Chinese Government Ramps Up Weather Control Efforts

formaggio writes "China's government is intervening with nature by rolling out four regional programs to artificially increase precipitation across the country by 10 percent before 2015. The program is anticipated to bring in an additional 230 billion cubic meters of precipitation per year by 2015. This is on top of the 50 billion cubic meters of precipitation China already artificially creates annually in the northeastern province of Jilin."

Comments

soory

[masternerdguy]

Sorry commies, but only the Allies can have the weather control device. Go play with your nuke and iron curtain.

Re:soory

[ackthpt]

Sorry commies, but only the Allies can have the weather control device. Go play with your nuke and iron curtain.

Don't be too harsh, they may end up with Oobleck and a valuable lesson they'll have learned!

Re:soory

[Anonymous Coward]

'Technology Stolen', 'New Construction Options'

Re:soory

[Amouth]

wasn't it "structure captured, new construction options"?

Re:soory

[mrozone]

You seem to forget that they captured our construction yard a while back.

Evaporation

[LoudMusic]

Are they also creating an evaporation effect in the region that supplies air moisture to the region they're trying to create precipitation in?

Re:Evaporation

[v1]

They are stealing our water!

That's what I was wondering, where would this water normally be falling mostly? Russia? Japan? Pacific Ocean? If it was just headed for the ocean anyway, it doesn't appear to be selfish of them.

Re:Evaporation

[jpmorgan]

Well, if you think about the Langmuir equation, decreasing the partial pressure of water vapour in the atmosphere by inducing precipitation will increase the evaporation rate. Then it's just a matter of prevailing winds which, assuming the Chinese aren't complete idiots, they've probably thought about.

Re:Evaporation

[hedwards]

Just as long as they leave our precious bodily fluids alone, I say what's the harm?

Re:Evaporation

[v1]

inducing precipitation will increase the evaporation rate.

so in layman's terms, not only will they be causing less rain to fall downwind of you, but they'll also be causing more water to evaporate downwind - lowering humidity and making the problem of less-rainfall more severe. (assuming it's over land and not ocean anyway)

Re:Evaporation

[msauve]

"If it was just headed for the ocean anyway, it doesn't appear to be selfish of them."

If that's the case, they're spinning it wrong. They should be claiming they're trying to offset ocean level rise due to AGW.

Re:Evaporation

[Fluffeh]

Nope, just makign clouds that are already there precipitate. They are stealing our water!

Actually, there are a number of countries that are actually saying exactly that - "You are stealing our rain and it isn't a joke.

An interesting thing though, is that the Chinese mainly use Silver Iodide Rockets to seed the clouds. Silver Iodide is considered a hazardous substance, a priority pollutant, and a toxic pollutant by the US. Exposure can result in the following:

Chronic ingestion of iodides may produce “iodism”, which may be manifested by skin rash, running nose, headache, irritation of the mucous membranes, weakness, anemia, loss of weight and general depression. Chronic inhalation, ingestion or skin contact with silver compounds may cause argyria characterized by blue-gray discoloration of the eyes, skin and mucous membranes.

Will be interesting to see what happens during the next ten to fifteen years after this has been in place for long enough to really get into the soil, the food chain and the poor saps who this rain falls on.

Re:Evaporation

[Dyinobal]

Might explain the drought in Texas, or maybe that is because we elected Rick Perry. Though the fact he prayed for rain and we got wild fires instead might be considered evidence towards that theory.

Re:Evaporation

[magarity]

An interesting thing though, is that the Chinese mainly use Silver Iodide Rockets to seed the clouds. Silver Iodide is considered a hazardous substance, a priority pollutant, and a toxic pollutant

...Will be interesting to see what happens during the next ten to fifteen years after this has been in place for long enough to really get into the soil, the food chain and the poor saps who this rain falls on.

Hah, a little silver iodide added to the water supply might make it better by displacing some of the serious industrial contaminants they already put in it. You haven't been paying attention to the environmental news out of China if you think these rockets are a serious health concern.

Re:Evaporation

[spagthorpe]

I would guess a main reason for the additional rainfall would be food production, and since China seems to export quite a bit of it to us (heavy metals and all), I imagine it'll be our problem as much as theirs.

Re:Evaporation

[TubeSteak]

so in layman's terms, not only will they be causing less rain to fall downwind of you,

Other than Japan, there's nothing downwind of China until you hit the California coast.
Which isn't to say that China has no effect on California.
They have to deal with pollution and dust from China often enough for it to have been studied in some detail.

Re:Evaporation

[Praeses]

Many of their power plants are indirectly evaporating water. I am curious to see how the quantities compare.

Re:Evaporation

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when did Iodine = Silver Iodide??????

Re:Evaporation

[daem0n1x]

They're already pumping carbon particles into the atmosphere. I mean, a huge shitload of them.

Re:Evaporation

[Ihmhi]

This was a plot in, of all things, a Japanese anime - specifically, One Piece.

Despite the rain [that Dance Powder] creates however, the powder unfortunately caused long periods of drought to other countries. The process in which the artificial rain is created, nurtures clouds that aren't ready to rain yet. When this happens, all of the water contained within these clouds would all be used up. Because of this, other countries and locations, who would naturally benefit from rainfall when these clouds would naturally mature, are greatly deprived.

The controversy that this powder brought whenever it was used, started a war. The lives lost in this war was so great that the World Government outlawed the manufacturing and possession of Dance Powder world wide.

Link to article

Re:Evaporation

[MaWeiTao]

There's Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines. Given that South Korea, Taiwan and Japan all have amongst the largest economies in the world and massively dense populations I'd say that what China is doing is very important. They already have to deal with dust storms blowing over from the ever expanding Gobi desert.

Re:Evaporation

[jbeaupre]

Because both the iodine added to table salt (KCl for Mortons) and silver iodide (AgCl) are ionic compounds. When ingested, the body sees both sources of iodine as identical.

So in the context of iodine effects on the body, they've been the same for about 100 years now.

I have to ask...

[hipp5]

but what could go wrong!?

Re:I have to ask...

[Trepidity]

I suppose the first question to ask would be where the moisture would've fallen otherwise. Unless they're creating new evaporation/condensation into clouds, which it doesn't sound like since they're discussing seeding rockets, they're just causing it to fall somewhere instead of somewhere else. Maybe that harms somewhere else, or maybe it doesn't; would need more information to say.

They appear not to get this, or not want to acknowledge it, though, with the quote: "Because clouds are boundless, weather control is boundless". Clouds might be boundless if you're doing isolated cloud-seeding operations, but on a massive industrial scale, clouds aren't really boundless...

STOP!! Do Not Continue

[MBC1977]

This reminds me of an Edding's book I read once, "Guardians of the West" where the lead character started playing around with the weather (to prove a point to some very inept thinking people). Several months later his grandfather comes to his castle, and virtually berates him for tampering with the "most powerful force in nature".

Somehow I think this very fitting considering (1) this is China we're talking about and (2) anyone (including the US) who plays around weather is virtually certain to cause an adverse effect somewhere else. So please DO NOT TAMPER WITH THE WEATHER!!.

Thanks. :)

Re:STOP!! Do Not Continue

[ormondotvos]

I can think of a dozen places easily where they'd love for you to tamper with the weather, intelligently. Texas, for starters.

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul

[jklovanc]

What about downwind areas where the water would fall naturally? Might that effect snow packs and cause drought during summer months?

When the rain falls here, it doesn't fall there

[CityZen]

I see international problems brewing with this...

I hear that in some localities, the rain water (that falls on your property) doesn't belong to you, and you're not legally allowed to have rain barrels.

Weather alteration will amplify issues like that, such that countries have to make treaties regarding who can claim which clouds.

Of course, you have to wonder about a range of possibilities: You can make your neighbor have a drought, or potentially have a flood.

Re:When the rain falls here, it doesn't fall there

[AK Marc]

Here, I'm required by law to catch rainwater. But in Colorado, it's illegal to do so, as the water rights are owned downstream.

Nice try..

[ackthpt]

But if the moisture isn't already in the air in sufficient quantities, it doesn't want to come pouring down.

Why not just build desalination plants to take demand off rivers downstream and reservoirs upstream to retain water from high rainfall years?

Built the Three Gorges Dam, which is a dam disaster to the population and environment, now they going to play around with the sky. Not very forward thinking, really.

Re:Nice try..

[daem0n1x]

The main problem is that they yield extremely expensive water.

Re:Climate change...

[hedwards]

Depends on the weather patterns. If somebody did that on the west coast of the US, that would cause all sorts of problems for people down wind. But, if they did it just upwind of the east coast it would have negligible effect.

I'm not sure precisely how the wind patterns are in that part of the world, but I have a feeling that the impact will be relatively minor. I'm not sure that rain falling on the ocean is really that much different then rivers flowing into the river. Apart from differing types of pollution.

Re:Uh VERY bad

[norpy]

You forget that taking moisture out of the air will reduce the partial pressure and more evaporation will occur.

By the time this "dry" air makes it across an ocean it will once again be laden with water.

And yet

[WindBourne]

I wonder how this will do with the warming that is occurring? Supposedly the models show that China's rain is suppose to drop a great deal. Perhaps this is their way of winning their cold war.

tax time

[fonitrus]

Maybe the Australian Carbon Tax which is suposed to offset climate change effects be passed on to the Chinese since if this program goes full scale day to day operation they will efectively be responsible for the weather in other countries :) :) I mean i read a butterfly farting in Brazil causes thunderstorms in Jakarta some sort of chaos theory effect. So TAX THE CHINESE!!!