C
Captain Compassion
Guest
Greater China
Jul 13, 2007
Ready, aim, fire and rain
By Pallavi Aiyar
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/IG13Ad01.html
BEIJING - After weeks of watching the mercury soar, hardening the
already cracked earth of their wilting orchards and farms, a group of
farmers on the outskirts of Beijing gather in the Fragrant Hills that
line the western fringe of China's capital city. Unlike their
ancestors, they do not assemble to perform a rain dance or gather in a
temple to pray to the Lord Buddha to bring the rain.
Instead, they grab rocket launchers and a 37-millimeter anti-aircraft
gun and begin shooting into the sky. What they launch are not bullets
or missiles but chemical pellets. Their targets are not enemy
aggressors but wisps of passing cloud that they aim to "seed" with
silver-iodide particles around which moisture can then collect and
become heavy enough to fall.
The farmers are part of the biggest rain-making force in the world:
China's Weather Modification Program.
According to Wang Guanghe, director of the Weather Modification
Department under the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, each
of China's more than 30 provinces and province-level municipalities
today boast a weather-modification base, employing more than 32,000
people, 7,100 anti-aircraft guns, 4,991 special rocket launchers and
30-odd aircraft across the country.
"Ours is the largest artificial weather program in the world in terms
of equipment, size and budget," Wang said, adding that the annual
nationwide budget for weather modification is between US$60 million
and $90 million.
It is no coincidence that the world's biggest such project is in
China. The country's leadership has never been cautious about
harnessing nature, taking on a slew of what were once thought
impossible engineering challenges, such as the Three Gorges dam, the
world's biggest hydroelectric project, and the Qinghai-Tibet Railway,
the world's longest highland railroad.
For a largely agrarian country like China, the weather was thought of
as far too important to be left to the whim of gods or nature. As a
result, Chinese scientists began researching man-made rain as far back
as 1958, using chemicals such as silver iodide or dry ice to
facilitate condensation in moisture-laden clouds.
In the beginning, the idea was to ease drought and improve harvests
for Chinese farmers, but over the decades other functions have evolved
such as firefighting, prevention of hailstorms, and replenishment of
river heads and reservoirs. Artificial rain has also been used by some
provinces to combat drought and sandstorms. In 2004, Shanghai decided
to induce rain simply to lower the temperature during a prolonged heat
wave to bring relief to an increasingly hot and sweaty urban populace.
And now China's weather officials have been charged with another
important task: ensuring clear skies for the Summer Olympic Games next
year.
Zhang Qiang, the top weather-modification bureaucrat in Beijing, said
her office has been conducting experiments in cloud-busting for the
past two years in preparation for the Games' opening ceremony on
August 8, 2008.
She said that according to past meteorological data, there is a 50%
chance of drizzle on that day. To ensure blue skies, the Beijing
Weather Modification Office is busy researching the effects of various
chemical activators on different sizes of cloud formations at
different altitudes. The aim is to catch pregnant clouds early and
induce rainfall ahead of the big day so that during the opening
ceremony the sky is cloud-free.
Wang said similar efforts in the past have already helped to create
good weather for a number of international events held in China,
including the 1999 World Horti-Expo in Yunnan and the 1993 East Asian
Games in Shanghai.
However, Zhang warned that her cloud-fighters will only be effective
in the event of the threat of a drizzle: "A heavy downpour will be
impossible to combat."
Her caveat goes to the heart of the primary criticism leveled against
weather-modification efforts worldwide: doubts about their
effectiveness. Wang himself admits that it remains notoriously
difficult to establish how much real impact cloud-seeding has, since
there is no foolproof way to establish how much rain might have fallen
without intervention.
The United States, which pioneered cloud-seeding techniques in the
1940s and 1950s, has long cooled in its enthusiasm for the science
behind artificial rain. However, Israel and Russia continue to have
substantial weather-modification programs and Wang said experiments
conducted in these countries reveal that cloud-seeding can increase
rainfall by between 6% and 20%.
Zhang said reservoirs in Beijing have shown an increase of 10-13%, one
directly attributable to the efforts of her rainmakers.
Despite some international skepticism, the Chinese authorities remain
convinced of the merits of attempting to alter weather. China's state
news agency Xinhua recently reported that between 1999 and 2006, 250
billion tonnes of rain was artificially created, enough to fill the
Yellow River several times over. Moreover, China's 11th Five Year
Plan, which kicked off last year, calls for the creation of about 50
billion cubic meters of artificial rain annually.
While declining to provide specifics, Zhang said her office's budget
has seen sharp spikes in recent years and she expects it to continue
to grow given northern China's extreme water shortages, which are
exacerbated by the impact of climate change. Indeed, the annual per
capita water supply for China is only 2,200 cubic meters, just 25% of
the global average, according to the World Bank.
Artificial rain, however, is not controversy-free even within China.
City dwellers have raised concerns about environmental pollution,
though both Wang and Zhang insist that silver iodide is used in such
tiny quantities that it brings no negative health consequences.
Cloud-seeding shells and rockets have also sometimes gone astray,
damaging homes and injuring inhabitants. Only last year a passer-by in
the municipality of Chongqing was killed by part of a rain cannon that
flew off during firing in May.
Wang says training programs and licenses have sharply curbed accidents
in recent years, and the 135 farmers who comprise the on-call
rainmaking force in Beijing go through intensive training, lasting
several weeks, before they are let loose on the artillery. The farmers
are paid about US$100 a month for their cannon and rocket-launching
duties, which they perform about 40 times a year.
The person who gives the shooters the green signal to launch their
cloud attacks is none other than Zhang, China's modern-day equivalent
of Zeus, Indra, or the Chinese rain god Xuantian Shangdi. However, the
businesslike bureaucrat is modest when it comes to describing her
role: "We try our best, but there are no guarantees of success."
Could the rain gods have claimed differently?
--
There may come a time when the CO2 police will wander the earth telling
the poor and the dispossed how many dung chips they can put on their
cook fires. -- Captain Compassion.
Wherever I go it will be well with me, for it was well with me here, not
on account of the place, but of my judgments which I shall carry away
with me, for no one can deprive me of these; on the contrary, they alone
are my property, and cannot be taken away, and to possess them suffices
me wherever I am or whatever I do. -- EPICTETUS
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMcharter.net
Jul 13, 2007
Ready, aim, fire and rain
By Pallavi Aiyar
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/IG13Ad01.html
BEIJING - After weeks of watching the mercury soar, hardening the
already cracked earth of their wilting orchards and farms, a group of
farmers on the outskirts of Beijing gather in the Fragrant Hills that
line the western fringe of China's capital city. Unlike their
ancestors, they do not assemble to perform a rain dance or gather in a
temple to pray to the Lord Buddha to bring the rain.
Instead, they grab rocket launchers and a 37-millimeter anti-aircraft
gun and begin shooting into the sky. What they launch are not bullets
or missiles but chemical pellets. Their targets are not enemy
aggressors but wisps of passing cloud that they aim to "seed" with
silver-iodide particles around which moisture can then collect and
become heavy enough to fall.
The farmers are part of the biggest rain-making force in the world:
China's Weather Modification Program.
According to Wang Guanghe, director of the Weather Modification
Department under the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, each
of China's more than 30 provinces and province-level municipalities
today boast a weather-modification base, employing more than 32,000
people, 7,100 anti-aircraft guns, 4,991 special rocket launchers and
30-odd aircraft across the country.
"Ours is the largest artificial weather program in the world in terms
of equipment, size and budget," Wang said, adding that the annual
nationwide budget for weather modification is between US$60 million
and $90 million.
It is no coincidence that the world's biggest such project is in
China. The country's leadership has never been cautious about
harnessing nature, taking on a slew of what were once thought
impossible engineering challenges, such as the Three Gorges dam, the
world's biggest hydroelectric project, and the Qinghai-Tibet Railway,
the world's longest highland railroad.
For a largely agrarian country like China, the weather was thought of
as far too important to be left to the whim of gods or nature. As a
result, Chinese scientists began researching man-made rain as far back
as 1958, using chemicals such as silver iodide or dry ice to
facilitate condensation in moisture-laden clouds.
In the beginning, the idea was to ease drought and improve harvests
for Chinese farmers, but over the decades other functions have evolved
such as firefighting, prevention of hailstorms, and replenishment of
river heads and reservoirs. Artificial rain has also been used by some
provinces to combat drought and sandstorms. In 2004, Shanghai decided
to induce rain simply to lower the temperature during a prolonged heat
wave to bring relief to an increasingly hot and sweaty urban populace.
And now China's weather officials have been charged with another
important task: ensuring clear skies for the Summer Olympic Games next
year.
Zhang Qiang, the top weather-modification bureaucrat in Beijing, said
her office has been conducting experiments in cloud-busting for the
past two years in preparation for the Games' opening ceremony on
August 8, 2008.
She said that according to past meteorological data, there is a 50%
chance of drizzle on that day. To ensure blue skies, the Beijing
Weather Modification Office is busy researching the effects of various
chemical activators on different sizes of cloud formations at
different altitudes. The aim is to catch pregnant clouds early and
induce rainfall ahead of the big day so that during the opening
ceremony the sky is cloud-free.
Wang said similar efforts in the past have already helped to create
good weather for a number of international events held in China,
including the 1999 World Horti-Expo in Yunnan and the 1993 East Asian
Games in Shanghai.
However, Zhang warned that her cloud-fighters will only be effective
in the event of the threat of a drizzle: "A heavy downpour will be
impossible to combat."
Her caveat goes to the heart of the primary criticism leveled against
weather-modification efforts worldwide: doubts about their
effectiveness. Wang himself admits that it remains notoriously
difficult to establish how much real impact cloud-seeding has, since
there is no foolproof way to establish how much rain might have fallen
without intervention.
The United States, which pioneered cloud-seeding techniques in the
1940s and 1950s, has long cooled in its enthusiasm for the science
behind artificial rain. However, Israel and Russia continue to have
substantial weather-modification programs and Wang said experiments
conducted in these countries reveal that cloud-seeding can increase
rainfall by between 6% and 20%.
Zhang said reservoirs in Beijing have shown an increase of 10-13%, one
directly attributable to the efforts of her rainmakers.
Despite some international skepticism, the Chinese authorities remain
convinced of the merits of attempting to alter weather. China's state
news agency Xinhua recently reported that between 1999 and 2006, 250
billion tonnes of rain was artificially created, enough to fill the
Yellow River several times over. Moreover, China's 11th Five Year
Plan, which kicked off last year, calls for the creation of about 50
billion cubic meters of artificial rain annually.
While declining to provide specifics, Zhang said her office's budget
has seen sharp spikes in recent years and she expects it to continue
to grow given northern China's extreme water shortages, which are
exacerbated by the impact of climate change. Indeed, the annual per
capita water supply for China is only 2,200 cubic meters, just 25% of
the global average, according to the World Bank.
Artificial rain, however, is not controversy-free even within China.
City dwellers have raised concerns about environmental pollution,
though both Wang and Zhang insist that silver iodide is used in such
tiny quantities that it brings no negative health consequences.
Cloud-seeding shells and rockets have also sometimes gone astray,
damaging homes and injuring inhabitants. Only last year a passer-by in
the municipality of Chongqing was killed by part of a rain cannon that
flew off during firing in May.
Wang says training programs and licenses have sharply curbed accidents
in recent years, and the 135 farmers who comprise the on-call
rainmaking force in Beijing go through intensive training, lasting
several weeks, before they are let loose on the artillery. The farmers
are paid about US$100 a month for their cannon and rocket-launching
duties, which they perform about 40 times a year.
The person who gives the shooters the green signal to launch their
cloud attacks is none other than Zhang, China's modern-day equivalent
of Zeus, Indra, or the Chinese rain god Xuantian Shangdi. However, the
businesslike bureaucrat is modest when it comes to describing her
role: "We try our best, but there are no guarantees of success."
Could the rain gods have claimed differently?
--
There may come a time when the CO2 police will wander the earth telling
the poor and the dispossed how many dung chips they can put on their
cook fires. -- Captain Compassion.
Wherever I go it will be well with me, for it was well with me here, not
on account of the place, but of my judgments which I shall carry away
with me, for no one can deprive me of these; on the contrary, they alone
are my property, and cannot be taken away, and to possess them suffices
me wherever I am or whatever I do. -- EPICTETUS
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMcharter.net