IT’s the one thing we can do little about except put on some sunglasses when it’s sunny and grab an umbrella when it’s wet. But China is not taking the weather lying down and instead is expanding a “weather-modification programme”.
What is it?
Essentially it’s there in the title - a project to control the weather, which creates artificial rain and snow.
It’s based on “cloud seeding”?
The practice of "cloud seeding" was discovered in the United States in the 1940s by a chemist working for General Electric. China then launched its own similar initiative in the 1960s and dozens of countries have programmes on the go.
What is it exactly?
It’s the manufacturing of artificial rain and snow by spraying chemicals - like silver iodide or liquid nitrogen - into clouds to make water droplets condense and fall as rain or snow.
China’s project is the largest?
Thought to employ around 35,000 people, China’s State Council has announced that it is expanding the project fivefold to be able to cover half the vast country in artificial rain and snow by 2025. The State Council said the project will soon cover 2.1 million square miles - about 56% of China's entire surface area.
What’s the purpose?
“Cloud seeding” aims to try and create good weather conditions for a variety of reasons, ranging from aiding crops or to preventing natural disasters. The State Council said that thanks to “breakthroughs in fundamental research”, the project will be at a "worldwide advanced level" by 2035 and be able to help alleviate "disasters such as drought and hail" and facilitate emergency responses "to forest or grassland fires”.
It will focus on certain areas?
The State Council said weather modification will "intensify" in areas of mitigating drought, hail, fires and high temperatures, while also assisting agricultural production and preserving ecologically protected areas.
When did China’s effort bear fruit?
Shortly before the 2008 Olympics, China wanted clear skies for the major event and launched a cloud seeding project which it said was successful in forcing anticipated rains to fall in advance. Between 2012 and 2017, it spent more than $1.34 billion on boosting modification efforts, ultimately seeing it able to fire bullets filled with salt and minerals into the sky.
It’s been a success so far?
In January last year, Chinese state media said cloud seeding had prevented crops in the western region of Xinjiang from around 70% of hail damage.
It’s not all sunshine and rainbows?
The announcement from China has intensified concerns over the unregulated nature of weather modification at present. Dhanasree Jayaram, a climate expert at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education in Karnataka, India, said: “Without regulation, one country's efforts could affect other countries.”
How so?
The proposed expansion is on such a huge scale, for example, it could affect regional weather patterns and amid tensions with neighbouring India, “weather warfare” is also a concern.
Weather warfare?
It amounts to the use of weather modification techniques like cloud seeding for military purposes and is not a new concept - Operation Popeye was a highly-classified military cloud-seeding effort conducted by the US Air Force during the Vietnam War which aimed to lengthen monsoon season over targeted areas of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in a bid to disrupt North Vietnamese military supplies.
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