China Makes Artificial Rain for Beijing

BEIJING (AP) -- Chinese weather specialists used chemicals to engineer Beijing's heaviest rainfall of the year, helping to relieve drought and rinse dust from China's capital, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.

Technicians with the Beijing Weather Modification Office fired seven rocket shells containing 163 cigarette-size sticks of silver iodide over the city's skies on Thursday, Xinhua said.

The reaction that occurred brought as much as four-tenths of an inch of rain, the heaviest rainfall this year, helping to "alleviate drought, add soil moisture and remove dust from the air for better air quality," Xinhua said.

Though unusual in many parts of the world, China has been tinkering with artificial rainmaking for decades, using it frequently in the drought-plagued north. Last month, another artificial rainfall was generated to clear Beijing after the city suffered some of the fiercest dust storms this decade.

Whether cloud-seeding actually works has been the subject of debate in the scientific community. In 2003, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences questioned the science behind it as "too weak."

Though unusual in many parts of the world, China has been tinkering with artificial rainmaking for decades, using it frequently in the drought-plagued north.

No unusual at all in these United States: pluviculture has been practiced here since the 19th century. NOAA even has a poem on its website from 1891 about these efforts at http://www.history.noaa.gov/art/rainmachine.html:

An Ode to Pluviculture

or The Rhyme of the Rain Machine
by F. W. Clarke, 1891
Said Jeremy Jonathan Joseph Jones,
“The weather is far too dry,
So I reckon I’ll have to stir my bones
And try the effect of concussive tones
Upon the lazy sky.”

So Jeremy Jonathan Joseph went
Away to the nearest town:
And there his money was quickly spent
For queer contraptions all intent
To make the rain come down.

There were cannon, and mortars, and lots of shells,
And dynamite by the ton;
With a gas balloon and a chime of bells
And various other mystic spells
To overcloud the sun.

The day was fair and the sky was bright,
And never a cloud was seen;
When Jeremy Jonathan set alight
His biggest fuse and screwed up tight
The joints of the rain machine.

He fired a shot, and barely two,
When the sky began to pale;
The third one brought a heavy dew,
But at the fourth tornadoes blew,
With thunder, rain, and hail.

It rained all night and another day,
And then for a week or more;
It flooded the farm in a scandalous way,
And drowned poor Jeremy, sad to say,
Who Couldn’t stop the pour.

O! Jeremy Jonathan Joseph Jones,
Your farm was fair to see;
But now a lake lies over its stones,
From whose dark bosom horrific moans
Are heard noctallee.

To check the flood you started, I’ve heard
All efforts were in vain;
Until the Bureau at Washington stirred,
And stopped the storm with a single word,
By just predicting - Rain!

You can read about America's most famous rainmaker, Charles Hatfield, at the Wikipedia, or, for more detail, in last year's book The Wizard of Sun City: The Strange True Story of Charles Hatfield, the Rainmaker Who Drowned a City's Dreams by Garry Jenkins.

Sounds like way too little to make a difference in precip doposit rates. The US has been researching cloud seeding since...oh I don't know at latest 1950's. The idea is to disperse a particulate into a water vapor dense cloud to cause the condensation of water onto the silver particles. I'm no expert, but it seems like it's hit or miss science at best.

I think you are right - somthing is not on the up and up with this story. I don't see how cigarette-sized "chunks" would do more than fall, or even if they disintegrated, produce enough condensation nuclei to cause a small cloud to form, let alone generate rain over an area the size of Bejing or more.

My guess is that it simply finally rained and the state controlled media pounced at the opportunity to show the subjects just how advanced and mighty their technology was.

For another guess, I wouldn't be surprised if part of their drought problem was the presense of too much condensation nuclei in the area due to completely unchecked air pollution. Too much of condensation nuclei inhibits the formation raindrops by keeping them way too small (can't get big enough to for a real rain drop basically).

But hey, they are a devleoping nation and shouldn't be looked down upon for not requiring the advanced pollution controls and strict pollution regulations like we do. Hell, even the perfect, got to do something now before the world ends global change people think it's okay to give China a pass...

Call it global condensation. Wonder how we can stop it?

LOL. Vent the atmosphere? But seriously, I read (not sure where, I just skimmed over it) that California was seeding and that's why they have so much snow pack this year. The interier states seems a bit upset about the "water-theft"...then again who owns the air? One thing I do know is once ownership rights are established it can be taxed and that's the last thing any sane person wants. Could you imagine? You didn't pay your oxygen tax this month...you're ristricted.

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