Foredrag af Professor Kristine Cecile Harper, Institut for Naturfagenes Didaktik

The Cold War/Atmosphere Nexus: Controlling the Weather in 20th Century America

The Cold War years were all about control, specifically the two main adversaries—the United States and the Soviet Union—controlling the influence of the other all over the world. Certainly, one could do that with weapons, but what if there were a less obvious method that would leave no trace and had complete deniability? Soon after the end of World War II, the possibility of weather control developed beyond the post-dinner, vodka-soaked idea phase and into a multi-decade, multi-million-dollar effort to control the atmosphere for national security purposes. The domestic version would keep the home front strong, and the international version would be used as both a weapon against enemies and a diplomatic tool on behalf of friends. Who hatched the plan? Who carried it out? And what were the meteorologists, who were having a hard enough time modeling the atmosphere and forecasting the weather, thinking and doing when the US government decided to “make it rain”?