Sixty five years ago, on this day, March 18, 1958, a US military man explains that carbon dioxide build-up is a possible, accidental, form of weather modification.
In a paper presented to Congress in 1958, retired navy captain Howard T. Orville enumerated the ways in which humans might intentionally or unintentionally alter the weather or climate. Coincidentally, one of his first points involved the unintentional warming of the earth through C02.
(Howe, 2014:26)
Orville quoted; Weather Modification Research hearings of House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 85th Congress, March 18-19 1958
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 315.7ppm (this was the first month we have C02 measurements from Mauna Loa!). As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that at this point, the idea of intentional weather modification, think using hurricanes to smash your opponents, crops and fleets, was still a thing (This was the late 1950s when we were properly drunk on hubris). And so Captain Orville’s testimony came, it was not the first time he had spoken on this. And came three months after the New York Times had done a detailed report about this, that included concern about carbon dioxide buildup, and Orville himself talked about co2 buildup as inadvertent weather modification (link Jan 1 1958 article).
What I think we can learn from this
Sometimes or in fact, all the time, you don’t hit what you aim for, that the knowledge that is later useful comes almost by accident. And again, in the 1950s American politicians were indeed being warned about carbon dioxide, and had been for several years by then.
What happened next
The weather modification, beyond some very local effects in Vietnam (Operation Popeye), was a washout, despite what the chemtrailers would have you believe.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs..