DISCOVER HOW WE MAKE RAIN AND THE AMBITIOUS PLANS BEING HATCHED TO TACKLE CLIMATE CHANGE
Superhero Storm in the X-Men comics can conjure rain, end droughts and create hurricanes with the power of her mind. Now, scientists and meteorological technology are opening more and more opportunities for us mere mortals to manipulate weather and Earth’s climate. In 2009, Chinese meteorologists from the Beijing Weather Modification Office claimed to be responsible for the city’s earliest snowfall since 1987. Around 16 million tons of snow reportedly fell over drought-afflicted northern China after workers fired rockets carrying pellets of silver iodide into heavy clouds. The rockets were cloud seeding, a process invented in the late-Forties. Supporters claim it can reduce hail damage, increase rainfall and disperse fog among other things. There are
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cloud-seeding projects in at least 20 countries worldwide, from Israel to Australia; in 2003, in the US alone, ten states were conducting at least 66 cloud-seeding programmes. In China, around 32,000-35,000 people are employed in the weather modification industry. The big question in cloud seeding is: how effective is it? A 2003 US National Academies report concluded there was no concrete scientific proof it worked. According to Professor Michael Garstang from the University of Virginia, who chaired the report, the situation hasn’t changed much since; there remains “a lack of definitive evidence,” he says. Even cloud-seeding supporters admit it doesn’t currently lead to a huge rise in rain and snowfall. “It doesn’t increase precipitation by 50 per cent in most cases,” says Bruce Boe from
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Weather Modification Inc, a private weather control company based in North Dakota, USA. US enthusiasm for weather modification research waned in the late-20th century, with funding falling to less than five per cent of its Seventies peak. But there are signs of fresh interest in the field. The US National Science Foundation (NSF) is funding a cloud-seeding project in the Wyoming mountains, operated by Weather Modification Inc. New technology, such as advanced computer models and radar instruments that can see inside clouds is driving the resurgence of interest, says Boe: “We’re bringing a lot of new tools to bear on the question. These tools weren’t available before and they’re starting to bear fruit.” The Wyoming project, launched in 2005, uses aircraft-mounted radar and ground-based WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM
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