SilverLining Public Comment on Petition for Rulemaking Regarding Maintaining Records and Submitting Reports on Weather Modification Activities
A Way Forward: EPA Enforcement Supported by NOAA Research
Rapid and effective reporting, regulation and enforcement for weather modification and climate intervention activities would be best achieved in a structure in which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) provides research and analysis of weather and climate impacts in support of a program of registration, permitting and enforcement by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). To achieve this, NOAA should expand relevant research and, with EPA, collaborate in the design of relevant processes. Within this, to support critical research, small-scale emissive research studies should be supported and exempted from permitting requirements for impact-scale activities.
To that end, expanding relevant research and research authorities in NOAA is highly valuable, while reporting, enforcement and other relevant regulatory activities are more appropriately placed in EPA with support from NOAA on the review of climate and weather impacts. We suggest consultation between EPA and NOAA to produce recommendations for reporting, scientific review and enforcement provisions that Congress should consider. Such a process can support recommended levels of reporting for various scales of activity, levels of observations and analysis required for evaluation, and ongoing research needs to support the assessment of the effects and impacts of weather and climate modification programs.
Weather Modification, Atmospheric Composition and Earth’s Radiation Budget
Increased climate and weather extremes are escalating efforts to actively modify weather and interest in approaches to rapidly reduce global warming. The primary forms of these activities involve dispersing particles (aerosols) into the atmosphere to alter the properties of clouds or reflect sunlight to change the balance of heat energy in the atmosphere, or “Earth’s Radiation Budget”.
Aerosols are a major component of pollution emissions that also collectively increase the reflection of sunlight from the atmosphere and clouds, offsetting a significant but uncertain amount of warming. Ongoing, successful efforts to reduce these aerosols to improve air quality - including both emissions reduction and the implementation of technologies that remove particulates while releasing greenhouse gasses - are projected to result in large but uncertain warming effects that influence weather and climate.
Imperative to characterize weather and climate influences in the atmosphere
The United States and the world currently lack the data, information and tools to evaluate weather modification and climate intervention activities and accurately project the influence of pollution aerosols on climate. Associated risks to public safety, economic security, natural resources and national, regional and global security demand swift action to address these gaps.
Addressing these gaps requires improved measurement and assessment capabilities for understanding influences on Earth’s atmosphere and radiation budget, including, as a priority, the effects of pollution aerosols and proposed climate interventions in the stratosphere and in cloud-aerosol processes.
NOAA provides critical data and information on the atmosphere and ocean to support public safety and economic resilience. Over the past five years Congress has provided additional resources for critical observations of the atmosphere that would not have otherwise been carried out. Aircraft flights, in collaboration with NASA, have provided a wealth of new data to provide NOAA with information to inform baselines for analysis and detection of climate interventions in the stratosphere. Expanding NOAA’s efforts via expanded authorities to provide the observations, scientific research, models and other tools, including small-scale emissive studies, to report on the current and projected composition of the atmosphere and influences on Earth’s radiation budget can powerfully address critical information gaps in understanding and regulating weather modification and climate intervention.
Imperative for well-structured regulatory mechanisms for weather modification and climate intervention activity
Today, programs that emit deliberately aerosols into the atmosphere to alter weather and climate also fall into regulatory gaps., Aerosol emissions are extensively regulated with respect to human health and direct environmental impacts. There is not currently a regulatory structure for evaluating and regulating weather and climate effects from aerosol emission activities. This type of evaluation is challenging in the context of large scientific uncertainties on the effects of aerosols on clouds, weather and climate.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the agency charged with enforcing environmental regulations to assure compliance with standards for air and water quality and direct impacts on the environment. Their capabilities include robust legal, regulatory, administrative and enforcement functions such as monitoring, reporting, application of fines, and various types of legal actions, and related coordination with both local and international agencies across environment and law enforcement. EPA currently has jurisdiction over emissions into the atmosphere, along with substantial regulatory and enforcement functions. EPA also has authority over activities that introduce material into the ocean, including new regulations on marine carbon dioxide removal and marine solar radiation management activities. However, EPA does not have sophisticated weather forecasting and analysis capabilities, or equivalent weather and climate intervention research functions.
NOAA has extensive capabilities for research, observation and analysis of the atmosphere, weather and climate in its National Weather Service (NWS) and Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) divisions. However, NWS and OAR do not currently have any permitting or enforcement functions, infrastructure, personnel or expertise. (NOAA’s only permitting programs are limited programs related to fisheries and marine sanctuaries.) Establishing enforcement functions in the relevant functions in NOAA would require a statutory expansion of NOAA’s authorities. It would also require the definition, establishment and execution of new functions, which would take considerable time and resources away from the execution of the research expansion required to support these activities.
Imperative for research to support regulatory evaluation of weather modification and climate intervention activities
Longstanding uncertainties in the influence of aerosols on clouds, weather and climate, and limited investments in observations, models and science for better characterization of these phenomena, present challenges to oversight and regulation of activities to actively influence them. Effective regulation of climate and weather modification requires focused research directed at evaluating the scale thresholds for environmental impact, beneficial effects and impactful side effects, and the requirements for monitoring, evaluation and reporting for projects and programs.
Increased public awareness, concern and misinformation regarding weather modification and climate intervention is heightening public and political activity in this area, including state-level actions variously opposing and supporting weather modification activities and climate intervention research., This increased public attention heightens the need for research to provide effective information and tools for evaluation by a broad range of stakeholders.
Small-scale emissions studies are a long-standing, essential tool for developing models to project the impacts of emissions of substances into the environment at larger scales. There is a current lack of distinction between non-impactful small-scale studies and large-scale activities and lack of communication regarding the critical role of outdoor emissive research studies in supporting regulation and public safety. These studies are currently inhibited by conflation of research with impact-scale activity, lack of public information about the public safety role of research, and the dissemination of misinformation, which has, in some cases, increased localized opposition to research efforts. Any update to 15 CFR Part 908 or other legislative or administrative action should enable and prioritize these small-scale studies.
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