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6? Yellowstone Park again vast winter lab(Editors note: ThiL is the first of three stories on winter scientific experiments in Yel-t lowstone Park.)By GEORGE REMINGTON Standard-Post State BureauI YELLOWSTONE PARK, Wyo. r — For the sixth consecutive win-h ter Yellowstone National Park’s n Old Faithful area has become s a vast wintertime laboratory for some of the world’s'top natural . scientists.TOs year about 40 scientists have braved deep snow and bit-ter cold to carry out a variety of experiments, the most important of which involve weather modification.Scientists participating in the sixth Yellowstone Field Research Expedition, which began Jan. 4 and ends Tuesday, have spent one to two weeks in the park. Dr. Vincent J. Schaefer, professor of atmospheric . sciences at, the State University of New York at Albany, is the leader of the expedition for the sixth time and generally spends the entire month at Old Faithful.This year, however, Schaefer left for a week to go to Washington, D. 0., where the. National Academy of Science and the National Science Foundation issued reports expressing high optimism about the future of weather control.Based on his work The reports were based largely on the work of Dr. Schaefer and other atmospheric scientists who have carried out extensive experiments in cloud seeding in the park and other parts of the world.Schaefer was especially pleased with the encouraging reports because, he said, generally the scientific community has been skeptical about weather control from the time he first demonstrated the results of cloud feeding in 1946.Adding to the skepticism, he said, was that “a number of people exploited the ideas and didn’t do as good a job as they might have.”In his cloud seeding experiments at Old Faithful, Schaefer uses the same materials he started working with in November 1946 on clouds and fog over Eastern New York and Western Massachusetts when he was with the General Electric Research Laboratory. They ars silver iodide and dry ice.“Other things have been tried# but so far nothing can compare with these,” he said.Schaefer said the upper geyser basin around Old Faithful is “one of the most perfect places in the world to test any new \ material. If it doesn’t work here, it is a complete waste of . time to try it anywhere else.” •He termed winter conditions in Yellowstone “absolutely ideal” for his work. One reason is that the air is so pure. “There are so few other particles to compete with that we can have a nice clean-cut experiment,” he said.Giant cold boxSchaefer said the scientists use the upper geyser basin as “a giant laboratory cold box,a mile long and a half-mile :wide’” * *He said the area has ideal air movement for cloud seeding experiments. Thermal turbulence around the geysers, hot pools and mud holes carry the seeding particues as much' as a half-mile off the ground and disperse them. Also, he said, a double-movement of wind carries the seeded clouds back to where they can be observed and analyzed.Schaefer said the seeding has produced snow every time it has been tried at Old Faithful, from natural clouds or, on clear days, from clouds produced by the geysers.With the Yellowstone experiments, the scientists hope toanswer a number of questions, including:— The efficiency of different seeding materials and methods of distributing them.— How many condensation nuclei per cubic centimeter will produce a given amount of snow on the ground?— Is it possible to move ocean clouds over land before they dunmp their previous rainfall into the sea? Schaefer calls this “fresh water gone to waste.”“If you want to transport moisture from ocean to land you’re got to overseed,” he said. One of the Yellowstone experiments seeks to determine what concentration of particles in the air is required to prevent rain-IT’S COLD—Dr. Vincent J. Schaefer, leader of the sixth Yellowstone Field Research Expedition, checks an automatic temperature recorder behind Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone Park. Schoefer, professor of atmospheric sciences at the State University of New York at Albany, heads a group of outstanding scientists who have used the Old Faithful area as a vast outdoor laboratory for a variety of experiments this winter. (State Bureau photo.)fall whUe the clouds are over the ocean.Schaefer said he is optimistic that someday it will be possible to move ocean clouds over land. When? “Much depends on experiments of this kind and how well we can escalate the experiments ” he sak).Clouds prove Ideal Another advantage of Yellowstone as a winter laboratory is the opportunity it affords to study at ground level cirrus clouds, whispy formations of ice crystals found in air colder than 40 degrees below zero. Jet planes fly through cirrus clouds at 40,000 feet, Schaefer said, “but you can’t get out on the wing to study them. Here we can walk around in cirrus clouds.”Schaefer first got interested in weather modification during World War II when he helped develop artificial fog to cover military operations. U.S. troops crossed the Rhine under an artificial fog 60 miles long.. The Anzio landing was made under manufactured fog, and it also was used to shield U.S. warships in die Pacific.In his first cloud seeding experiments in 1946, Schaefer dissipated a super-cold ground fog. This is common today at many airports. The. following year, Schaefer cut a hole 10 miles long in a stratus cloud and produced snow from a cumulus cloud.Schaefer said the field of atmospheric research is so vast new factors and findings constantly crop up.(Tomorrow: Other whiter research projects in Yellowstone.)STOP INand let us show you how to beautify and in idvid-ualizt your home withWALL MURALS803 S Arizonar*
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Montana Standard Post
Butte, Montana, US
Sun, Jan 30, 1966
Page 6
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USA 08 Oct 2024
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