The Weathermakers (1967) Read Online Free PDF

games are exactly alike. Right?”
    I nodded.
    “Now, where are the Sox in the standings? Fourth, isn’t it? Two games behind Seattle. That’s the season’s climate . . . so far. Last year it was sixth place, seventeen games off the pennant winners.
    “I think I see. The overall effect—”
    “Of many days’ weather,” Ted finished for me, “makes up the climate. You can predict that the Sox will end up somewhere between third and sixth this year. That’s pretty clear. But predicting the score of tomorrow’s game . . . that’s tough. Right?”
    “I think I see.”
    “Okay, now if I can get you two guys to help me,” he said to Barney and Tuli, “we ought to be able to pinpoint the weather for any spot in the country two or three weeks ahead. How’s that for a master’s thesis?”
    “I don’t know anything about a thesis,” I said, “but it’s just what I came here to talk about.”
    I explained, while the cafeteria slowly emptied of people, about the storms in the Pacific and Father’s dredging operations.
    Ted listened quietly, then said, “It’s been a bad year out there, all right. Always is during a sunspot minimum. But you need more than accurate forecasts. You need weather control.”
    “I asked Dr. Rossman about that, and he said it’s impossible.”
    “That’s right, it is . . . to him.”
    “But to you?”
    He hunched closer to the table, lowering his voice in the growing quietness of the cafeteria. “Listen. What do you need for weather control? First, you need detailed info on what’s going on, the real weather at the moment. We’ve got that. Second, you’ve got to be able to make changes in the weather, where and when you want ’em. Real changes, not just ripples. Guys like Tuli and Dr. Barneveldt are turning out dandy chemicals for seeding clouds and changing energy balances. And the Air Force has lasers in orbit that’ll fry eggs from a thousand miles out.”
    He took a gulp of coffee, then resumed. “Third, you need to know the atmosphere’s heat budget—energy balance—all around the world. We can do that, right now. Last, you have to be able to forecast with pinpoint accuracy what the weather all over the world will be for weeks or months ahead. Then you can see what effects your weather changes’ll make. You don’t dare try squashing a storm if you’re afraid it’ll cause a blizzard in Florida.”
    It sounded logical. “I see. Now, you’re working on that last item, the long-range weather forecasts with pinpoint accuracy.”
    “By the end of next week we ought to know if we can do it. Think we can.”
    “And you really believe,” Barney said, with a slight frown of concentration, “that the turbulence equations are the key to accurate long-range forecasts.”
    “They’re the whole show!” Ted insisted. “Listen. Weather is nothing more than turbulent airflow . . . simple aerodynamics, plus water.” He turned to me and went on, “The water’s what makes it tricky . . . can be vapor, liquid or solid . . . can release heat or soak it up . . . and most of what we really want out of a weather prediction is info on when and how much rain or snow we’ll get. Right?”
    I nodded.
    “Okay. From an aerodynamicist’s viewpoint, the weather’s just a boundary layer problem . . . air rubbing against the surface of the Earth. But it’s a turbulent boundary layer, that makes it a tough problem. When you feel a wind, it’s hardly ever a strong, smooth, steady flow, is it? It comes in gusts, spurts, never the same for more than a second or two. It’s turbulent!”
    “Turbulent flow,” Tuli explained, “means that the fluid has motion in two planes—horizontally and vertically. Air is in turbulent motion throughout the troposphere, the lowest part of the atmosphere. Above the tropopause . . .”
    “That’s the upper boundary of the troposphere,” Barney added. “Usually about twenty to forty thousand feet altitude.”
    “Yes,” Tuli said. “Above the