History of Industrial Meteorology and Weather Modification

Abstract

Industrial meteorologists started providing weather modification services in the late 1940s. The history of the problems and growth of these services from their experimental beginnings to their practical applications in the decades of the 1950s and 1960s is reviewed. In recent years the private sector has become active in conducting weather modification research. The community of interests in this field among private groups, their clients, government and university scientists, and administrators has found common forums provided by the Weather Modification Association and the American Meteorological Society. The practice of weather modification by private firms has also necessitated their engaging actively in specialized weather forecasting, air quality studies, and quantitative precipitation and flood forecasting. Weather modification activities have refocused the meteorologist's attention on the economic, socio-political, and legal aspects of applied meteorology and its interaction with other scientific disciplines and technologies.