China
to make it rain over area 3 times the size of Spain
RT,
8
April, 2018
Since
2013 China has been creating 55 billion tons of artificial rain a
year. The country is now embarking on its biggest rainmaking project
ever.
In
terms of the plan, announced this month, Chinese authorities intend
to force rainfall and snow over 1.6 million sq km (620,000 sq miles),
an area roughly three times the size of Spain.
According
to media reports, the government will use new military
weather-altering technology developed by the state-owned China
Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. The country plans to
build tens of thousands of combustion chambers on Tibetan
mountainsides. The chambers will burn a solid fuel, which will result
in a spray of silver iodide billowing towards the sky.
“More
than 500 burners have been deployed on alpine slopes in Tibet,
Xinjiang and other areas for experimental use. The data we have
collected show very promising results,” an unnamed researcher told
the Morning Post. “Sometimes snow would start falling almost
immediately after we ignited the chamber. It was like standing on the
stage of a magic show,” he said.
The
Tibetan plateau is vital to the water supply for much of China and a
large area of Asia. Its glaciers and reservoirs feed the Yellow,
Yangtze, Mekong, and other major rivers that flow through China,
India, Nepal, and other countries.
Sprayed
from planes, the particles will provide something for passing water
vapor to condense around, forming clouds. Those clouds will bring the
rain. A single cloud-seeding chamber could create a strip of clouds
covering a 5km area.
Traditionally,
the rainmaking process or “cloud-seeding” means rocket-launching
chemicals into clouds which accelerate the creation of ice crystals
that eventually become rain. China also uses military aircraft for
those purposes. Rainmaking is also a popular way to “clean up”
air in China, where heavy smog is a big problem for many cities.
The
practice of weather modification has become more frequent across the
country in recent years, including for major public events. In 2008,
China launched over 1,100 rockets containing silver iodide into
Beijing's skies before the Olympics opening ceremony to disperse
clouds and keep the Olympics rain-free. Beijing has a “development
plan” for weather modification until 2020
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