China Claims Score In Weather Manipulation

hackingbear writes "Despite prior skepticism over effectiveness, China claims successful application of weather intervention to ensure a stunning Olympic opening ceremony, according to a report by the official Xinhua News Agency: 'We fired a total of 1,104 rain dispersal rockets from 21 sites in the city between 4 p.m. and 11:39 p.m. on Friday, which successfully intercepted a stretch of rain belt from moving towards the stadium,' said Guo Hu, head of the Beijing Municipal Meteorological Bureau (BMB). While there wasn't a single drop of rain over the National Stadium — also known as the Bird's Nest — during the opening ceremony from 8:00pm-12:00am on August 8, the weather services said that Baoding City of Hebei Province, to the southwest of Beijing, received the biggest rainfall of 100 millimeters Friday night, and Beijing's Fangshan District recorded a rainfall of 25 millimeters."

Comments

On tomorrow's agenda...

[Jophiel04]

Would be finding those darn smog dispersal rockets.

Olympic cyclists had a hard time coping with the combined effects of the humidity, temperature, and smog laden air and visibility of the flame cauldron was barely a mile.
http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/trackandfield/columns/story?columnist=caple_jim&id=3475952

Re:On tomorrow's agenda...

[Dan541]

The smog in China could be a tourist attraction itself. I have shown people photos just so they can see the smog engulfing the city skyline.

No where in the world have I seen smog like China, it is a unique sight.

Re:On tomorrow's agenda...

[TapeCutter]

"No where in the world have I seen smog like China, it is a unique sight."

It's dramatic but unfortunately it's not unique. Half a century ago the west were suffering pea-souper's of our own. Here in Melbourne Australia we have smog from bushfires during most summers, the summer of 06-07 was exceptionally bad with most of December looking like a bad day in Bejing.

Re:On tomorrow's agenda...

[ozbird]

That's not smog, that's smoke from the rain dispersal rockets (which clearly weren't used for the women's road race.)

Re:On tomorrow's agenda...

[johndmartiniii]

We have the same in Cairo in November from the rice-straw fires in the delta. The air is just black/gray in the morning and hangs. It is probably the reason for something that they expats collectively refer to as Cairo Lung.

The most controlled Olympics ever?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only is the weather being controlled but so are the people. For the first time ever the Olympic road cycling course was deserted. The silence freaked out quite a few of the riders, who are used to Tour de France conditions, where the spectators go berserk.

Re:The most controlled Olympics ever?

[dwater]

I watched it on tv too, and wasn't surprised that, on some parts of the course, there were no people there - I've been there, and it's quite a difficult place to get to even when the roads are open...of course, the roads would be closed for the races.

I wonder what the locals do....

Re:The most controlled Olympics ever?

[RiotingPacifist]

locals? I don't think you'll find many locals left in Beijing near the Olympic stadium. From the news that gets out it seamed like a robocop style Olympic village build.

Re:The most controlled Olympics ever?

[gringer]

Sure, they're there. Just look behind their big walls:

http://omoikane.minstrum.net/one-world.jpg

Re:The most controlled Olympics ever?

[dwater]

1) the event wasn't near the olympic stadium....it was from Beijing city up to the great wall.
2) the people who were claimed to 'live' where the stadia were built were most likely migrants that were squatting there illegally - it is very common in BJ.
3) there *are* locals living right near the main stadium - there are blocks of flats right next to the village occupied by locals. The flats are very similar to the one I lived in until a couple of months ago.
4) Do you *really* believe what you're shown/told on the news? If living in China has taught me one thing, it's to question what you're told. I thought that I knew this before I went there...but now I am back in 'the west', I find the amount of (apparent) BS on the news (particularly the BBC) quite disgusting - it seems they go knowing what to look for and if they find it, they don't look for reasonable (or even unreasonable, but culturally different) explanations...they just go 'ooh, look at the aweful Chinese; aren't they bad'. It's pathetic, sometimes (seems to be getting better now the games are actually running though).

All, my opinion though...and I seem to be in a minority in this respect on /., so I guess I'll be moderated troll or flamebait, because that's how people will respond....which isn't my fault.

Re:The most controlled Olympics ever?

[DeadDecoy]

That picture looks more like an anti-China pr piece, than anything else. If you look closely at the image, the wall isn't very long, tall or comprehensive as the photographer is able to get a picture of the disparity on foot. Sure, it's conveniently placed to hide the more impoverished parts of the town, but I don't think it's unreasonable that they want to present their best face to the world. If they were super totalitarian, they might have just relocated that person, preventing said image from being created.

Re:The most controlled Olympics ever?

[DigiShaman]

Media manipulation is a global phenomenon. Just about every country has their own agenda with it. For example in China, the media is controlled to protect the CCP and maintain control of the populous through mis-information. In the USA however, the media is all about the cultural "shock value". The more shock, the higher your ratings become for profit.

If anyone thinks there is a shred of honor left in any of the media conglomerates would be sorely mistaken. It's about bending, shaping, and molding the premise which to base the news on to achieve the predefined objective.

Re:The most controlled Olympics ever?

[dwater]

> in China, the media is controlled to protect the CCP and maintain control of the populous through mis-information

That's not my experience. It's more like they know to avoid certain topics. I was told that it's very different to how it used to be too - it's now all kind of unwritten, unlike a decade or so ago when it was a much more direct level of control.

...but, yes, media should be questioned and distrusted at all times, IMO - they just don't put the effort in to find the real history behind what they find. They're just lazy now - want quite results.

I recall a recent BBC story where they were searching for Chinese arms in Dafur. I mean, they weren't looking for arms from anywhere else. Eventually, after much effort, they found a couple of lorries (trucks), and they called that a success. Pathetic.

To be fair, they did 'discover' that the Chinese had sold them fighter jets before the embargo, which they said was understandable, but that the Chinese were still training them.

I find myself with many questions: 1) is that all? 2) did they 'sell' the training with the jets and so it's also prior to the embargo, 3) what about all the other weapons that the Sudanese were using?

I am not the most well educated person, especially when it comes to politics and such like, but if *I'm* coming up with these questions, surely they must too; but they weren't addressed, so I ended up writing the report off as biased.

I find it happens a lot these days. They come to a 'conclusion' before all the (obvious) questions are answered.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of Absence

[Tom90deg]

It's very hard to prove a negative. You could also claim that a squig of nutmeg around your neck will prevent alien abductions.

The tests of various rain-making programs have been more or less a wash. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't, or to look at it a diffrent way, sometimes it rains and sometimes it does not. I'll believe it when they can A) stop rain on demand, or B) start rain on demand. If you can't do either, sell your snake oil somewhere else.

Re:Absence of evidence is not evidence of Absence

[iminplaya]

You could also claim that a squig of nutmeg around your neck will prevent alien abductions.

Well, it's worked for me so far.

Re:Absence of evidence is not evidence of Absence

[denzacar]

I'll believe it when they can A) stop rain on demand, or B) start rain on demand.

A) They did stop rain on demand.
B) There is quite a difference between dispersing clouds that are already there and creating clouds out of nothing.
And any system that be able to effectively deliver water on demand would probably be far more expensive than digging a ditch and letting water flow through it.
Unless you are thinking of something like this at 5:00.
That might work... with some changes to the laws of physics.

Re:Absence of evidence is not evidence of Absence

[Joebert]

Let's stop and think about what makes up a rain cloud for a moment.
It's essentually just a bunch of water vapor suspended in the air with some dust particles.

Eventually the air becomes soo saturated that the water vapors combine and become too heavy to say airborne, turning into rain.

One thing I've noticed living here in Florida for 20+ years where it's quite moist is that it seems to rain on almost every holiday where there's
a) Masses of people BBQ-ing
b) Masses of people setting off fireworks

Both of these activities fill the air with excess dust particles, which eventually crowd the area where water vapor accumulates quicker than happens naturally & causes the rain to fall. I think it happens like that here in Florida because of the relative humidity. I believe the same thing would happen in for instance, Seattle where it's very wet.

Given the Chinese are using rockets, I think there's a very good chance they actually can control the weather, to a point. It's kinda like detonating land mines before troops get to them, except in this case it's all about making the rain fall before it gets to the place an event is being held.

Re:Absence of evidence is not evidence of Absence

[jamesh]

The tests of various rain-making programs have been more or less a wash. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't

We've been doing cloud seeding since the 60's or so here in Australia. It works under a fairly specific set of circumstances. You need clouds that are 'bursting at the seams' and are going to drop their rain at some point in the very near future. Given such clouds, you drop silver iodide into them and you'll increase the chance of the rain event happening now rather than a bit later, and probably increase the volume of rain too.

You'll never get rain out of air that just doesn't have enough moisture in it to begin with though.

And you can't stop it raining somewhere, except by coaxing the clouds into making their rain somewhere else first, which is what I think China did (or what I think China think they did :)

Re:Absence of evidence is not evidence of Absence

[Heian-794]

This guy supposedly did it a century ago:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Hatfield

Supposedly Hatfield noticed that it would frequently rain on battlefields somewhat after the fighting had died down. Extrapolating from this, he considered that perhaps something in the explosions was affecting clouds overhead.

Unfortunately, his chemical formula died with him, but it's an inspiring story if he really did come up with this idea himself and actually put into practice.

Re:Absence of evidence is not evidence of Absence

[value_added]

Given such clouds, you drop silver iodide into them and you'll increase the chance of the rain event happening now rather than a bit later, and probably increase the volume of rain too.

I'm wondering, from a purely technical point of view, whether this technique would be appropriate for the smug clouds known to exist over parts of Los Angeles. And if so, would you get rain, or an increase in the smugness index?

Re:Absence of evidence is not evidence of Absence

[dwater]

I think it's more than that in this case.

I've seen more tv programmes (inc news) about Chinese culture in the last week (controversial and not) than most of my life. This has to have a positive effect on the west understanding China generally.

Re:Absence of evidence is not evidence of Absence

[Anonymous Coward]

One thing I've noticed living here in Florida for 20+ years where it's quite moist is that it seems to rain on almost every holiday where there's
a) Masses of people BBQ-ing
b) Masses of people setting off fireworks

Whilst it sounds plausible, the smoke from these would tend to hang close to the ground, or at most, within a few hundred feet of the ground. Not up where the clouds are. Put another way, if you stuck your nose up around the clouds and took a sniff, you wouldn't smell smoke.

That it rains when people want to BBQ and set off fireworks is probably due to an entirely non-scientific effect: Murphy's Law.

Re:Absence of evidence is not evidence of Absence

[dbIII]

In 1902 the same thing was being down reasonably close to the middle of Australia. One of the vertical cannons used (Stiger Vortex Gun) now sits at the front of a Boy Scout hall. This was inspired by similar guns used in Italy in 1901 to prevent hail.

Apparently even now it is very difficult to say whether seeding any paticular cloud will work or not and if it does whether it would have rained anyway. There are a lot of variables so I'm not sure if "mysterious lost secrets from a dead master" are really going to help. Rain is always going to come eventually so clever confidence tricksters can always win.

Re:Absence of evidence is not evidence of Absence

[drinkypoo]

Just to put myself firmly in the crackpot camp, there was heavy chemtrail activity the day when the California fires began due to widespread heat lightning, in turn blamed on high temperatures and extremely low humidity. The idea of cloud seeding is to make the moisture fall out of the sky.

There's long-time evidence that cloud seeding works, and that "more is more" (as opposed to "less is more".) So there's no particular reason why you shouldn't believe that the seeding worked. On the other hand, now they're having flooding. Correlation does not imply causation, but tampering with chaotic systems is generally considered to have unforeseen consequences - which is why we call them 'chaotic'. They're confusing because they're complicated.

Remember, the most complicated computer systems in the world are used for what? Nuclear blast simulation, computational fluid dynamics/carbon fiber modeling/stealth/other highly repetitive modeling tasks, and climate modeling. About which I know next to nothing except that it keeps some very fast computers very busy.

Must have forgot to fire them today

[Timesprout]

I just watched the womens road race where they could have swapped bikes for canoes, the rowing is cancelled and several other events have been postponed because of rain.

Confucius say

[Provocateur]

He who controls the weather, reigns supreme

Thanks, I'll be here all week!

Re:China...

[kvezach]

Warning: Weather control device activated!

THERE IS NO SMOG.,

[Inominate]

That's just mist. It'd just evaporation and humidity. Stupid American propagandists.

In other news...

[SleepyHappyDoc]

The polar bear repellant has kept the streets of Beijing free of polar bear activity.

Ob. Simpsons

[ElMiguel]

Or, to put it in a more Slashdot-friendly way:

Homer Simpson: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm.

Lisa Simpson: That's specious reasoning, Dad.

Homer: Thank you, dear.

Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.

Homer: Oh, how does it work?

Lisa: It doesn't work.

Homer: Uh-huh.

Lisa: It's just a stupid rock.

Homer: Uh-huh.

Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around, do you?

[Homer thinks of this, then pulls out some money]

Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.

[Lisa refuses at first, then takes the exchange]

International implications?

[AmiMoJo]

The system in use does not prevent rain, it just makes it fall elsewhere. Assuming for a moment that the system will get better, and perhaps we will be able to control other aspects of the weather like wind or temperature, I can see weather control becoming an international issue in the future.

One country could blow smog away over another, or prevent it from entering their airspace. What if two neighbouring countries have different ideas, or one decides to wreck the other econnomy (deliberately or otherwise) by preventing rainfall over their neighbour, perhaps by "stealing" it for themselves?

We do this routinely in North America

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_seeding

1988 called...

[znerk]

They want their article back.

The article you linked to contains the following dateline: "Published: October 28, 1988"

Way to keep up with current events.

Re:This weather machine is a tad anti-climactic ..

[Frnknstn]

"This weather machine is a tad anti-climatic"

There, fixed that for ya.

Beijing as seen by a meteorologist

[ctwxman]

I am a meteorologist. I'm not going to dispute this particular Chinese claim, but I think it needs to be taken in context because the Chinese have not been above stretching the facts when it serves them.

The weather and air quality have been fairly close to the worrisome scenario painted months ago. I've been checking meteorological observations every day, finding the dew point at Beijing's airport in the mid and upper 70s on a regular basis and visibility of 1-2 miles common (It is currently under 1 mile, but there is rain falling).

Back in February I wrote on my blog of the potential Olympic weather: "So, when the deputy chief engineer of the Beijing Meteorological Bureau says, "Even if the rare extreme weather hits Beijing in August, people will not feel muggy. High humidity will not accompany the hot weather in August because their climax periods are different, " I'd hide the silverware and other valuables."

Current Beijing observations are here.

Dew points (the real number you should look at when you think humidity) have been consistently in the 70s--often the upper 70s. That's like walking around with a warm, damp cloth wrapped around your body. Much of yesterday had Beijing more humid than Miami.

I would feel better about what the Chinese say if dissenting voices were allowed to speak about the air!

There is an independent group from Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants in England who have been monitoring the air and issuing their own forecasts which have been much more pessimistic than the official government version. Now that forecast is gone! From Telegraph.co.uk: British scientists monitoring air quality in Beijing have been ordered to close down their website after their readings clashed with official statistics showing the city was meeting its pollution targets.

Re:China...

[WoRLoKKeD]

Quick! Prism tank rush!