Timing of the Apparent Effects of Cloud Seeding
Jeanne L. Lovasich 1,
Jerzy Neyman 1,
Elizabeth L. Scott 1, and
Jerome A. Smith 1
1 Statistical Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley 94720
The average hourly precipitation amounts, on 96 experimental days without cloud seeding in the Whitetop experiment, show a marked maximum between 4 and 7 o'clock in the afternoon, presumably reflecting the convection activity caused by heating of the ground occurring during an earlier period. No such maximum is observed on the 102 days with seeding. The hypothetical explanation presupposes that seeding with silver iodide creates early general cloudiness, which prevents ground temperatures from rising to levels usually attained on days without seeding. This hypothesis may explain not only the mechanism of the loss in rain in the Whitetop experiment, apparently induced by seeding, but also may explain certain phenomena noticed in the Grossversuch III experiment.
