Everybody talks about the weather, as Mark Twain famously observed, but the Chinese are actually doing something about it. Chinese meteorologists are working on a scheme to guarantee clear skies for the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing on August 8, even though summer is the rainy season and August 8 usually carries a 50 percent chance of rain.
Basically, the Chinese have figured out a way to reverse the process that meteorologists around the world use to encourage rain to fall—seeding clouds with silver iodide, salts and dry ice to form larger raindrops and create a downpour. Chinese meteorologists will use a similar technique to reduce the size of raindrops and prevent them from falling, creating a temporary umbrella over the stadium until the clouds have drifted away. That’s assuming it works.
"If you're talking about a small rainfall, you can eliminate it," said Wang Yubin, deputy chief engineer of the Beijing Meteorological Bureau. "But if it's going to be raining cats and dogs, there's nothing man can do about it."
The reason for this experiment in weather modification is that the $400 million, 91,000-seat stadium China built for the Olympic Games has no roof. Nicknamed the “bird’s nest,” the stadium is open to the sky, except for a network of interlacing steel beams.
Memo to China: Next time you need to keep something dry, put a lid on it.
Photo courtesy of Wally Irwin
More information:
- China plans to halt rain for Beijing Olympics—Los Angeles Times
- Beijing has some success with rain prevention-official—Reuters
Comments
the Chinese have figured out a way? we’ve been seeding clouds and tropical storms for over 50 years!
Bill, you don’t understand. They’ve figured out a way to stop rain from falling. No other nation has ever done or used that before. I suppose under “we” you meant the USA, right? That figures. Can you give me a proof? Where’d you get this information, any reliable sources? Please don’t spread out false information to the public, because, frankly, they’re not welcome. Thank you.
a) We tried cloud seeding over 50 yrs ago and quit when it didn’t work very well and political pressure came from several Caribbean countries voicing concerns over the possibility of more rain.
b) Remember the margarine commercial from 30 yrs ago: “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.”
Australia has been preventing rain for some years (currently perhaps not), created a drought, followed by charging for recycled water. I don’t suppose Gillard’s flood tax will stop it flooding again… Farming is next to go. Globalisation is the goal, China is our intended aid as has been coming out quietly in the media of late.