Memories of the Bureau, 1946 to 1962
Foreword
Terminology
Prologue
Preface
Chapter 1: The Warren Years, 1946 to 1950
Chapter 2: International Meteorology
Chapter 3: The Timcke Years, 1950 to 1955
Chapter 4: A Year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Chapter 5: The Dwyer Years, 1955 to 1962
Leonard Joseph Dwyer—A Complex Character
Reorganising the Bureau
Public Weather Services
Forecasts for the General Public
Importance of Radio Stations
The Advent of Television
Automatic Telephone Forecast Service
Beacons
Wording and Verification of Forecasts
Warnings
Services for Aviation
Atomic Weapons Tests
Atomic Weapons Tests—Mosaic G1 and G2
Atomic Weapons Tests—Buffalo 1, 2, 3 and 4
Atomic Weapons Tests—Operations Antler, 2 and 3
Atomic Weapons Tests—Minor Trials
Instruments and Observations
Radiosondes
Radar/Radio Winds and Radar Weather Watch
Automatic Weather Stations
Sferics
Meteorological Satellites
Telecommunications
Tropical Cyclones
Bureau Conference on Tropical Cyclones
International Symposium on Tropical Cyclones, Brisbane
Hydrometeorology
Design of Water Storages, Etc
Flood Forecasting
Cloud Seeding
Reduction of Evaporation
Rain Seminar
Cloud Physics
Fire Weather
Research and Special Investigations
International Activities
The International Geophysical Year
The Antarctic and Southern Ocean
International Symposium on Antarctic Meteorology
International Antarctic Analysis Centre
ADP, EDP and Computers
Training
Publications
Management Conference
Services Conference
CSIRO and the Universities
Achievements of the Dwyer Years
Chapter 6: A Springboard for the Future
Appendix 1: References
Appendix 2: Reports, Papers, Manuscripts
Appendix 3: Milestones
Appendix 4: Acknowledgements
Appendix 5: Summary by H. N. Warren of the Operation of the Meteorological Section of Allied Air Headquarters, Brisbane, 1942–45
Endnotes
Index
Search
Help
Contact us
Cloud Seeding (continued)
In the late 1970s/early 1980s WMO asked a Panel of Experts (which included Jack Warner) to prepare a plan for a major field experiment to determine whether cloud seeding increases rainfall. After much consideration the experiment was abandoned. I believe this was because any adequate statistical analysis of the results of such an experiment would require that the experiment should continue for many years and an unequivocal result could not be guaranteed.It was entirely appropriate for CSIRO to investigate cloud seeding. As mentioned in Chapter 1 Vincent Schaefer and Irving Langmuir had made some interesting discoveries in their laboratory about how dry ice could seed an atmosphere and produce growth of ice crystals. I had learnt of this and much of the physics of cloud and precipitation from Houghton's course of physical meteorology at MIT.
Taffy Bowen recruited Pat Squires and Eric Kraus to the Division of Radiophysics and employed them on cloud seeding, first with dry ice and then with silver iodide. Problems arose after the apparently successful seeding of cloud over the Blue Mountains.
In 1938–39 Eric Kraus was a student of Jack Bjerknes (son of the famous V. Bjerknes) in Bergen, Norway. With the outbreak of World War II Eric volunteered for service in the French Air Force and when French resistance to the Germans collapsed in 1940 he made his way via Africa and Gibraltar to England where he was commissioned into the RAF. Being trained in meteorology and a qualified pilot he was put in charge of a newly formed long-range meteorological reconnaissance flight of Blenheim bombers and promoted to squadron leader. Eric made the most of the considerable freedom he was given in organising the reconnaissance flight and flew 400 hours of operations in eight months.
People in Bright Sparcs - Bowen, Edward George (Taffy); Dwyer, Leonard Joseph; Squires, Patrick
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© Online Edition Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre and Bureau of Meteorology 2001
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