Should China Try to Modify the Weather at the Summer Olympics?

May 02, 2008

If you’re a fellow conspiracy-theory buff, you’re undoubtedly aware of the suspicions raised on the Internet about so-called chemtrails, which resemble ordinary aircraft exhaust to everyone except those who believe they actually are part of a top-secret U.S. military plot to control the weather. The truly ironic thing about that supposition is that on the other side of the planet, virtually unnoticed by online cabal enthusiasts, somebody else has been engaged for decades in a massive meteorological manipulation effort that vastly outstrips anything ever attempted in this country. I’m talking about the government of China and its half-century-long effort to make it rain — or not rain — wherever it chooses.

It is true that weather manipulation was pioneered in the 1940s by two American scientists, Vincent Schaefer and Bernard Vonnegut (brother of novelist Kurt). They got the idea of using substances such as silver iodide and frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice) to cause super-cooled liquid water in clouds to form ice crystals, which then fall to Earth as rain or show. But it was the Chinese who embraced the concept and put it to work on a large scale in the mid-1950s, as a way of combating the devastating droughts and water shortages that historically have plagued their country. Communist founding father Mao Zedong gave the effort his personal blessing, opining that “man-made rain is very important … I hope that meteorological professionals put more effort into it.”

And they did. By the 2000s, China’s national Weather Modification Office was spending $100 million annually on its weather modification efforts, which employ 50,000 workers and an arsenal of nearly 7,000 artillery pieces and 4,000 rocket launchers to pummel the clouds with rain-inducing chemicals. By China’s own estimate, its  rainmakers generated an additional 250 billion tons of rain between 1999 and 2007, an amount sufficient to fill the Yellow River four times over. Qin Dahe, director of the China Meteorological Administration, has boasted to the Chinese news agency Xinhua that “China has become the world's number one in its weather modification service scale.”

Western scientists, it should be mentioned, are skeptical about the Chinese claims about their weather-manipulating capability.

In addition to making it rain or snow on command, China’s weather modifiers are now taking on an even more ambitious task — preventing rainfall that might put a damper on this summer’s Olympic Games in Beijing.  A recent article in Technology Review describes their plan:

"To prevent rain over the roofless 91,000-seat Olympic stadium that Beijing natives have nicknamed the Bird's Nest, the city's branch of the national Weather Modification Office — itself a department of the larger China Meteorological Administration — has prepared a three-stage program for the 2008 Olympics this August.

First, Beijing's Weather Modification Office will track the region's weather via satellites, planes, radar, and an IBM p575 supercomputer purchased from Big Blue last year, that executes 9.8 trillion floating point operations per second. It models an area of 44,000 square kilometers (17,000 square miles) accurately enough to generate hourly forecasts for each kilometer.

Then, using their two aircraft and an array of twenty artillery and rocket-launch sites around Beijing, the city's weather engineers will shoot and spray silver iodide and dry ice into incoming clouds that are still far enough away that their rain can be flushed out before they reach the stadium.

Finally, any rain-heavy clouds that near the Bird's Nest will be seeded with chemicals to shrink droplets so that rain won't fall until those clouds have passed over. Zhang Qian, head of Beijing's Weather Modification Office, explains, 'We use a coolant made from liquid nitrogen to increase the number of droplets while decreasing their average size. As a result, the smaller droplets are less likely to fall, and precipitation can be reduced.' August is part of Northeast Asia's rainy season; chances of precipitation over Beijing on any day that month will approach 50 percent. Still, while tests with clouds bearing heavy rain loads haven't always been successful, Qian claims that 'the results with light rain have been satisfactory.'"

Western scientists have expressed their doubts about whether any of this will actually work. A 2003 National Academy of Sciences report concluded that although seeding clearly caused changes in clouds, there was insufficient data to prove that attempts to manipulate the weather really are effective. “There is no scientific literature available that can substantiate (Chinese) claims,"  Roelof Bruintjes, who leads the weather modification group at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, recently told the Denver Post. "Personally, I'm very skeptical about what they're claiming to do."

But let’s suspend that disbelief for a second, and assume that the Chinese weather manipulators can indeed halt Beijing’s summer rains. Tampering with the city’s weather may well exacerbate Beijing’s infamously polluted air, which contains the highest levels of poisonous nitrogen dioxide on the planet. "The only thing that cleans up the pollution is the rain," explains Veerabhadran Ramanathan, an atmospheric scientist at the University of California-San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, in a recent interview with USA Today. “And if they are going to suppress rain, my worry is the pollution will be oppressive. It's a Catch-22."  Staging endurance running and cycling events in such conditions could cause athletes to perform wretchedly and possibly even endanger their health — thus tarnishing the luster of China’s big moment on the world stage.

So, what do you think? Should the Chinese try to manipulate the weather during the Olympics? Or should they let nature take its course? Express your opinion below.

Comments

[Joey]

If they mess with the weather in Beijing, does that have an effect on weather elsewhere in the world? I wouldn't be surprised if it causes a big destructive storm somewhere else.

[Sock Puppet]

What is that thing that the runner is wearing on his face? It looks like a gas mask. I didn't know the air in Beijing was THAT bad!

[Yao]

Like the rest of the western news media, you are again criticizing China unfairly, this time for its technological accomplishments.

[Sam Smith]

What are the potential health risks of dispersing silver iodide into the athmosphere in large quantities? It would end up in the groundwater.

[The Rain Master]

As the world turns theses nitrogen gases will poison not so much China but the western countries to it such as the states of California, Idaho, Seattle, Alaska and reach as far as New York. The spinning earth will allow other countries to, in 48 hours, to take their turns to sit beneath these clouds and suffer havoc and destruction. This action seemingly contains a dual result that while impressing the cognitive minds of ignorant and arrogant scientists will inevitably and by no means accidently violate International Air Space with Noxious Gases and deadly fumes. What is there to ask? It’s a No Brainer! If the military shoots down enemies who violate air space what excuse will NASA, The Pentagon, and The UN give to the people will suffer from this FIASCO? Would it be something like this...."We didn't anticipate its affects or effects!" Or we were fighting a non-tangible enemy...I mean what are we as a people allowing leading bodies to do without suing common sense to a t one even question the dangers in this experiment and to even pose a query to simply suggest that we comment on this act. This in itself should be a cause for Global Alarm and the world should be on alert! Does this sound like an extreme response? Well the question is neither common place nor an interrogative that requires more of a response to arms than it does to a response of mere casual pondering.

[The Rain Master]

As the world turns these nitrogen gases will poison not so much China but the western countries such as the states of California, Idaho, Seattle, Alaska and reach as far as New York. The spinning earth will allow other countries to, in 48 hours, take their turns to sit beneath these TOXIC clouds and suffer havoc and destruction. This action seemingly contains a dual result that while impressing the cognitive minds of ignorant and arrogant scientists will inevitably, and by no means accidently, violate International Air Space with Noxious Gases and deadly fumes. What is there to ask? It’s a No Brainer! If the military shoots down enemies who violate air space then what excuse will NASA, The Pentagon, and The UN give to the people who will suffer from this FIASCO? Would it be something like this...."We didn't anticipate its affects or effects!" Or we were fighting a non-tangible enemy...I mean what are we as a people allowing leading bodies to do without using a common sense to ask or even question the dangers this experiment will pose. To even pose a query to simply suggest that we comment on this act instead of asking people to write to world leaders in itself is wierd and out of order. This in itself should be a cause for Global Alarm and the world should be on alert! Just because we dont have any written scientific evidence or data to prove that the experiment wont do harm...common sense speaks and states that clouds travel as the earth spins!!! Does this sound like an extreme response? Well the question is neither common place nor an interrogative that requires more of a response to arms than it does to a response of mere casual pondering. It sounds more like noxious Air Dumping and a retarded excuse to tax and charge money for clean air.

[The Rain Master]

Lack of rains may invoke wider spreads of diseases and viruses. Sudden down burst of rain may cause floods and lack of rains may allow for spreading viruses and provide ample environment for spread of bacteria.

[Madonna]

As the Chinese put more and more effort into cloud seeding, they're also burning more and more coal and pumping increasing amounts of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere in their at-any-cost quest for economic growth. Since global warming greatly exacerbates droughts and other weather extremes, their runaway carbon production itself is a potent form of weather modification--one that will more than cancel out all those artillery shells and rockets laden with silver iodide that they're firing into the sky. Unless The Chinese give up that old Maoist hubris about subjugating nature, they're headed for an eventual environmental catastrophe, the likes of which this planet has never seen.

[Chuck Heinz]

How toxic is silver iodide?

[otmothra]

That's a creepy idea. That's just weird. Power mad meteorologists, changing the weather at will...just like Simon Bar Sinister and his weather machine in "Underdog." That's why it's creepy.

[Caffeine Driven Stress Magnet]

No, I don't want them to do it. But somehow, I sense that if they're not listening to the world about Tibet, my objection to weather modification isn't going to matter.

[Chen Qiang]

This article is misinformed. Chinese weather modification efforts have helped to counteract the effects of pollution, not make them worse. Here is a study that demonstrates it. http://ams.confex.com/ams/Annual2005/techprogram/paper_85222.htm

Weather modification also has been used to clean up the after-effects of a giant sandstorm in Beijing.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12644965/from/RSS

[Turion]

I don't see how suppressing rainfall in Beijing will do anything but make the pollution worse. The Israeli study that Chen cites actually shows that cloud seeding to stimulate rainfall can cancel out some (but not all) of the drought-causing effect of pollution. If they were causing it to rain more in Beijing, that might help. But they're doing the opposite.

[Shenzhen Girl]

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/2008-04/11/content_6607958.htm

Rainmaking projects 'no threat'
By Tan Yingzi (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-04-11 07:03

The chemicals used in projects to reduce rainfall pose no danger to people or the environment, the head of the Beijing weather modification department said Thursday.

Since 2002, the city's meteorologists have been experimenting with rain-control techniques in a bid to prevent downpours during the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics.

Speaking in response to media questions on the safety of the methods, Zhang Qiang, director of the weather modification department of Beijing's meteorological bureau, said there is no scientific evidence of any harmful effects.

"Chemicals, such as silver iodide and liquid nitrogen, are widely used in rainfall suppression projects in many countries. And after years of research, meteorological experts from around the world have found no proof there is any negative impact on people's health or the environment," Zhang said.

"The amount of silver iodide that ends up in rainwater is very small, far below the national standard for drinking water," she said.

The other widely used chemical is liquid nitrogen, Zhang said, but as the atmosphere is itself about 78 percent nitrogen, this "poses no harm to the environment".

Based on weather records, meteorologists have said there is about a 47 percent chance of rain on Aug 8 in Beijing, the opening day of the Olympics. And while the world's scientists have yet to find a way to master Mother Nature, authorities hope their efforts will at least prevent a wash out on that particular day.

"If a rainfall reduction operation is conducted on a small scale, relatively good results can be expected," Zhang said.

[Free Tibet]

The Chinese government is trying to alter the weather in Tibet, too...Tibetans of course have no say in this.

http://www.theenvironmentalblog.org/2007/04/china-creates-artificial-snowfall-in.html

[John Brisker]

Is there a way to prevent hurricanes with weather modification? That to me would be worthwhile. Preventing rain at the Olympic Games seems silly, in comparison.

[Stewart]

From the late 1960s through the early 1980s, the US government ran Project Stormfury (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Stormfury), an experimental effort to use cloud seeding to reduce the intensity of hurricane. They had what seemed like success with Hurricane Debbie in 1969, reducing the speed of winds by 30 percent. But later research showed that it was a naturally-occurring phenomenon, not human intervention, that caused the reduction in intensity, and that the hypothesis behind the project was flawed.

Here are some other weather modification ideas that I found at http://www.tech-faq.com/weather-modification-technology.shtml

Recently, a Florida-based company resumed experiments using a water absorbent material known as Dyn-O-Gel which can absorb as much as 2000 times its weight in water. The polymer then falls into the ocean as a form of gel which the company claims to be biodegradable and environmentally safe. In an experiment last 2001, 20,000 pounds of the material was successful in dissipating a thunderstorm that was noted by local radar stations.

Other proposals for weather modifications include coating the ocean in the path of the hurricane with a thin layer of vegetable oil to prevent water from evaporating and reinforcing a hurricane�s strength. There�s also a proposal to use orbiting mirrors in space to redirect sunlight. Cool pockets of air will be heated and weather will be altered.

[Astroboy]

WHEN THEY SHOOT ALL THOSE GUNS AND ROCKETS IN THE AIR, WHERE DO THE SHELLS COME DOWN? PEOPL ARE PROBABLY GETTIGN BLOWN UP ON THE GROUND!!!!!!!!!!

[Eat More Chicken]

Test tube meat doesn't sound very appetizing to me. I can't imagine that consumers will go for it, as long as real meat is available.

[Tony Liu]

Chinese weather modification experts will prevent rain on the opening ceremonies by causing it to rain the previous day. That will help reduce air pollution. I don't see how anyone can object to this.

[Gwen Fong]

Americans can't handle the idea that the Chinese could be number one in weather modification, something the Americans themselves invented.

[Flying Squirrel]

I think what Americans can't handle is the fact that China has an authoritarian system of government with no checks and balances, which has led to a lot of massive environmental disasters (like the Three Gorges Dam) in the rush to make economic progress. We're rightfully suspicious of Chinese weather modification because of this.

[Sanshou]

America has had its share of environmental disasters in the name of economic growth, too. And remember that Americans still consume more resources per capita than anyone in the world.

As for weather modification, there is no proof that it harms the environment.

[Daniel]

I don't think that they should do it because it could stop weather systems near Beijing and sooner or later there will be a massive storm an they would lose a lot of lives.

[Hu Jintao]

Pollution is a much bigger weather problem in Beijing than summer rainfall. If the Chinese government really wants to modify Beijing's weather for the better, they should impose permanent restrictions on vehicular traffic. The last time that they did this--for a two-week period, in 2006--the sky was brilliantly blue and the air in Beijing was breathable.