Night Versus Day Cloud Seeding in Langmuir's Periodic Experiment

Abstract

During the last ten 28-day cycles of Langmuir's periodic seeding experiment, beginning 15 October 1950, silver iodide smoke generators were operated one day each week from 1600 to 2400 LT on odd-numbered cycles and from 0800 to 1600 LT on even-numbered cycles, to see if daytime inactivation of the smoke would affect the outcome. However, the differences between nighttime-seeded and daytime-seeded cycles went unanalyzed. Analysis of previously published data now shows that the weekly periodicity of precipitation was greater during nighttime-seeded than during daytime-seeded cycles, especially in the block of analysis regions east-northeastward from the seeding site at Alamogordo, New Mexico. The same was true with respect to periodicity of temperature at the 70 kPa level over Omaha, Nebraska. Between nighttime-seeded and nonperiodic-seeded cycles there was a greater difference than between daytime-seeded and nonperiodic-seeded cycles. Whether these differences were caused by seeding remains unsettled. No accepted theory supports the hypothesis of effect, but if it were true it would be of immense importance.