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Originally posted by omegacorps
reply to post by BenReclused
not going for earthquakes. show me proof there is no connection.
The heated debate on global warming seems to be cooling down, as, after a review of the relevant factors - including 'increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases'; 'global changes to land surface, such as deforestation' and urban heat islands; 'increasing atmospheric concentrations of aerosols' (1); and even some ideas that seem to be out in space, such as cosmic rays and variations in sun activity (2) - a consensus seems to have been reached that increased carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide emissions are the primary determining factor (3). It is the opinion of this author that such a consensus is premature, owing to the fact that not all the evidence has been submitted.
Certain advanced nations have been purposefully tampering with the atmosphere for some time now. Half a century ago their method of choice was the use of atomic weapons (4), but since then their arsenal has grown in sophistication to include the 'injection of chemical vapors and heating or charging via electromagnetic radiation or particle beams'. In a 1996 US Air Force review of the subject, it was emphasized that 'many techniques to modify the upper atmosphere have been successfully demonstrated experimentally' (5).
The abstract from the proceedings of a 1990 conference held on 'Ionospheric Modification and Its Potential to Enhance or Degrade the Performance of Military Systems' noted lamentably that 'interest in the [upper atmosphere] has been focused on identifying and quantifying the limitations it imposes on [military] systems, rather than on ways it might be altered, or controlled' (ed.: all italics in this paper are mine). Nevertheless, the authors go on to say that 'A variety of [atmospheric] modification techniques are being investigated, both ground- and space-based, to increase or decrease existing ionization or to create independent artificial plasmas. These techniques include high power radio waves, lasers, particle beams, and chemical releases' (6).
The Air Force review mentioned above referred to such 'independent artificial plasmas' as the 'creation of an artificial ionosphere'. One of the papers submitted to the 1990 conference - focusing on 'Theoretical and experimental research on the creation, maintenance, and control of artificial layers of ionization in the 50 to 90 km altitude range' - discusses the use of 'artificial ionospheric mirrors' (AIM) in terms of 'a specific technical approach, the use of ground-based, very high power, RF waves to breakdown the atmosphere' (7).
We find one stated purpose for creating an artificial ionosphere in the patent for artificial ionospheric mirrors (8), which reads:
In the past, the technique of using the ionosphere as a mirror to reflect radio waves, or RF energy, has given Ham Radio operators the ability to send transmissions over long distances. This technique has also provided radar systems the ability to look 'over the horizon'. Variations and fluctuations in the ionosphere, however, can render the effectiveness of such communications uncertain. Thus, the desirability of creating controllable plasma layers in the atmosphere...has been recognized.
The patent outlines quite clearly the means by which artificial ionospheres are created:
3. An apparatus for generating an AIM comprising: (a) a phased array heater antenna which is focused at an altitude to cause an avalanche ionization area to be created in the atmosphere
There are not many 'phased array heater antennas' in the world, and those few have attracted some controversy - perhaps you know which I am talking about - so I am not going mention them here by name.
If you remember from the Air Force review I quoted above, atmospheric modification has been achieved by means of 'injection of chemical vapors and heating or charging via electromagnetic radiation or particle beams'. I have said a word about 'heating or charging via electromagnetic radiation', and now I would like to briefly mention the purposeful 'injection of chemical vapors'.
A 1990 Stanford University paper entitled 'Overview of Ionospheric Modification from Space Platforms'
discusses 'non-electromagnetic methods of modifying...the terrestrial ionosphere' (9). The abstract goes on:
Of these [methods], the most well-understood is the direct injection of chemical vapors into the ambient medium. ... Modification to the ionosphere can last for up to hours from [barium] injections. Other vapors have also been released, including water vapor, SF 6 and more noxious gases, in successful efforts to alter the chemistry of the ionosphere.
In addition to the Stanford paper, a 1979 University of Alaska study entitled 'Chemical releases in the ionosphere' reported that 'Development of the thermite barium release technique enabled observation of both neutral and ion motions, the latter leading rather directly to determination of ionospheric electric fields' (10).
At this point the skeptic inside you might object that these releases were made into the upper reaches of the atmosphere, in near space, where, it seems, there is not much effect on the climate-determining processes of the lower atmosphere. However, given the existence of an artificial ionosphere in the 50 km to 90 km range, it appears likely that barium and other chemical releases should be made rather closer to home, for the purposes of 'altering the chemistry' and 'determining the electric fields' of said artificial ionosphere.
Finally I would like to pose some obvious questions, which I am not qualified to answer but on which perhaps you may be able to shed some light.
1. What is the effect of an artificial ionosphere on climate and the weather?
2. What is the effect of deliberate chemical releases of barium 'and more noxious gases' into the atmosphere, on climate and the weather?
3. What is the effect of 'electromagnetic radiation and particle beams', on climate and the weather?
4. Are said effects likely to be negligible - that is, unworthy of study - in the study of climate and the weather?
5. If said effects are in fact not negligible, then why have these factors not been scrutinized or addressed?
Sprites are large-scale electrical discharges that occur high above thunderstorm clouds, or cumulonimbus, giving rise to a quite varied range of visual shapes flickering in the night sky. They are triggered by the discharges of positive lightning between an underlying thundercloud and the ground.
Sprites appear as luminous reddish-orange flashes. They often occur in clusters within the altitude range 50–90 km above the Earth's surface. Sporadic visual reports of sprites go back at least to 1886, but they were first photographed on July 6, 1989 by scientists from the University of Minnesota and have subsequently been captured in video recordings many thousands of times.
Sprites are sometimes inaccurately called upper-atmospheric lightning. However, sprites are cold plasma phenomena that lack the hot channel temperatures of tropospheric lightning, so they are more akin to fluorescent tube discharges than to lightning discharges