In The People’s Republic of China, it’s no secret that the Party controls just about everything. But as Beijing suffers through its second major snowstorm this season, residents are growing weary of their leadership’s control-freak tendencies. After all, while the storm came as a surprise to residents, the government knew about it all along. In fact, the government caused it.
China has long tinkered with Mother Nature’s waterworks, even establishing a state organ — the Beijing Weather Modification Office — whose sole purpose is to meddle with the weather. The purpose behind weather modification is less megalomaniacal than it sounds at first pass; a large swath of northeast China, including Beijing, has been mired in a drought for nearly a decade, and the party leadership would like to reverse that trend for both practical reasons and to show the Chinese people exactly who is in charge.
To do so, they’ve turned to cloud seeding, a controversial practice that involves launching (or dropping) chemicals into the atmosphere — silver iodide in China, though dry ice and liquid propane also work — that cause water vapor in the air to crystallize at temperatures it otherwise would not. Its effectiveness is dubious; while it’s generally accepted that it works to some degree, it can only increase precipitation by 20 percent. Sometimes.
[More]
Related:
It”s mind boggling what can happen when people who give the orders don’t understand the science.
“Make it snow!”
“OK.”
Don’t let Al Gore hear about this … might just decide that it could be a great way to make money or at least sell some carbon credits.