6/27/2019 – This experiment is now offline for data analysis. This page will be retained for archive purposes. Subscribe to our mailing list (link below) for updates and information on future experiments.

Welcome to the Online Turbulence Experiment.

Credit: C. Fukushima and J. Westerweel, Technical University of Delft

Scoreboard Top 10 (full scoreboard here)

Note: Only scores of those who consented to being displayed are shown, and rankings are only valid within that subgroup of participants.

Rank	User ID	Number of Sessions	Average Session Odds (1 in …)	Best Session Odds (1 in …)
1	EnergyMind	1	165.8	165.8
2	Chot	1	18.4	18.4
3	carlo	1	18.2	18.2
4	Hule	2	12	12
5	Raven Hook	1	7.7	7.7
6	BJB	1	6.4	6.4
7	Raeben	1	6	6
8	Ricky the Ape	1	5.8	5.8
9	wickedfairy	1	5.3	5.3
10	niyad	1	5.3	5.3

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Turbulence, at its most basic definition, is the chaotic and unpredictable movement of any fluid (air, water, etc). Most people only care about it on airplanes, but in reality we observe and experience it all the time – from gusts of wind, to beautiful waterfalls, to your own bathtub faucet. Turbulence is a vital force for many things, including crop health, ventilating the air of pollutants, reducing the intensity of hurricanes, and even regulating Earth’s climate system.

In Platteville, Colorado, we have access to data recorded by a special instrument that measures turbulence (click here if you are interested in technical details). Follow the link below for the exact location:

Google Map centered on Platteville Atmospheric Observatory

What we are asking you to do is, when prompted, attempt to increase the intensity of turbulence – that is – invite the airflow around the instrument to become more chaotic.

An experiment session takes 10 minutes. You can do as many sessions as you would like.

Unfortunately, live feedback for this experiment is not available. However, this scoreboard will update roughly every week, for those consenting to their scores being public.

Important information about the ethics of weather-working:

I have come to understand that the indigenous perspective on influencing weather is extremely important for this work. We do not want to view ourselves as a potential entity to have power over nature, or “control” the weather with our minds. Rather, we are inviting (rather than demanding) changes to occur in the atmosphere that will be beneficial. This simple change in perspective is extremely important. “Let me consciously invite and welcome turbulence” is a much better thought than “let me try to make more turbulence with my mind”. In doing a session, it may be helpful to visualize turbulence as a helping force behind evapotranspiration of plants, or dispersing air pollutants away from the ground. If you have any questions on this approach or wish to get a better understanding of its importance, please email the researcher before starting a session.

• Subscribe/unsubscribe to our mailing list here to be notified of future research you can participate in, if you would like. You can also do this on the questionnaire before starting a session.
• Feel free to like our facebook page
• I am looking for cases where mental intentions may have influenced the weather. If you know of or witnessed any such cases and can provide approximate dates and locations, please contact me.
• If you’re able, please use this form to report instances where you ended a session early (i.e. walked away from or closed web browser) within a week of the session.

Researcher Contact Information: djcaputi at ucdavis dot edu

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