Over the past hundred and a half years, mankind has managed to solve almost more mysteries of nature than in all previous history. And - this is how a person is arranged - he strives to try any new knowledge as a weapon. Understanding the processes that shape the climate and affect the weather, as well as the ability to influence these processes became the starting point for the development of climate weapons …
The failure of the Americans to cause an artificial tsunami is explained by the fact that the peculiarity of this natural phenomenon - wave movement throughout the entire water column. This is possible mainly with tectonic movements that occur during earthquakes.
The American operation Popeye in Vietnam consisted of dispersing silver iodide in a finely dispersed form, as a result of which the amount of precipitation increased threefold, and the duration of the rains - one and a half times.
Prolonged torrential rains can be combined with the hydrospheric direction of development of geophysical weapons and cause flooding of vast territories. Something similar happened in Vietnam in 1971, when the aftermath of Operation Popeye caused devastating flooding.
What could be more deadly, and, therefore, more suitable for military needs, than natural disasters? Droughts, abnormally severe frosts, prolonged rains and snowfalls can negatively affect the economy of states and regions; tsunamis, tornadoes and hurricanes sweep cities off the face of the earth, human casualties in this case are in the tens, or even hundreds of thousands … But one can also recall earthquakes, floods, forest fires and mountain avalanches. What happens if you turn all this into a weapon?
Most often, conspiracy theorists write about this topic in the tabloid press. The topic of climate weapons is a freedom for a conspiracy theorist: theoretically it is possible, but no one really knows about practical tests; it does not exist - but at the same time it is prohibited; it can be as sophisticated as you like, it is impossible to protect yourself from it - and, most importantly, even if it is applied, it cannot be proved that it was just an attack, and not an accidental whim of elemental forces. Following the conspiracy theorists, the idea is picked up by sensation-hungry journalists, public figures, politicians and even some scientists. Especially when there is a reason for this. Thus, the circumstances of the summer of 2010, in the European part of Russia, extremely hot and accompanied by forest fires, provoked a mass of publications and statements, from paranoid to fully justified from a scientific point of view. In 2007, when Hurricane Katrina raged over Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida, the Americans blamed the Russians for the disaster. Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela, accused the United States of being involved in the 2010 earthquakes in China and Haiti, and so on.
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Theoretically, it is possible to use natural disasters for military purposes, and there have even been certain studies and precedents.
A bit of history
If at the beginning of the 20th century the ability of a person to influence weather processes seemed fantastic, then already in the 1940s the first experiments in this area were carried out. Scientists from a number of countries, including the USSR, have studied the causes of the formation of clouds and fogs; by 1954, it had been unequivocally proven that if the clouds were artificially cooled, precipitation would occur.
Experiments were carried out during which small particles of solid carbon dioxide (dry ice), an aerosol of silver iodide or lead iodide and other substances that promote crystallization or enlargement of water droplets were sprayed into the cloud layer - "seeded" - from aircraft or with the help of special rockets. Initially, these studies had purely peaceful goals: to cause rain over arid areas or, conversely, to prevent rain - or, worse, hail - from reaching agricultural land, completely "straining" a cloud over an area where precipitation will not cause harm. However, these technologies were soon applied for military purposes.
From 1967 to 1972, during the Vietnam War, the Americans carried out Operation Popeye: during the rainy season, they scattered silver iodide in a fine form from transport aircraft, as a result of which the amount of precipitation increased threefold and the duration of the rains - one and a half times. The purpose of the operation was to destroy the communications with the help of which the rebels had communication with the north, primarily the so-called Ho Chi Minh trail - and here the United States achieved some success, turning the roads into a continuous swamp.
Simultaneously with the study of cloudiness and precipitation, experiments were carried out to manage typhoons and hurricanes - cyclones that form annually in tropical latitudes and often cause destructive storms. During the Stormfury project, American scientists tried to disperse the cloud mass in one of the sections of the cyclone in order to disrupt its balance and thereby either extinguish it or force it to change its trajectory. It would seem that the most that neither is a peaceful goal - but, for example, in 1969, trying to turn away the hurricane from the densely populated coast of their country, American researchers were not hesitating to send it to the shores of Panama and Nicaragua.
It was obvious that all methods of active influence on geophysical processes can have a militaristic background, and in 1976, on the initiative of the Soviet Union, international convention No. 2692 "On the prohibition of military or any other hostile use of means of influencing the natural environment" was signed, which was joined by and United States.
HAARP project and similar
Before moving on to the story of what a climate weapon can actually be, a digression should be made and a few words devoted to the HAARP project - after all, not a single conspiracy-oriented publication is complete without mentioning it. Almost all natural disasters that have happened on Earth over the past 20 years are attributed to this supposedly newest secret superweapon of the Americans. It, according to fans of sensations, can cause earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, significantly change the temperature, set up forest fires and burn out any part of the territory in the Northern Hemisphere, send hurricanes, "drop" planes, ballistic missiles and satellites. Sometimes in this kind of publications as a kind of counterbalance to HAARP they also mention the Sura project, created in the Soviet Union.
The HAARP project (an abbreviation for Active High Frequency Ionosphere Research Program) was indeed launched by the United States in 1993 at a test site near Gakona, Alaska. But this project is not at all unique and far from the first of its kind.
Such complexes, called ionospheric heating stands, have been created since the late 1960s, mainly in the USSR and the USA, of which HIPAS (Fairbanks, Alaska, USA), Sura (Vasilsursk, Nizhny Novgorod Region, Russia), EISCAT / Heating (Tromsø, Norway), SPEAR (Svalbard, Norway), the complex at the Arecibo Observatory (Puerto Rico - one of the oldest stands, completely modernized in 2009) and HAARP itself. The latter is the most powerful, but generally similar to the others, used for the same research tasks, namely, to study the processes occurring under artificial disturbance (heating by a powerful flux of HF radio emission) of the ionosphere - one of the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere, strongly ionized by solar rays …
But if the HAARP project is not unique, why does it repeatedly attract such close attention of fans of pseudoscientific hoaxes? Most likely, the fact is that most of the results obtained by HAARP are closed to the general public, which is not surprising for large-scale national projects (as opposed to international ones like EISCAT and SPEAR). Secrecy always gives rise to speculation, this is aggravated by the fact that the military is really involved in the project: the Air Force, the Navy and DARPA - the Pentagon's agency engaged in promising developments.
If climate weapons existed …
… what could it be? What requirements would apply to it? What are the limitations? What effect could it have?
First, let's define the terminology. Climatic, or, more precisely, geophysical weapons are weapons that cause damage through their impact on the environment: all layers of the atmosphere, the Earth's hydro- and lithosphere, the ozone layer, near-earth space, etc. Moreover, the damage will not necessarily be instantaneous and with fatal consequences: the gradual destruction of the enemy's economy, infrastructure and communications also fit this definition.
A hypothetical war waged with the massive use of geophysical weapons is commonly called a meteorological war. Since with such a method of conducting hostilities in territories subjected to aggression, significant negative changes in the living environment of animals, plants and humans are inevitable, the concept of ecocide, that is, the complete destruction of the ecosystem and the extermination of life, is also related to these terms. In the same Vietnam War, the Jungle Eaters engineering unit operated, using Rome Plow D7E heavy bulldozers specially modified for military operations, equipped with two-ton sharpened knives. The latter were suitable both for felling trees and for removing the topsoil, which for a long time made the territory unsuitable for vegetation,and in combination with Operation Popeye contributed to its rapid waterlogging. To destroy the jungle, the stronghold of the Viet Cong, in addition to bulldozers, defoliants and herbicides were also used, sprayed with the help of aircraft. All this led to a major change in the environment.
Speaking about various forms of geophysical weapons, a number of directions can be distinguished. In particular, the impact on the lower atmosphere (weather weapons) is a well-studied area that can have very diverse manifestations. In addition to the aforementioned rains, forcibly shed by sowing the clouds with silver iodide, there is a method of creating artificial clouds. The device used for this is called a meteotron - it pumps a strictly vertically strong stream of hot, saturated with water vapor, which, cooling down above, turns into a cloud. In theory, this process can create cyclones and control wind and air temperature with their help, causing droughts and frosts. These are also hypothetical types of weather weapons.
Prolonged torrential rains (atmospheric phenomenon) can be combined with another direction of the possible development of geophysical weapons - hydrospheric, that is, associated with the water shell of the Earth - and cause floods and flooding of vast territories. Something similar happened in Vietnam in 1971, when the consequences of Operation Popeye, if not caused, then at least contributed to a devastating flood. In addition to floods, hydrospheric weapons also include storms, wandering waves that pose a danger to ships on the high seas, and tsunamis. The first attempts by the Americans to artificially cause a tsunami were made in the mid-1940s. During the Seal project, a powerful charge was detonated on the seabed and the propagation of waves was observed. In the future, there were experiments with atomic bombs, up to the signing of an agreement in 1963,prohibiting nuclear tests in the atmosphere, space and under water. It cannot be said that these tests were successful - the high wave that could be caused by the explosion died out after several hundred meters.
And here we come to the third direction - tectonic weapons capable of affecting the lithosphere, the hard shell of the planet. In addition to earthquakes, this also includes volcanic eruptions, landslides and avalanches. Popular Mechanics wrote about this type of geophysical weapon in April 2010.
We have already given examples of the fourth, biospheric, direction. In addition to those mentioned earlier, there are many ways to irreparably disrupt the ecological balance, the circulation of substances in wildlife, and any of them will be disastrous for economic activity and, as a result, for the people themselves inhabiting the affected area.
The fifth direction is the possible destructive processes associated with the layers of the Earth's air envelope located above the troposphere: the creation of temporary ozone holes that transmit the hard ultraviolet radiation of the Sun, as well as the hypothetical opportunities opened up by the ionosphere - this is exactly what the HAARP projects are exploring, " Sura "and others. These capabilities can hardly be said with certainty now, and they are hardly suitable for military use - so far it has not been possible to cause long-term changes in the ionosphere.
Finally, one more direction is based on the impact on the near-earth space. Imagine, for example, bombarding enemy territory with meteorites. Is this possible? Apparently, this is much closer to fantasy than to reality.
Finally
Climatic weapons, some theoretically, some even practically - is possible, but so far there is not a single reliable fact that it is used or even exists. Here are some pros and cons.
Scientists who deny conspiracy theories about the secret use of mass climate weapons by the Americans (Russians, Chinese) give the following arguments. Firstly, even a local change in weather conditions requires huge expenditures of funds and energy, and the impact on the climate on the scale of states and regions - and even more so. In addition, weather phenomena are often unpredictable due to the great many interacting forces, and if a simple cloud cannot always be turned into rain, then what can we say about managing cyclones and earthquakes. As a result, climate weapons appear before us unpredictable, capable of inflicting damage on the attacker, his allies and neutral states instead of the enemy. Even if we assume that there is a massive climate weapon somewhere, modern meteorological observation equipment,used by developed states are unlikely to be able to ignore the fact of its use - it will certainly be discovered, and the response of the world community will be comparable to a reaction to nuclear aggression.
Thus, climate weapons, most likely, do not exist, and if they are somewhere, then it is completely inappropriate to use them. True, in 1996, scientists and experts commissioned by the US Air Force prepared a report "Weather as a multiplier of strength: subjugation of weather by 2025", which ended with a recommendation to the US government to withdraw from Convention No. 2692 … most correlate with his idea of common sense and the order of things.
Alexander Petrov