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...

[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.

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?

[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?

[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

[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?

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.