Von Cloud Seeding und Albedo Enhancement: Zur technischen Modifikation von Wetter und Klima

This paper links the history of Climate Engineering – currently discussed as a technological alternative to emissions mitigation – to the medial procedures of modeling, which have shaped the character of climate research since the mid 20th century. Laboratory experiments and early computer simulations of local weather events lead to attempts to modify single atmospheric conditions technologically and to make the atmosphere explicit – initially in the context of military operations, later for scientific reasons. Since the 1970s, simulations of global ecological interactions have not only generated a stable knowledge of climate change but have also suggested technological interventions to stabilize this climate system that apply to virtual components like the earth’s radiation balance and carbon dioxide management. The article illustrates how in climate research – as a paradigmatic symbiosis of natural and techno-sciences – the nature of the atmosphere has been transformed into a technologically controllable environment by the use of concepts from cybernetics and economy