I heard it talked about a long time ago but I tried looking it up and I feel like I don’t fully understand it. And I sometimes hear it brought up nowadays.
In: Technology
High Active Auroral Research Program aka HAARP. Its not a weather system. Its a unique radio system.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program)
Basically it sends a high frequency radio pulse up, and it interacts with the atmosphere and you get some interesting results.
[https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article-abstract/68/12/72/415022/HAARP-the-most-powerful-ionosphere-heater-on?redirectedFrom=fulltext](https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article-abstract/68/12/72/415022/HAARP-the-most-powerful-ionosphere-heater-on?redirectedFrom=fulltext)
“perhaps most spectacularly the production of an artificial ionospheric plasma generated by radio waves” – IE you can induce heating in a spot and get pretty lights and other radio pules out of that spot. Some think you could heat such a spot hot enough to destroy inbound missiles from say Russia (which is one of the reasons it was built in Alaska) as most missiles from Russia would have to cross the pole and Alaska happens to be in a good spot to maybe do something about that. It didn’t pan out due to the inverse square law. Basically you need a LOT bigger system.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_propagation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_propagation)
[https://www.ktoo.org/2022/09/14/at-open-house-scientists-explain-what-haarp-can-and-cant-do/](https://www.ktoo.org/2022/09/14/at-open-house-scientists-explain-what-haarp-can-and-cant-do/)
“powered by five powerful diesel generators” – transmitting about 4 megawatts to 10 megawatts of power, far from enough to change things like weather. It can cause localized phenomena, and its purpose is to explore those elements.
It can also be used to communicate with submarines under water below the ice. It does this because the HF radio bounces back out of the ionosphere at a much lower frequency. This is one of the things its intended to research alongside atmospheric endeavors. This means keeping the US nuclear deterrence safe and able to be called into action anytime. Nations without this ability have to have their subs come up and check in, at these points they are more vulnerable. Because of HAARP the US was able to refine ways to have deep submerged communications.
Some people think HAARP can make weather including something as big hurricane, but hurricanes contain something like 5,000 to 10,000+ nuclear bombs worth of energy (Think petawatts+ not megawatts). The HAARP x5 diesel generators just do not have enough power to effect the planet in any large way. HAARP is about as strong a mosquito beating its wing. How does something like that make wind, or rain? It can’t and doesn’t.
Fundamentally the issue people don’t understand is magnitude and so people easily miss the math that shows how improbable something like HAARPs impact on systems as large as planetary weather. Locally in a way yes. It can heat the atmosphere in one small location and we can explore that impact but its radio is pointed “up” and it’s in Alaska, well away from everything.
Not only that but its been around since like 1993, if the US could control weather, we would use it for things like supplying water/rain to dry areas so dams could have water to make power and grow crops. Since we have a lot of dry weather now in the west, It seems like it can’t do much in that way.
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