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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 26, 1958)
A Soviet proposal to dam Bering Strait looked good to everybody at first. While of undeniable benefit to Siberia, it would bring disaster to the maritime provinces of Canada. tS;4cif : m T 7 )' - '''-V - - - , Cold Current tmm ,) MltY . ir North Pol S -.- -"r.J.;j A 14 .7 JF-XZ AA.Greenland lea Cap j, JJJJp "' " SfflijJ -U ARCTIC rorm row h . N be the complete finish of Halifax, Nova Scotia, as a Winter port Did this put the Bering Strait dam on ice? Not in the Reds' opinion. One straight-faced suggestion they made was that we remedy the situation by building enormous atomic heating sta tions on Hudson Bay. No doubt such nuclear reactors could have turned the Labrador Current into another Gulf Stream. Mangoes might grow in the Gaspe; January skindivers might frolic at Halifax. But there was a hitch: one effect of atomic heaters would be to melt the Greenland ice cap. This great white monster covers 721,000 square miles to a depth of 1,000 feet. Melting it, the scientists estimated, would raise Atlantic Ocean levels five feet to flood London, the Low Countries, New York, and other cities as far south as the equator. But even disturbing the neighbors that much didn't entirely discourage the Russians. They wondered if maybe we mightn't counter this disastrous chain reaction to their Bering Strait dam by using atomic energy to air condition Greenland! Should we ever undertake such a colossal chore, it will not be just to accommodate the Reds though it could become a crash defense measure at any time. For now, a spirit of mutual concern seems to govern in an atmos phere of guarded consultation. How long this will last is hard to say. "n the basis of past Russian perform - ance, it's sure that this situation will not last forever. Recognizing that, President Eisenhower formed an advisory committee on weather control more than four years ago to find out what directions we ought to be moving in, and how fast. The committee did a thorough job. Last January its chief, Capt Howard T. Orville, ex-naval officer, turned in a 31-page report Its work over, the committee disbanded. Those 31 pages on weather control may well shape the future for us and the rest of the world. They urgently recommend immediate U. S. research) in four areas: 1. The sun's effects on the weather. 2. The circulation of air currents around the earth. 3. The dynamics of cloud motion. 4. The origin and movement of large scale storms. One thing the Orville committee emphasized was its conviction that the importance of U. S. leadership in weather control "can hardly be over estimated." The four-year study had been an eye opener even for the veteran meteorologists among its members. Re lentless inquiry lighted up the far reaching military and economic con sequences of weather control. They wanted to leave no doubt with the President and their fellow citizens that here was, if not the "ultimate weapon," at least a geopolitical instrument out ranking H-bombs and earth satellites. The committee therefore made un mistakably clear its belief that if we were to get into a weather-control race with the U.S.S.R. and lose it, "the re sults could be more disastrous than nuclear war." Like it or not, we are in such a race right now. To win it will take a lot of money. In July, only a few days before the Middle East crisis, President Eisen hower signed into law a bill authorizing the National Science Foundation to launch a research program in weather modification. But this long-delayed legislation to implement the Orville committee's recommendations doesn't provide a nickel's worth of appropria tions, and budgetary aspects will have to be handled separately. By contrast, Russian polar meteor ologists tell our Weather Bureau's re search director, Dr. Harry Wexler, that all they have to do is say how much cash they need for arctic weather-control work and they get it at once. There is no question that they are telling the truth. Among meteorologists the world over, Soviet polar scientists are head and shoulders above those of any other nation, including our own. This is largely because the Stalin regime and its successors long ago saw that the key to world weather is in the arctic. To find it the Kremlin supplied money lavishly, and will continue to. Since 1937, Russia's top weather men have plowed these appropriations into frequent major expeditions to the arc tic. They have acquired a detailed knowledge of the entire arctic basin to within 100 miles of the North Amer ican continent Wexler and other leading U. S. meteorologists urge that we must lose no time in catching up. Wexler espe cially regards as "breath-taking" the number of landings the Reds have made in the arctic to conduct their elaborate research programs. His scien tific admiration for Russian work in climatology and cloud physics is pro found. His envy of their unlimited facilities for weather study is acute. But as an American, he is secretly un easy about what it could all add up to on the wrong side of the ledger. Well, what could it add up to? The Russians are admittedly unable to an swer for the full consequences of even their Bering Strait dam idea. How then could they direct a weather dis aster against others with any assur ance that it wouldn't boomerang? For that matter, how could the Reds or ourselves keep any degree of con trol over so monumental a feat as "merely" warming up cities in our re spective homelands? Doesn't that make discussion of the next step control of artificial climate as a military device slightly academic? These are big, world-shadowing ques tions. Those who know most about them don't think they're academic. In part, because they know how real and how near the answers may be. Learning as much as possible about the approach to those answers is a leading objective of the 18-month In ternational - Geophysical Year which ends in December. Earth satellites the Russian Sputniks and our own Explorers and Vanguard have played a prominent part. Less dramatic obser vation techniques are also being used. When it's over, humanity will pool its new information to try to learn more about controlling the world's weather. From what we know now, U. S. meteorological experts in the arctic have discovered one way to warm up our cities without harming our neigh bors. It is an adaptation of "the green house effect." This is a term used by weathermen to account for a two -degree rise in the mean temperature of the North Atlan tic subarctic regions and the eastern and central United States during the (Continued on page n) if- T 5f QjpjZ-- Coal Dut . . ff Silver Iodide Crysialt f - Jf CDCCkll Akin II-C AD Atomic Heating Stations I iiiih im i.niwHnw piwiw I I twavw I ill ftl mmm II II IIMIiMi m WWWW III ilW mwum I ttm lM 1 muiu I By careful control of the various artificial methods suggested to harness the forces of nature, there is practically no limit to the wonders that man-made weather could work. Family Weekly, October 26, 195J 9 J
