Cloud Writing

The Geophysical Institute's Dr. Takesi Ohtake is proposing to write letters on the clouds, giant letters big enough to be recorded by photo imaging systems on weather satellites. He and coworkers from the Denver Research Institute are hoping to test seeding methods for dissipating the low-level summer clouds along Alaska's arctic coast. These clouds hinder navigation and may also adversely affect the plant and animal life of the northern coast which receives precious little sunshine at best.

Using a light aircraft for seeding operations, Dr. Ohtake and his fellow scientists hope to fly patterns that will produce mile-long holes in the clouds in the form of letters of the alphabet. These then should be recognized by imaging systems on a satellite scheduled to fly over Alaska shortly after the cloud seeding. We wish Dr. Ohtake success and admonish him to keep it clean.