AquariusRadar Southern California Operation
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Hydrology Concept
Snowpack Enhancement Low pressure storms that approach the Southern California coast suffer a reduction in intensity because they become starved for fuel....water vapor. Far from shore, the Pacific provides energy in the form of abundant water vapor for the storm's continued maintenance. Frequently, good bands of rain cells are strung out for hundreds of miles along the cold front that trails southwest out of the storms center. The rainfall produced falls upon the ocean surface. As the storm approaches from the Northwest towards the California coastline, the flow of air becomes increasingly drier as the principal source is the air of the Mohave, Chihuahuan, and Sonoran deserts of the Southwest. Global warming has intensified "horse latitude" high pressure zones near 30� and weakened Arctic high pressure air masses; Arctic air above the area of the Aleutian low is simply not cold enough nor big enough to dislodge the warm descending air of the horse latitudes. Cyclones that follow the Jet stream between these two air masses are forced up and over the desert high pressure. Hence, the elevation uplift of the West Coast mountains of Southern California and the storm's weakened intensity are unable to produce adequate rainfall. AquariusRadar can provide more moisture for the storm system. By operating from ships at sea, the AquariusRadar can limit rainfall at sea and deliver more moisture to California for agriculture, residental, and hydroelectric power generation. AquariusRadar, placed in the passes between high Sierra peaks, deposits added snowpack on these high peaks from moisture that otherwise would continue through the passes without any snowfall. NOAA/NWS
Ideal Candidate Radar Exactly how could this be achieved? By operating upon developing storm cells as they approach maturity and shortening thier life span and rainfall total and upon competing rain cells and increasing life span by slowing growth. All rain cells go through a life cycle of early developement, completely developed, maturity, and old age or dissipation. Most of the rain falls during full developement and maturity. The cold downrush of rain and air eventually stop any further developement. The cell quickly stops raining. The microwave heating of developing rain storms slows growth and moisture is held aloft and is taken up by competing thunderstorms. Microwave heating of clouds (AquariusRadar) hastens the decline and shortens the life span of the mature cell over the ocean and more moisture is held aloft. The development of younger storms can be slowed with the rate of growth becoming parabolic rather than hyperbolic. This added atmospheric moisture, either as water vapor or water droplets, acts as a packet of moisture that augments the atmospheric river as it moves along the frontal boundry. When this packet of moisture, embedded along the line of the cold front, encounters the moutain uplift of the coast, rain is produced. AquariusRadar, which limits rainfall at sea, allows the storm system to transport added moisture to the California coast. That moisture that spirals into the storm center prior to reaching shore will act to fuel the low pressure system and maintain it's intensity. By operating around the periphery of tropical systems that spin up from the Baja, far out in the Pacific, the moisture provided by the summer monsoon of the desert Southwest can be increased. When high pressure ridges in the north Pacific block the path of strong temperate cyclones over long periods, as in 2013, operation on weak but developing cumulonimbus storms as they approach the Sierra incline can be enhanced by operating on storms destined to pass thru through the lower elevations between peaks and thus allowing the storms projected to pass directly over the peaks to gain advantage and produce more snow. The uniform uplift of the Southern Sierras prevent advantage for individual cumulonimbus. The AquariusRadar action allows cloud formations destined for the highest peaks to gain advantage and thus provide more snow. Otherwise, the entire lightweight river of moisture flows over the Sierras without snowfall. Restore the Mt. Whitney Glaciers! NASA.history.gov
Hail Suppression A hypothetical front may approach from the Northwest at 14Kts and individual cells along the trailing cold front are traveling to the Northeast at 23 Kts. The center of the cyclone has just passed north of Vancouver, B.C. and is declining in intensity as drier air from Nevada and the desert Southwest is drawn in to the storm center. Northern California receives adequate moisture from such a system but the Southern half of the state will be denied rainfall because of the choking of the fuel supply, even though the trailing cold front extends well passed Los Angeles. At this point in the scenerio, the shipborne AquariusRadar(s) begin operating on developing rain cells as they approach maturity along the front. Addtionaly, the nearby competing cells which take up the extra available moisture are targeted in order to slow the growth of those cells. The net affect is to keep more moisture aloft rather than allowing the normal life cycle to continue and rain down on the open ocean several hundred acre feet of water. The ship is located 230 nautical miles Southwest of San Luis Obispo. With two AquariusRadars on deck, about 4 rain cells per hour are "tempered" and the rainfall from each is reduced by 15% on average. The ship tracks the front on a Southeast bearing at 14 Kts for 30 hours and maintains a 230nm distance from the coast. Ten hours after tempering by the AquariusRadar, the moisture "packet" associated with each dissipated cell arrives at the coast. Mountain lifting produces rain along the coast. Some of the added moisture is not immediately recovered but captured later by the southern Sierra Nevada as snowpack. Another small portion of moisture may feed the storm center and maintain the cyclone intensity. Altogether, the equivalant of 4 X 30 X 15% = 18 storms of equal magnitude as those initially targeted by AquariusRadar at sea are added to the rainfall total upon the land. Assuming that the initial storms at sea were of small to medium size, providing about 500 acre feet each, then the total captured by AquariusRadar operation would equal 9000 acre feet. While small by water management gauges, if such a rate could be maintained for 20 or more storm systems per year, then the total would equate to 180,000 acre feet annually. Consider a ship's operational cost to be 8 million annual, then the cost per acre foot would be about 50 dollars per acre foot. Expensive but maybe the best in the drought situation. On land, orographic lift is augmented by focusing microwave energy on small cumulus cells determined not to provide snowfall. Those smaller cells are inhibited and nearby larger cells with a path destined to have maximum orographic lift take up the added moisture. Thus a squall that might have produced only a dusting of snow can now precipatate a measurable quantity of snow.

Update July 20, 2015- The strong El Nino is predicted to provide substantial rains. This winter as Pacific storms push ashore, shipborne AquariusRadars, operating Southwest of Santa Cruz just outside Monterey Bay, could be transporting some of that moisture inland for recovery as snowpack in the Sierra Nevada. Update July 2015: California suffers it's driest year (2014) on record. Severe drought throughout the state. El Nino has started with flash flooding in the southern interior deserts. There is no effort to store the flood waters. The Aquariusradar could move the floodwaters out of the Los Angles lake basin near Palmdale to mountain lake storage. No legislative funding for weather moderation research by the nation's leading universities located in California.
Update March 2016- The El Nino 2015-2016 while strong, has not produced enough rainfall to curtail the drought.
Test Proposal for California In California?-Be sure and see the test proposal available only from this page>
A Test Proposal for California


While we can't change the weather, mankind can moderate local conditions to our advantage. The rainfall total amounts will remain the same; the distribution is moved to storage advantage.
Frequent Questions California is similar to some of the driest desert regions of the earth. The Atacama, the Kalahari, the Sahara, and the Mojave/Sonoran all share common features: 30� North or South latitudes ( the horse latitudes) and a cool ocean directly to the west with high atmospheric pressure systems that block the flow of moisture. Tiny shifts of world temperatures can move these high pressure anti-cylones into the zones immediately north and south of their historical ( normal) positions. Such is the case in 2013 when a high pressure system sat in place for many months blocking the flow of temperate cyclones and creating California's worst short term drought. Immediately to the Northwest of this pile of warm dry air sits the Aleutian cyclone, to feeble to dislodge the high pressure and generating modest storms that move around the top of the high into far Northern Canada. These storms gather strength as they cross the Candanian Rockies and pile drive down the Great Plains as strong winter storms. California, however, is cutoff from any moisture. Between these two systems, a modest band of showers is often in place. If Aquariusradar operated on the maturing showers in this band, more moisture would spiral into the cyclone and increase it's strength. Moisture aloft is the energy source for the cyclones growth and intensity. A strong Aleutian cyclone will dislodge these persistent ridges of dry air and bring moisture to California. Aquariusradar (microwave heating of clouds) is the opposite of cloud seeding and provides a method to transport moisture at high altitude. When storm systems are mild, the uniform western slope of the Sierra mountain chain creates only weak cumulonimbus clouds. This frequently results in no snowfall. Aquariusradar placed in strategic locations along the mountain chain inhibit some clouds, allowing others to grow to greater altitude and produce snow. Where no snow fell there are now spotty but significant snow showers. Free presentations to California workshops hosted by water crisis stakeholders; Emergency Management, irrigation districts, municipal water districts, CalWater,etc.
The nation sympathizes with California's crushing drought situation. The State, however, seems hobbled by political motivations that blunt any attempt to get new water resources: Cal thinking today is: no tax increases for future water infrastructure. Yet with significant tax increases, the Federal government as a national effort, and the LADWP in collaboration with Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso, and San Antonio could readily finance the construction of a pipeline/aqueduct down the median of Interstate 10 from Northwest Florida to California. When the municipal reservoirs were full of crystal clear spring water from NW Florida, water could be drawn from the Pearl, Blackwater, and others of the region, including the Mississippi, for industrial/agriculture use in Texas, Arizona, and California. Ideas abound, but apparently the Governor has no science team for guidance out of the drought disaster. By pumping new seawater to the Salton sea, maintaining a giant closed solar collection immediately above the waters surface, and using the solar/wind power to condense the evaporated seawater to make fresh water, the State could produce fresh water much below the cost of desalinization with nuclear power.
Operating AquariusRadar in the southern Sierra Nevada could build snow pack even in drought years. The mechanism is straightforward. The uniform rise of the gentle western flank of the Sierra creates strato- cumulus formations that seldom produce snow. The uniform elevation rise spreads moisture out so growth of cumulo-nimbus clouds is restricted. Available moisture is the limiting factor. By inhibiting strato-cumulus growth over mountain passes with the operation of AquariusRadar, the clouds approaching nearby mountain peaks can take up and employ the extra available moisture to produce tall cumulo-nimbus clouds that produce significant snow and create snowpack at higher elevation for improved water long term storage.