Jeremy Shere

China is busy preparing for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, building stadiums, expanding the Beijing subway system, trying to control the weather.

That’s right: control the weather. Based on weather patterns over the past few decades, there’s a 50/50 chance that it’ll rain during the opening ceremonies. Because there’s nothing like a downpour to ruin all the pomp and circumstance of an Olympic parade, Chinese climatologists are doing everything they can to keep things dry.

How? By making it rain before the ceremony.

Here’s the plan. Workers will monitor the skies in the days leading up to the Olympics, watching for ominous-looking rain clouds. Then they’ll fire rocket shells containing sticks of silver iodide, a chemical believed to induce rainfall. (Here’s a good explanation of how the process is supposed to work.) In theory, depleting rainclouds before the Olympics will pave the way for a dry and sunny Games. Chinese officials say that all that pre-Olympics rain will help clean Beijing’s notoriously polluted air.

Cloud seeding, as it’s known, has been around for about half a century. China has been at it since the late 1950s and today has the world’s largest cloud-seeing operation.

But does cloud seeding actually work? Chinese officials says yes, but many scientists are skeptical. The United States more or less abandoned it’s weather manipulation programs in the 1970s (although some states still fund cloud seeding projects). A 2003 report by the U.S. Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate concluded that there’s not enough evidence to say whether cloud seeding works. There are so many variables shaping weather patterns that it would take long-term, in-depth studies of cloud seeding to determine if it can actually increase and decrease rainfall.

In any case, though, China will do whatever it can to ensure a dry 2008 Games.

Source: Discovery News