Could climate modification save the planet?

For decades it’s been said that if you control the weather, you control the world.

Geoengineering isn’t anything new, and has been part of the scientific landscape for as long as we’ve understood how our climate works.

But with rising global temperatures and climate change a reality of our planet, could human intervention to change the weather be a solution to today’s environmental challenges?

In the latest episode of the Under the Weather podcast, Simon King and Clare Nasir ask the weather modification expert Professor Jim Fleming if climate modification could save the planet.

Throughout history, weather modification has happened. But, often with little understanding of the impact it would have on our climate. Professor Fleming believes that “scientists often wanted to push geoengineering limits without realising how complex the world’s weather and climate systems are.”

It was these ideas that led to weather modification being used to gain the military advantage.

In 1942 during World War II, many flying hours were lost due to foggy airfields. Winston Churchill ordered his chief Scientific Advisor, Lord Cherwell to come up with a solution with ‘utmost urgency’.

Lord Cherwell’s solution was to light multiple fire pits, burning thousands of tones of fuel, raising the temperate and burning away the fog. Named Operation FIDO, it was reported at the time that this weather modification shortened the war and saved the lives of thousands of airmen.

Weather modification was also used by the US during the Vietnam War. A top-secret project called Operation Popeye used cloud seeding, a process whereby particles are sprayed into a cloud ‘encouraging’ it to rain out. The hope was to bring heavy rainfall on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which in turn slowed down enemy troops and flow of supplies.

But geoengineering isn't just in history books. Controlling the weather is very much part of life today.

Before the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, cloud seeding occurred the day before the opening ceremony. This meant that rain fell miles away from where the eyes of the world were focused and it was dry during the ceremony. Cloud seeding practices are also taking place today in the United Arab Emirates to enhance rainfall and ultimately top up water resources for the city in the desert.

So as we look to the future and countries around the world seeking to find a solution to global warming, could climate modification be the answer they’re looking for?

Capturing and safely storing carbon is one way that scientists are exploring - i.e. preventing emissions produced from industrial processes entering the atmosphere. Other ideas include big suction devices to extract carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere.

There are many other ideas that scientists are proposing, some of which wouldn’t feel out of place in a sci-fi novel.

Shooting sulphates into the earth’s atmosphere, putting large mirrors into space to reflect sunlight and increasing plankton in the world’s oceans to remove more CO2 are just some of the techniques being proposed.

But Professor Fleming warns that “jumping too quickly from understanding the weather to controlling the weather is dangerous”. His e-mail inbox is often filled with geoengineering ideas, including a recent suggestion to “move the planet further away from the sun.”

Looking to the future, Professor Fleming believes that “any geoengineering conversation needs to be international, intergenerational and interdisciplinary”, not the work of one country playing with our climate.

But it’s the morality question that has many people wondering if human weather intervention could be the answer to our warming climate. Yes, climate modification may be the answer. But it could also be the start of irreversible atmospheric issues that would change our planet forever.

Hear this entire episode of Under the Weather and subscribe.