Beijing bid to stop Olympic rain
(CNN)
Updated: 2006-06-06 16:36
Beijing will be shooting for the stars in a bid to stave off downpours when
it hosts the Olympics Games in 2008.
Using an arsenal of rockets, artillery and aircraft, China will try to blast
the clouds out of the sky, a meteorologist from Beijing told a Hong Kong
newspaper, through a technique which falls under the umbrella of "cloud
seeding."
"We sometimes turn a cloudy day into a dry and sunny one by shooting the
clouds less intensively than when we make rain," head meteorologist Mian
Donglian for the Beijing municipal weather bureau told The South China Morning
Post.
By shooting shells containing chemicals like silver iodide, or dry ice into
the sky, scientists say they can create rain. China has gone so far as to set up
a weather modification office that is in charge of such an endeavor.
When the guns go off, they scatter crystals that attract water droplets in
the cloud, making them grow faster, said climate and weather expert Johnny Chan
from the City University of Hong Kong. The crystals become heavy and fall as
raindrops, he said.
Planes, too, can be used to drop chemicals onto clouds to manipulate the
weather.
In the case of the Olympics, climate experts will pore over satellite images
to find ways to dissolve the clouds rather than make it rain.
"Scientists fly an airplane, sampling the cloud ... to see if there is
potential for it to work, and if it is likely to work, they will shoot the gun,"
Chan said.
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