Nature can be more devastating than man made weapons. Using the weather to unleash catastrophic events on our enemies while claiming that it was an act of God makes for a perfect scenario.

Controlling the weather in not a new concept. The Russians make sure that it never rains during the May Day parade by cloud seeding.

View the video on the right and answer the questions below.

How do aerosols play a part in influencing the weather?

Where do they come from?

How are clouds and aerosols linked?

What two types of aerosols exist?

How can aerosols be used to suppress clouds?

How can cloud seeding be used to influence a neighbouring country's food and water supply?

As climate change starts to impact on our planet rainfall will be redistributed leaving many regions of our planet desperate for food and water. Wars will be fought over water and food. Rivers that flow through many countries, such as the Mekong shown on the right, will have to be managed if all the countries involved are to benefit from the river.

Weather has played its part in deciding the outcome of human conflict on many occasions. The most memorable was the exceptionally bitter Russian winter of 1941 which was a major factor in halting the German advance on Moscow.

From fire, floods and drought to tsunamis the power of nature can impact greatly on human society.

Jet streams are powerful, fast flowing, air currents found in high altitudes of between 7 to 10 km above the surface in the Earth's atmosphere. The major jet streams on Earth flow west to east and the two strongest jetstreams are the polar jets and subropical jets, shown on the right. Jet airliners love to find the jet stream as they use less fuel and fly faster once in such airstreams going in the same direction.

It is hard to imagine Russia as having a bushfire problem but during the Great Russian Heatwave of 2010 this is exactly what happened. The heat wave was as a result of a stagnant high pressure system over parts of Russia. This caused extreme dry conditions that were ideal for bushfires.

The normal polar jetsteam formed undulations that remained stagnant over parts of Russia. This had a devastating effect by creating hot, dry conditions.

Talk of manipulating the global jetstreams abound. Discuss the potential catastrophic and beneficial effects if a country developed the ability to control the global jetstreams. In your discussion outline how jetstreams are formed and how they change to create weather patterns. What effect such changes have on the weather, crops, water supply and potential economic devastation of a nation.

How is a tsunami created and can it be artificially created off the coast of an enemy state using a nuclear device? Discuss.