In 1989,
from left, Raymond Falconer, Vincent Schaefer Bernard Vonnegut, and Duncan Blanchard pose for the camera. In the late
1940s they worked together on Project Cirrus at Research
laboratory of the General Electric Company in Schenectady,
New York, on a variety of
researches of a fundamental nature on the formation
of clouds, rain, and snow. During that time, as a result
of Schaefer’s discovery that dry ice could be used to
convert a super cooled cloud of water droplets into
ice crystals, and Vonnegut’s that silver iodide smokes
did a similar thing, a number of pioneering cloud seeding
operations were carried out. The four scientists eventually
left General Electric to pursue their individual interests,
but in the 1960s, after Schaefer founded the Atmospheric
Sciences Research Center, they returned to work
together once again at ASRC. Text:
Dr. Duncan Blanchard, Photo: Roger J. Cheng |
