAF turned the mission over to the Marines, who had the uncommon good sense to forget about even trying to accomplish it…
Khwarizmi says: July 18, 2012 at 7:19 am
“(…) And four years ago it was the Chinese (…) I don’t recall anyone piling ridicule on the idea at the time (..)
There is a difference between preserving the Olympics from an expected local shower (which is possible and may in certain cases -such as this- be judged efficient) on the one hand, and causing a nationwide drought as part of a “soft war” on the other hand. The latter, assuming that it would be possible, would be “Macchiavellian” as Willis put it, in that “the means” would be out of all proportion to “the end”.
For some perspective, search “The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction:
“Owning the Weather” for Military Use
by Michel Chossudovsky
And where were the news folks last year, when western Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, and eastern New Mexico were drier than the worst of the 1950s? What about the drought of 1988, when people were arranging hay-lifts to get feed into the Midwest from places that had a surplus? *cups hand to ear* Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
thingadonta says:
July 17, 2012 at 4:42 pm
Air could be invisible because your enemy made it that way.
We have a maxim in New Jersey: “Never trust air you can’t see.”
Weather modification will become a part of domestic and international security and could be done unilaterally… It could have offensive and defensive applications and even be used for deterrence purposes. The ability to generate precipitation, fog, and storms on earth or to modify space weather, … and the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set of technologies which can provide substantial increase in US, or degraded capability in an adversary, to achieve global awareness, reach, and power. (US Air Force, emphasis added. Air University of the US Air Force, AF 2025 Final Report, http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/ emphasis added)
There was a drought in Queensland, Australia in 1897/98, which saw the least rain since 1888. I have written an ode to Mount Morris Station here: http://mountmorrisstation.wordpress.com/2012/07/15/mount-morris-station-its-an-experience/
And a couple of City Slickers have survived the experience.
Maybe someone has been using the secret weapon on AlGore that has caused the Gore effect.
I enjoy the humorous style, but I have two issues with the underlying logic.
1) “But this is not the worst drought in 50 years—it’s among the best droughts in 5,000 years. ”
Every year there are droughts around the US. Sure, we have not reached the level of the 1950’s drought or the 1930’s drought, but this is still a bad drought compared to a “typical drought”.
2) “The US drought situation was worse in the 1950s. And before that, it was worse in the 1930s. ”
But those droughts are done. This one is still unfolding. It is too early to say how this compares until we have an end — this one could potentially become the worst if it continues.