Human activity causes climate change? Yes, but from greenhouses gases, not weather modification

An image shared on Instagram claimed that climate change is created by humans — but not because they burn fossil fuels.

"What if ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’" were from "private corporations using the 350-plus weather modification patents they’ve developed since 1920 to engineer adverse weather events?" text across the image said. "Newsflash: That is 100% what is going on."

The post, which included an image of a polar bear, was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

We found no evidence that weather modifications, such as seeding clouds to induce rain or snow, cause global climate change.

Cloud seeding adds tiny particles called ice nuclei to help clouds produce rain or snow. The nuclei create a base of supercooled liquid water — the raw material from which rain or snow is formed.

Those efforts have "small impacts and no capacity to change the overall climate," said Andrew Dessler, an atmospheric sciences professor and director of the Texas Center for Climate Studies at Texas A&M University.

Dessler echoed other experts who said weather modifications have minimal effects that can’t change the climate or cause large-scale weather events.

Research so far has shown that weather modification is only moderately effective at boosting rain or snowfall. Though scientists have discussed whether it could be a potential tool in future efforts to combat global climate change, experts caution it’s a complex problem and numerous obstacles could stand in the way, including its effectiveness.

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Video shows floods in Valencia, Spain.

Howard Diamond, a scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Air Resources Laboratory, said cloud seeding, for which patents are granted, is the only weather modification being used in the U.S. 

Changes to large-scale weather and climate patterns are caused by greenhouse gas emissions and other factors, not weather modification, Diamond said: "The growth in carbon dioxide from human emissions is causing an unnatural spike in CO2 that would in nature take about 20,000 years to accomplish."

The American Meteorological Society says that in the past half century, the leading cause of climate change, including rising Earth and ocean temperatures, rising sea levels and more powerful storms, is human activity that produces greenhouse gases.

Most of the world’s scientists agree that climate change is driven by greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere from human activity. 

The gases, notably carbon dioxide, are produced when fossil fuels such as coal and oil are burned for energy. 

When these gases accumulate in the atmosphere, they trap heat and raise surface temperatures, leading to changes in climate. 

Without evidence to back the claim that weather modification technology causes climate change, we rate the claim False.

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