The atmosphere is becoming a battleground. America must lead on safety.

I understand why millions of Americans look up at the sky with concern. Videos of unusual cloud formations circulate on social media, accompanied by questions about “chemtrails” and secret weather modification programs. 

While concerns often reflect misunderstandings about ordinary aircraft contrails and natural atmospheric phenomena, the underlying instinct — that something may be happening in our atmosphere that we don’t know enough about — is not exactly wrong.

Weather and climate modification are not conspiracy theories. They are real, expanding capabilities that demand public attention and government action. 

The question is whether the United States will lead in ensuring they emerge in the world safely and transparently or whether we will cede this emerging strategic domain to private interests and foreign competitors.

Consider what we know: China operates the world’s most extensive weather modification program, involving around 35,000 personnel, with 20 percent growth in activity from 2024 to 2025. 

President Xi declared that China would build a “weather superpower,” and his meteorological director stated, “weather modification technology is an important part of building a weather superpower.” 

Other nations including the United Kingdom, Australia, United Arab Emirates and Japan have launched large research and development programs.

Last month, Stardust Solutions — a private company proposing to disperse particles in the stratosphere to influence global climate — secured $60 million in venture capital, the largest funding round ever for an atmospheric intervention company. 

A few weeks prior, the New York Times featured a nonprofit proposal to fast-track dispersing particles into the stratosphere. 

Private organizations face structural pressures that conflict with objective safety evaluation. Companies must advance their proprietary approach and move quickly to generate returns. Nonprofits advocating for specific interventions face pressures to advance the approaches they have championed and been funded to pursue. 

Truly independent assessment must be conducted drawing on strong science by public institutions free from the incentives and pressures affecting both commercial ventures and advocacy nonprofits.

Here’s what should worry us: America is falling behind in the one area where we should lead — the science and data needed to ensure atmospheric safety and security.

The United States historically excelled at atmospheric observation and rigorous, independent scientific assessment. The U.S.-led Montreal Protocol’s success in protecting the ozone layer demonstrated the power of robust research and science-based decision-making. 

Yet today, we lack the basic information infrastructure needed to evaluate or respond to atmospheric interventions to ensure public safety.

• We are not adequately monitoring the atmosphere. Despite efforts by the U.S. government to provide a baseline of the stratosphere — the very region companies like Stardust target — right now we lack adequate aerial sampling measurements of its chemistry. American satellite instruments dedicated to observing the stratosphere remotely are projected to discontinue service soon, leaving us increasingly blind to a domain of growing strategic importance.
• We cannot sufficiently project atmospheric effects of weather and climate interventions. Current models cannot predict the impact on weather patterns, precipitation, agriculture and ecosystems with the precision required for decision-making.
• We have not developed protections to ensure safety. Without adequate observations and research, we lack the monitoring capabilities and regulatory frameworks to protect against risks to the ozone layer, changes in weather patterns and other potential side-effects and to compare them to a future Earth system without intervention.

This knowledge deficit has profound national security implications. A state with large-scale weather control capabilities could gain leverage in geopolitical conflicts, manipulate precipitation patterns affecting food, water, economic activity, communications and human health or conduct interventions that harm U.S. interests without clear attribution.

The path forward requires sustaining globally unique U.S. federal atmospheric science programs and rapidly expanding our knowledge base — not building deployment capabilities. 

This means public investment in sustained atmospheric observations, improved models and analytical tools, comprehensive evaluation of intervention approaches and independent scientific assessment mechanisms.

To those concerned about secret programs: The transparency and public oversight enabled by research are precisely what we need more of, not less. 

The real danger comes not from government and academic scientists conducting open research (such as atmospheric programs at NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency), but from private and foreign actors operating without transparency, public input or monitoring.

We cannot prevent everyone, everywhere from developing atmospheric interventions. But we can ensure the United States leads in building the knowledge base for safety and security. This requires reversing divestment trends, expanding funding for atmospheric observation infrastructure, modeling and science, and developing evidence-based regulatory frameworks.

The atmosphere is emerging as a domain of strategic competition with profound implications for national security, economic competitiveness and public safety. Public concerns about what’s happening in our atmosphere are valid.  

Let’s channel them into action with the right investments in science and transparency to ensure atmospheric safety and security now, or risk losing control of the skies that shape our future.

Kelly Wanser is executive director of SilverLining, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring a safe and secure atmosphere. She has helped to develop legislation, established a program and fund for research on atmospheric Earth system responses and served as a consultant for the U.S. Department of State.