To begin with, the very term "climate weapon" is not entirely correct. The fact is that the climate is a long-term (on the order of several decades, millennia or millions of years) weather regime on Earth. The climate characterizes the statistical ensemble of states through which the "atmosphere - hydrosphere - land - biosphere" system passes. It is clear that it is impossible to change the climate on Earth just like that. If only, do not arrange a nuclear catastrophe. Therefore, it would be correct to speak not about "climatic", but about "weather" weapons. But the term has already caught on. So, God bless him.
What is the idea behind this weapon
The main idea here is as follows: is it not possible with a small expenditure of energy to initiate natural processes that will be supported and developed in a natural way, acquire tremendous strength and fall on the enemy?
Where do these ideas come from? The point is that on a small scale, this is all feasible. In the sense that a small impact can lead to huge (within these small scales) consequences. For example, there was a gas leak in the apartment. Grandmother came to the kitchen, put the kettle on the stove and lit a match. If by that time the concentration of the leaked gas and air is in certain proportions, then an explosion will occur. Half a house can be smashed. From just one match.
Or a cheerful company gathered in the forest for a picnic. We sat and drank, but forgot to put out the fire properly. The weather is dry. A breeze blew, sparks flew, and a forest fire is on you. The same thing: the impact is minimal, and the consequences are huge. But this is all, again, local.
Globalization
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But there are temptations: why not globalize such processes, directing them towards a potential enemy? For example, initiate hurricanes? Which would fall on the "enemy" territory, causing catastrophic damage to the economy of the adversaries. It's tempting. But here such a problem arises. You initiated this hurricane. But then it will develop on its own. And where will atmospheric processes take him - to the territory of your enemy or to you? And it is impossible to control these global atmospheric processes. We do not know how to do this, and even if we learn, how much energy will it take? And where will this idea of a "match" go, which, as we said above, was lit and the whole house collapsed?
Or initiating heavy showers to flood everything there. Well, something has been done and is being done in this direction. But, again, on a purely local scale. For example, on the days of major public holidays, clouds are "dispersed" over Moscow. This means that the rain does not overshadow the popular festivities and celebrations. Although the term "disperse the clouds" has nothing to do with reality. Clouds, if any, do not disperse, but are pollinated from aircraft with special substances that provoke precipitation. Precipitation fell - and the next day the sun is shining. And you can easily watch the parade on Red Square without hiding under umbrellas.
Although the pioneers in this matter were the Americans, who, during the Vietnam War, tried to dump such reagents over the so-called "Ho Chi Minh path", along which weapons were delivered to the partisans. Like, heavy rains will go and the road in the jungle will be washed away. This was not some highway, but really a path. They tried, but quickly refused. First, it was very expensive. And, secondly, it is ineffective. Simply by virtue of a short-term action. No, it rained, but it ended quickly, and there was nowhere to take other rain clouds.
Not the weather, but the environment
Of course, you can influence the weather, or, more precisely, the environment. Both positively and negatively. And there are many examples of this. For example, in the USSR they were concerned about increasing cotton yields in the Central Asian republics. And they began to build irrigation canals, through which water from the Amu Darya and Syr Darya - two rivers that originated in the Pamir mountains and flowed into the Aral Sea, was directed to the cotton fields. As a result, the rivers were catastrophically shallow. And the Aral Sea (it is, in fact, a large lake with salt water) began to dry up. Huge fish stocks have been destroyed. Salt from the dried-up areas of the sea was carried by winds across the surrounding territories, causing salinization of the soil and killing all living things. This is how one of the greatest environmental disasters of the second half of the 20th century arose. And now no one can do anything about it. The world community, and Russia as well,they don't pay attention to it - some kind of Darkness-Cockroach. And the people who lived there for centuries? These are their problems.
Or here. "From afar for a long time, the Volga River flows." In fact, the river itself has long been gone. Well, not really, of course. There is in the very upper reaches and the mouth, and the rest is a chain of reservoirs, which were formed after the construction of a cascade of Volga power plants. As a result, sturgeon fish from the Caspian Sea were unable to reach their spawning grounds. So now we have no black caviar. Although this is the case, little things.
But there are also positive examples. In the 50s and early 60s of the last century, mass destruction of coniferous forests was discovered in Sweden. They began to figure out what was the matter. "And the little casket just opened." Heavy industry in Germany was revived. And the local "wind rose" was arranged in such a way that the emissions from the chimneys of German factories were transferred to the north - just to Sweden. Warm smoke from the chimneys rose into the high layers of the atmosphere. Chemical reactions took place there and the so-called "acid rains" fell over the Swedish forests, which destroyed the needles. We put filters on the pipes. And life got better. Now the coniferous forests of Sweden are in perfect order.
By the way, to this day in Europe there is a scientific program that studies the European "wind rose", the transfer of emissions from industrial enterprises, the impact of all this on the ecology of certain countries, and develops appropriate recommendations.
Climatic weapon
But back to climate weapons. Let's start with the fact that its development was prohibited by the UN convention, adopted already in 1977 at the initiative of the USSR and supported by the United States.
Nevertheless, it must be said that the topic of climate weapons is very popular in the “yellow press”, and periodically appears there. And that's true: according to opinion polls, many "ordinary" Americans sincerely believe that hurricanes and tornadoes that periodically hit America, especially the southern states, are the result of experiments carried out on the weather by the secret services and the scientists they feed.
Currently, there is no evidence of the existence of climate weapons or traces of their use. But when conversations on this topic once again come up, they mention the American complex HAARP, which is located in Alaska and the SURA facility in Russia, not far from Nizhny Novgorod.
The HAARP complex was built in the 90s in Alaska and covers an area of 13 hectares where the antennas are located. Officially, this object is intended for studying the ionosphere, where processes take place that have a significant impact on the weather on a global scale. Recall that the ionosphere is a part of the upper atmosphere, starting about 50 kilometers above the Earth's surface. The ionosphere consists of ions and free electrons that protect the Earth from cosmic radiation. How the ionosphere affects the weather is not known for certain. It is also unclear what the power of the impact should be in order for any noticeable changes in the ionosphere to occur.
But back to the HAARP complex. In addition to scientists, the military, as well as the famous DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), took part in the project. DARPA is part of the US Department of Defense, with more than $ 3 billion annually allocated for its maintenance. DARPA's goal is to develop the latest technologies that provide the technological advantage of the American army. But they also did good deeds, for example, "presented" the world with the Internet, which, initially, was a purely military development.
This concentration of the military and the involvement of DARPA has generated a lot of rumors that HAARP is an experimental climate weapon. It seems to us that attempts to use the complex to interfere with the operation of communication satellites and other electronic systems of a potential enemy, for example, over-the-horizon radar stations, using the reflection of the signal sent by them from the ionosphere and playing an important role in the missile attack warning system, are more likely. Indeed, today, effective means of creating electronic jamming and disabling the electronic communications of a potential adversary is a much more effective and terrible weapon than something of the kind. Remember all the US tantrums about allegedly hacker attacks on Russia in order to influence the results of the American elections.
Conclusion
Summing up, it seems that the climatic weapon is another "horror story", which from time to time is pulled out of the "dusty closet" in order to scare the "respectable public". Humanity has not matured enough to implement this idea, thank God. But there are other problems. And they are much more relevant and dangerous. For example, the above-mentioned missile attack warning systems that both Russia and the United States have. And maybe now China too. Now, God forbid, one of them will fail. The reasons for this failure can be different. Including the impact on the ionosphere. And then what? Will the nuclear powers have time to sort out the situation in the 15-30 minutes they have left? Or, according to Vladimir Putin, "someone will go to heaven, and someone will simply die." I would not want either one or the other.