In 1989, from left, Raymond Falconer, Vincent Schaefer, Bernard Vonnegut, and Duncan Blanchard pose for the camera. In the late 1940s they worked together on Project Cirrus at the Research Laboratory of the General Electric Company in Schenectady, New York, on a variety of researches of a fundamental nature on the formation of clouds, rain, and snow. During that time, as a result of Schaefer's discovery that dry ice could be used to convert a supercooled cloud of water droplets into ice crystals, and Vonnegut's that silver iodide smokes did a similar thing, a number of pioneering cloud seeding operations were carried out. The four scientists eventually left General Electric to pursue their individual interests but, in the 1960's, after Schaefer founded the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center, they returned to work together once again at ASRC.
Photo: Roger Cheng; caption written by Duncan Blanchard.
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