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."

Comments

In other news...

[Dr. Bent]

The Chinese government announced a new tactic for enforcing state-controlled censorware: Lightning.

Obligatory Twain quote:

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

And to get rid of that pesky "Butterfly Effect"...

[Peter T Ermit]

... they'll be killing all of the butterflies. They're in the way of the Three Gorges Dam anyhow.

Intellectual Property

[Bouncings]

Since scientists control the weather, does that mean that the national weather service is infringing on intellectual property?

I apologize for asking that.

Re:Reminds me of something Clinton said once

[Tablizer]

(* After a tornado destroyed a town a few years back, Clinton (it might have been Gore) promised to devote federal money to research on preventing tornadoes in the American Midwest. *)

It is based on the theory that hot air generated from speaking politicians reduces tornado frequency.