According to ABC Online :
A cloud-seeding project is expected to bring extra snow to the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales this season.
The State Government says when clouding-seeding was done in the area last year, it created 25 per cent more snow.
The technique involves sending tiny amounts of silver iodide into winter storm clouds, and is being trialled over a 1,000 kilometre square part of the Kosciuszko National Park.The Minister for Primary Industries, Ian Macdonald, says the technology is bringing both economic and environmental benefits.
“This will help the amount of snow in the mountains, which is good for the ski industry, which is important for the regional tourism industry, as well as creating more water for electricity generation and irrigation,” he said.“It’s environmentally sound because more snow pack will help the long-term survival of a number of endangered animals and plants.”
I wonder which endangered animals and plants will be saved?
Following on from my previous post, I wonder would the ACF or the NCC approve of this?
Do you?
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
It’s not entirely implausible that increasing snow pack could help some endangered species. We think “more snow – cold – nasty”, but some species are adapted to this. Their problem can be that milder weather makes it possible for intruding species to displace them by having more vigorous growth, taking nesting holes and burrows, and so on.
If all we’re doing is putting back the snow that global warming has removed, then the argument seems reasonable enough.
Sylvia.
Putting back snow that global warming removed?
Cloud seeding to ensure that the snow skiiers patronise Mt Charlotte?
1. Most snow skiers follow the snow. Globally. It is in the nature of the beast, and money is not a problem.
2. Endagered species – as a geologist I have to wonder about the received fact that 95% of all known species are fossils. Animal life usually tends to migrate to more clement conditions. Endagered species, or species that migrated to better climes, leaving a spurious impression that they became extinct.
3. Sigh
Louis, I think it’s a mistake to think of animal life migrating to more clement conditions. Rather, life tends to spread. If the circumstances permit, a species will occupy a new area, in addition to its old one. Adaptation to the new area can then result speciation, with the new group being recognisably different from the original. If conditions then deteriorate in the original place, the old group may die out.
It’s a matter of human interpretation as to whether this process amounts simply to migration and adaptation, and whether the dissappearance of the original form due to human action matters.
As far as individuals of a species go, it’s a hard fact of life that most die before reaching adulthood anyway.
Sylvia.