Word: schaefer
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Your article on Meteorologists Langmuir and Schaefer neglected to mention that their work may result in another benefit ... to this part of the country...
Several years ago, [the late] H. T. Gisborne ... of the Northern Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station contacted Dr. Schaefer about the possibilities of inducing rain over forest fires. When Dr. Schaefer learned of our high percentage of lightning-caused forest fires, he began looking into the rather fantastic idea of stopping lightning at its source...
...cold is cold enough? Langmuir and Schaefer found by careful experiment that the motes form at -39° C. (38° F.). This explained some types of rain. Certain clouds rise high enough to be cooled to that temperature. Ice motes form, find their way into warmer parts of the cloud, where they grow into snowflakes and fall as snow or rain. "Why not help things along with some dry ice?" asked Langmuir & Schaefer...
...November 1946, Schaefer took off from Schenectady in a small airplane and directed the pilot to a fleecy cloud four miles long that was floating over nearby Massachusetts. When he reached it, he scattered into it six pounds of dry ice. Almost at once the cloud, which had been drifting along peacefully, began to writhe as if in torment. White pustules rose from its surface. In 5 minutes the whole cloud melted away, leaving a thin wraith of snow. None of the snow reached the ground (it evaporated on the way down), but the dry ice treatment had successfully broken...
...Weather Bureau has shown recent signs of softening its opposition. Its chief, Dr. Francis W. Reichelderfer, gives Langmuir and Schaefer full credit for showing how a cloud can be precipitated. Reichelderfer agrees that certain special clouds, such as the cold clouds which form over mountains, can be seeded profitably. But he thinks Langmuir's claims are too sweeping. "My impression," he says, "is that Langmuir and his associates were successful in speeding up the rain formation process in a few cases, but I feel quite sure that in many cases the rain was due to natural causes...