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China Modifies Weather For 2008 Olympics
BRock97 writes: "An article in the August 5th issue of Newsweek describes the steps the Chinese are taking to ensure a perfect forecast for the 2008 Olympics. This includes shutting down factories that are pumping pollution into the atmosphere to increasing the number of trees planted to reduce dust and erosion (need to spread these kind of ideas world wide!). The interesting aspect, though, is all the research and development into using rockets and furnaces to modify the atmosphere and create the weather that would be optimal for the games. By heating the air or dumping cloud condensation nuclei into the atmosphere, various types of weather can be achieved. Seems that they have had success as far back as 1987, creating rain to help put out a raging forest fire. Cool stuff from a weather nerd standpoint."
what will happen to their economy between now and then.... if they shut down the factories how do they expect to remain a country till 2008? wont the peons rebell?
This is how you know you're a geek the power goes out and you are unemployed and unemployable. Yes I know I can't spell
The Chinese government announced a new tactic for enforcing state-controlled censorware: Lightning.
If they will have the ablilty to create typhoons off the coast of China right where US spy planes are doing reconnisance.
"There has been a great deal of talk about the weather over the years, but very little has ever actually been done."
Or more familiarly: "Everybody talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it."
Karma, please.
I am no Luddite. I support the development of nuclear power and human cloning. But weather strikes me as the kind of thing that is just not the kind of thing we should be messing with.
Don't we have more important problems than making sure there's good weather for some sporting event that's 6 years off? Weather is an inconvenience, not a threat. We need to concentrate on using our biological and biotechnological knowledge and research to solve world hunger (by growing so-called "super food" and eliminating pests), stablize primitive nations (using factory-produced soldiers so none of our sons need die), and put an end to child labor (by creating affordable and reliable robotic labor in the world's developing regions).
Never mind the fact that the primitive cultures, and even Christianity (see, e.g., the Bible) often attribute the workings of weather to divinity. The weather is quite literally a phenomenon that occurs in the domain of the Heavens. It was not meant for Man to meddle in the movements of air masses. We may study them, wonder about them, even appreciate their beauty. But when we start to presume that we can control the weather, then we are on the road to our own destruction.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
"Seems that they have had success as far back as 1987, creating rain to help put out a raging forest fire."
It sure would be a fantastic show of goodwill if China were to help us out a bit here in the states before the entire West burns to a cinder.
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
Shutting down factories wouldn't seem to change the weather..
Maybe in China the weather report consists of what the pH of today's "rainfall" will be. I'm all for reducing pollutants in the atmosphere, but that's not the weather.
"Partly cloudy today with a pH high in the lower single-digits.. Better wear those chemical-resistant booties"
Problem is we have little idea what the long term effects would be on the envionment. Since we can't yet completely accurately model weather patters on a global scale there is no telling what changing the weather in China could do to the weather in other parts of the world (like maybe drought in Australia or the US?).
... they'll be killing all of the butterflies. They're in the way of the Three Gorges Dam anyhow.
..Taken to extremes?
Brings new meaning to the words "Cold War."
I'm only halfway kidding.
"And like that
- Changing Our Weather One Smokestack at a Time
- Thunderstorms are affected by Pollution (May 2002)
- Tiny Particles of Pollution May Carry Large Consequences for Earth's Water Supply (December 2001)
Dust can also have an effect on rainfall. For a more general view of aerosols and there effects on climate change check out an aerosol fact sheet.I realize these links have a bias for NASA but NOAA is also actively researching this area.
.:: proud supporter of dc united
Wow! Rain was averted a total of four times in the past ten years. Out of what is likely hundreds or thousands of attempts, that's almost as good as pure luck!
Using aircraft, rockets and even land-based furnaces...
At least they are also trying to be kind to the environment. ;)
So now Beijing is banishing polluting factories from city limits, planting trees to keep out dust blown in from the Gobi Desert and clamping down on vehicle emissions in hopes of guaranteeing blue skies by 2008.
Now if only they can stop people from peeing in the street (seriously).
--
dman123 forever!
Filtering out the -1s and 0s since 1999.
"Seems that they have had success as far back as 1987, creating rain to help put out a raging forest fire."
Yes and as far back as the early 1970's an international law was passed that warring contries could not control each other's weather for the purpose of winning the war.
Righteousness postpones the inevitable
http://burningaureole.caveism.net
I apologize for asking that.
-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
Come on...controlling the weather? Bull-fucking-shit. We can't even predict the weather with the world's best supercomputers. What makes anyone think we could actually control it.
This is just propaganda by the pseudo-communist Chinese government.
Control the weather my ass. Anyone dumb enough to believe that needs to be put away.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
That's it, tps12. I've been reading your overly dramatic posts for awhile now and you've finally made it on to my 'foe' list.
Weather is an inconvenience, not a threat.
The people who die in hurricanes, typhones, mudslides, droughts, tornadoes, and so forth may disagree with you.
We need to concentrate on using our biological and biotechnological knowledge and research to solve world hunger (by growing so-called "super food" and eliminating pests), stablize primitive nations (using factory-produced soldiers so none of our sons need die), and put an end to child labor (by creating affordable and reliable robotic labor in the world's developing regions).
There's more than enough food on the planet to feed the starving people. The problem is not technological, it's a problem of politics and distribution. Besides, if you're against fooling with Mother Nature regarding the weather, why are you so gung-ho about "eliminating pests"? As far as your other two examples, I don't even know where to begin...
Never mind the fact that the primitive cultures, and even Christianity (see, e.g., the Bible) often attribute the workings of weather to divinity.
So weren't supposed to be laisse-faire on the weather because primitive cultures believe the winds to be controlled by the gods?
The weather is quite literally a phenomenon that occurs in the domain of the Heavens.
Actually, the weather occurs in the domain of the atmosphere.
But when we start to presume that we can control the weather, then we are on the road to our own destruction.
Y'know, in spite of the fact that you're written a moderately lengthy post, you never once gave us any real reason why the weather is, as you put it, "not the kind of thing we should be messing with."
This post of yours is even worse than that one you made about the giant squid.
GMD
watch this
We can't not change the weather. Everything we do effects the weather. Globaly there is no such thing as doing nothing when it comes to the weather.
Your other ideas also neglect to consider closed environments. World hunger is related to population growth, food distribution and power (food is a weapon). You can't eliminate pests because lifeforms always adapt, bugs haven't existed for thousands of years for no reason. All our super food does currently is abuse certain current forms of pesticide in a monoculture crop. When that monoculture loses to the pests then bad things will happen.
There is no silver bullet in an ecosystem.
Seems that they have had success as far back as 1987, creating rain to help put out a raging forest fire.
It's a little known fact that this rain control research was originally designed by the government to extinguish burning Falun Gong protestors. The government eventually decided that beating the holy shit out of them worked better and was more cost-effective.
GMD
watch this
I was starting to think how funny it was and perhaps tps12 runs his posts thru some sort of prose converter to generate that stuff; and then I read this post:
6 3& cid=3973046
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=369
No way, the guy is a few beers short of a six-pack.
But seriously, it's nice to see them doing this. It's a shame that they're planting trees and shutting down factories for the Olympics (as opposed to just wanting to clean things up), but if that's what it takes, so be it.
For the communist party's 50th anniversary in 1999, China did the same thing.
Since the Party had decreed that there would be perfect weather for such a momentous occasion, they shut down factories around Beijing for the entire week beforehand. Then a day or two before, they seeded the clouds, so that it would rain the day before the celebration, but be Perfect Weather in Tiananmen Square for the Day.
And indeed, the weather was perfect. The smog had disappeared, and the sky was clear and blue...
(To mod someone down or reply... 'tis better to contribute than mod down, I guess.)
Weather modification is one of those topics that atmospheric scientists tend to avoid.
Why?
Simply put, it's not known if it even really works. Sometimes cloud seeding does work (see Gagin and Neumann, 1981); sometimes it has the opposite effect than desired or none at all (see Tukey et al., 1978; Kerr, 1982). There was a large bit of debate as to what effects cloud seeding really has. Let's not mention that there are also, what they call "windows of opportunity" where it is hypothesized that the seeding can even have any semblence of an effect.
Much of the research in the 60's and 70's on cloud seeding was fairly inconclusive, at best. Certain bits of weather modification make sense (for example, reducing the potential sizes of hailstones), but just the basic tenets of "can we control where storms will rain" and "microclimate change" like the Chinese seem to be talking about, are all in the scope of chaotic behavior.
Cloud mechanisms are incredibly nonlinear, so even a small change in the environment can have totally unforseen circumstances. And whether or not you can actually even GET a measurable response from the cloud is another matter altogether.
I applaud the Chinese for reigniting interest in this field (which has been mostly dead since the early 80's), but I wouldn't bet the farm on it working as planned. For the Olympics, the couple tens to hundreds of millions of dollars needed to run such programs could pay off in the end... but for many other situations, the cost does not justify the risky means. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if this whole endeavor falls flat in the end, though. The available data is very ambiguous about the effects, and I really don't see much else that could justify the amount of "positive vibes" the article transmitted.
Now taking bets on how many events are drowned out by a typhoon that they decided to seed that makes an "unexpected" turn...
-Jellisky
It'll be a cold Olympics in China before we can do anything even remotely like controling the weather.
(For you global warming guys: control is different then modify)
The hubris (and ignorance) of large bureaucracies can really be mind-boggling sometimes.
....is something that's been going on for a long, long time to provide rain for crops or to help control potential or pre-existing fires.
-psyconaut
You can run over students with tanks and force sterilize women but hey let's be EXTRA CAREFUL that the weather goes good for the games...
Way to focus on the important things in life...
Anyone read Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut? It has to deal with Chinese gravity experiments effecting the whole world.
How does the Chinese government expect to localize their "experiments" within their borders, whether they are successful or not?
Now for the stuff that matters:
Tiananmen Square, oh the happy memories!.
Let's not forget every parent's favourite, the child-quota!. (scroll down a bit)
Fuck the olympics, watching or visiting. If you want to feel good then make a difference! Come on, if you were thinking of going to the Olympics, or know someone who is, ask yourself/them whether Amnesty International [or any worthy cause down to the amusing local alcoholic vagrant] would make better use of the cash than the International Olympic Committee, Chinese Guvverment, etc...
Think about it.
Ali
Ph33r m3!!!