Changing Climate, Geoengineering and Weather Modification

In this 30-minute video, Prof. Mark Skidmore discussed both natural and man-made causes of “climate change.”  He also examined weather modification and geoengineering techniques and their applications worldwide.

Dr. Skidmore is a Professor of Economics at Michigan State University. His research covers topics in public finance, regional economics, and the economics of natural disasters.



It’s important to recognise that climate and weather are not the same. Weather is local while climate is global.  And, geoengineering is to change the climate globally whereas weather modification activity is to change the weather locally.

For context, Prof. Skidmore begins by talking about factors that we don’t always think about that affect climate and weather.  “Two of those things are the solar cycle and the changing magnetic field that’s occurring right now,” he said.

“Another thing that’s happening, if you go back 40 or 50 years, we had a much more stable air [jet] stream.  And now we have a wavier air [jet] stream … I tend to think it may be associated with a change in magnetic field and change in solar activity.

“I would make a distinction between changes in the overall global temperature [and] this wavy [jet] stream where you can get more [temperature] extremes in the mid-latitude areas.”

Another factor Prof. Skidmore discussed was pole shifts. A lot of people may not realise that the Earth has had physical pole shifts that have occurred many times in Earth’s history, Prof. Skidmore said. “The most recent one occurred about 12,000 years ago.  The previous physical location of the North Pole used to be in Hudson Bay, Canada.”  Prof. Skidmore is referring to the physical, not the magnetic North Pole.  Using work done by Mark Carlotto, Prof. Skidmore explained how it can be demonstrated that the physical North Pole has shifted.

Prof. Skidmore then moved on to discuss geoengineering and weather modification: the involvement of the public and private sector, overt and covert activities, the history, the type of interventions and whether it is effective.

Geoengineering involves solar radiation management through the injection of aerosols into the stratosphere, and carbon capture and storage.  The dominant form of weather modification is cloud seeding but other approaches to influencing the weather include the use of ultrashort lasers, satellite systems, electrical charges and sound waves.

Thanks go to Doctors for Covid Ethics for this video and for providing the references.

Changing Climate and Weather/Climate Modification Techniques, 20 October 2022 (29 mins)

References:

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