Antisemitism? Why cannot Israeli research be used to increase Australian rainfall?

Aron Gingis admits he's stubborn. "Look at my big bull head," he says, laughing. But the tale he tells of underhand tricks, power plays and public hectoring to protect scientific reputations and funding within CSIRO is no laughing matter. Gingis, a environmental engineer working in water resources, climate and atmosphere, alleges that leading Melbourne-based scientists at CSIRO and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology have worked together to deprive drought-plagued Australia of the latest rainmaking technology.

Gingis says the scientific establishment has misled government officials and policy makers about cloud-seeding science, disrupted scientific and public meetings and scuttled efforts to establish collaborative trials of new cloud-seeding technology. Observers claim this was done to protect funding, reputations and scientific ownership of a field CSIRO no longer even studies, that of hands-on weather modification technology such as cloud seeding. "They're at great risk of seriously embarrassing themselves," says Ian Searle of the scientists Gingis identifies as his opponents: CSIRO's division of marine and atmospheric research chief Greg Ayers, and Michael Manton, retired head of the BOM research centre and a former CSIRO scientist. When contacted by The Australian, Ayers and Manton express surprise at Gingis's allegations that they've conspired against him. "I find this very distressing," Ayers says.

Searle, however, isn't surprised. Now retired, he managed cloud-seeding projects at Hydro Tasmania for 31 years. He has watched Gingis bang that bull head of his against the wall, and he has also been on the receiving end of CSIRO nay-saying. "My experience with CSIRO has not been good," Searle explains. "It's been a long-standing experience of systematic opposition (to cloud seeding) from CSIRO outside Tasmania. The CSIRO dropped the ball in the late 1980s and how they're bagging cloud seeding whenever it's mentioned." Searle says that despite 30 years of pioneering work, CSIRO effectively abandoned weather modification. Its negative view hardened following a failed $6 million cloud-seeding trial conducted by CSIRO for Melbourne Water.

Gingis is head of Australian Management Consolidated in Melbourne, which specialises in applying remote sensing and automation technology to agriculture, water and air problems. In 1986, when he began representing the weather modification work of Abraham Gagin, from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, he and Gagin pushed for a $6 million Melbourne Water trial, only to be pushed out of the project. After learning of the disappointing results, the pair offered to review the work, at no cost, to find out what went wrong. The data was never released to them, or to Searle, who had trained the cloud seeders.

Gingis approached Gagin's successor, Daniel Rosenfeld, also from the Hebrew University, because the cloud physicist had devised methods of using satellite data to study the effects of air pollution on rainfall. "Through my consulting it was obvious to me that diminishing water resources were damaging the rural economy and environment and I recognised that Danny's scientific findings were very timely," Gingis recalls.

Rosenfeld, who was working with data from Australia, Turkey and Canada, contacted Manton suggesting a collaboration. "I had no response so I went ahead and published in Science in 2000," recalls Rosenfeld. "That's when Aron called. I thought, 'OK, I'll go with Aron.' We'd worked together before. Maybe we'll get somewhere." They began work with Peter McAllister, manager of air quality studies with the Victorian Environmental Protection Authority. Their assessment was that urban and industrial air pollution in Victoria had cut rainfall along a key Snowy Mountains watershed by about 1500 gigalitres a year, the equivalent of three Sydney Harbours. But their recommendations to reduce pollution or try cloud seeding were unwelcome. McAllister informed Gingis he'd been told to end the collaboration. McAllister has since left the EPA and The Australian was unable to confirm allegations that CSIRO had urged the EPA to drop the work in order to keep the project and funding in house.

Rosenfeld turned his attention to the US, Thailand, Argentina, Israel, China and South Africa: "Why bang my head against the wall in Australia?" he says. Bull-headed Gingis, however, ploughed on. He helped set up sessions with government and university scientists, politicians and officials, as well as irrigators and local councils to discuss possible trials and allow Rosenfeld to explain his science. What followed was a series of meetings where Ayers and Manton acknowledge they spoke vehemently against cloud seeding and Rosenfeld's findings. "It's quite normal that different points of view are presented," Ayers says. "It's the way science is done. It's a contest of ideas."

According to Gingis, Ayers and Manton went beyond muscular debate. Searle recalls a meeting at Parliament House in Canberra when "CSIRO had been given an inordinate amount of time to rubbish Danny Rosenfeld. It was a sad and depressing display of extraordinary bad manners, in my view. I would never tolerate that within my family or the workplace," he says. "I later discovered their case was flimsy indeed."

Jerry Killen, chairman of the Namoi Valley Customer Service Committee for NSW State Water, past chairman of the NSW Irrigators' Council and former president of the Namoi Water Users Association attended one meeting in Sale, Victoria. "I was absolutely disgusted," he says of the behaviour of Ayers and his CSIRO colleague Brian Ryan. "(They) were just trying to rubbish an overseas scientist who has a resume that's quite substantial."

Similarly, Jim Peterson, director of the Monash University Centre for Geographic Information Systems, was surprised by the "hostile" attitude displayed by Ayers and Manton at a seminar at Monash. Gang-Jun Liu, a geospatial expert then at the EPA but now with RMIT, was astonished when an EPA colleague told him he should not have arranged the Monash meeting. "She said I shouldn't have sent messages trying to promote a private individual," Lui says. "My understanding is that science doesn't belong to one community or agency. I thought it was ridiculous."

Manton and Ayers say these allegations are equally ridiculous. "I was not engaged in picking on anyone," replies Manton. "It's the nature of robust scientific debate." Besides, notes Manton, the World Meteorological Organisation concluded at a meeting in South Africa early this year - where Rosenfeld was honoured for his work - that the benefits of cloud seeding are "not clear". It's "controversial", adds Ayers, pointing to a 2003 report by the US National Academy of Sciences that concluded there's no scientific proof that weather modification, generally, works. Ayers and Manton point out that a 2002 report for the federal Government by former CSIRO scientist Neville Fletcher, now at the Australian National University, concludes there's "no convincing evidence" air pollution makes a negative impact on rainfall. They also note that the 2002 federal water inquiry again found inconclusive evidence for cloud seeding.

While CSIRO researchers dispute Rosenfeld's findings, they have been replicated worldwide. In weight of evidence Rosenfeld has a string of publications, while his Australian critics have only one critical speech to fight with. Rosenfeld remains baffled by the hostility, particularly from Ayers. "Why would a scientist do that? I cannot figure out what are the motivations," he says. Rosenfeld believes government scientists view Gingis as private-sector competition for limited research funds. "But by supporting (the private sector) it would increase the whole cake. There's no shortage of funding to get more water resources. It's happening in the US right now," he argues.

Searle couldn't agree more. He says weather modification, like the weather itself, is a matter of probability not certainty. As the science and technology advance, he argues, so too does the effectiveness of seeding, as results in Tasmania and overseas show. Feeding old arguments, alignments and methods into new inquiries helps little, argues Searle. "(CSIRO) have to be far more open-minded about advances in scientific research," he says. Gingis is determined to keep fighting." No, I'm not going to stop." he says. "I could pick up work overseas, especially in China, but our farming communities need this science here. Water is life. I'll continue to knock on doors and rattle cages."

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