The Sun Shines on China

[Paddy]

That's been going on in such countries like China/USSR for a few decades.

Putin had it done by the Russian Airforce for the Paul McCartney Concert Moscow and for other events.

“Our aim is to empty all clouds of rain before they hit the city borders.” Such practice may strike awe into the heart of every rain-soaked Brit, but Russians take “cloud-bursting” for granted, having enjoyed its benefits over public holidays since Stalin gave the order to research weather control in the 1930s.

Over decades, the observatory in St Petersburg has developed techniques to dispel clouds, divert hailstorms from harvests, arrest avalanches, disperse fogs from airports and bring rain to drought-afflicted regions.

The most reliable form of rain prevention is to induce the clouds to rain before they float over the area under protection. The pilots on board the cloud-bursters will be directed towards rainclouds by meteorologists on the ground. On the orders of geophysicists on board the aircraft, dry ice will be dispensed into the clouds from a mile away. The dry ice is fired in special pyrotechnic capsules that combust once empty. Once injected with dry ice, rain crystalises within the cloud and falls ten or fifteen minutes later.

Approximately one kilogram of dry ice is used for every square kilometre of rain cloud. Rainclouds will be burst at a safe distance of 30 miles (50km) outside the city, where locals, used to sudden rain on fine days, will have their umbrellas ready. But thunderclouds are feared because pilots are by law forbidden to fly within more than seven miles of them, making it impossible to seed them with raininducing agents." Times Online.

[AtW]

That's been going on in such countries like China/USSR for a few decades.

[centurian]

Watching the coverage of the Chinese celebrations of 60 years of Communist rule on the BBC News, there was this almost throwaway coment:

WTF?! Did I miss something? Sounds like something out of an Arthur C Clarke book. How can they be so blase about something like that? Why can't they use it to make it rain where it hasn't rained for years? Or can they only make the sun shine?

Because it's old news... Happened during the Olympics last year.

http://www.technologyreview.com/infotech/20463/

Basically they track rain clouds and shoot rockets into them to get them to dump their load before they anywhere near Beijing


Can't make it rain in the deserts unless there are clouds there anyway.

[TimberWolf]

It's to do with seeding or suppressing water droplet formation and has been experimented with for donkeys years, and is mostly carp.

[Moose423956]

Watching the coverage of the Chinese celebrations of 60 years of Communist rule on the BBC News, there was this almost throwaway coment:

The clouds were driven away by China's weather changing technology

WTF?! Did I miss something? Sounds like something out of an Arthur C Clarke book. How can they be so blase about something like that? Why can't they use it to make it rain where it hasn't rained for years? Or can they only make the sun shine?