China’s State Council announced plans to develop and expand its experimental weather modification program over the next five years to cover over 2.1 million square miles (5.5 million square kilometers). That’s an area over 1.5 times the size of India. All of it will be open to artificial rainfall (snowfall) while a smaller region of about 224,000 square miles (580,000 square kilometers) to hail suppression. The country aims to have weather modification reach an advanced worldwide level in terms of technologies, operation, and services by 2035.
The statement says:
China will have a developed weather modification system by 2025, with breakthroughs in fundamental research [and development] in key technologies, steady improvements in modernization and refined services, distinct enhancement in comprehensive prevention against safety risks and optimization in systems and policy environment.
The statement concludes by saying that the program will help with agricultural production, disaster relief, emergency responses to grassland and forest fires, droughts, and unusually high temperatures.
Weather modification should intensify its service backup in the following key fields: estimation for disasters such as drought and hail, and related zoning work in agricultural production areas; normalized working plans for regions in need of ecological protection and restoration; and major emergency responses to deal with events such as forest or grassland fires, and unusually high temperatures or droughts.
According to Xinhua, a state news agency, hail suppression helped reduce 70% of hail damage to a key agricultural area in the western region of Xinjiang, China.
Weather modification is nothing new. The concept of cloud seeding – a way to artificially induce rainfall – has been around for decades, and China has been experimenting with it for several years already. The method involves misting clouds with silver iodide, which condenses around the drops of super-cooled water that are not growing efficiently enough to become raindrops. This causes the particles to become heavier, grow into a raindrop or snowflake, and fall as precipitation.
China explored cloud seeding during the 2008 Beijing Olympics’ opening ceremony to ensure a rain-free event. Beijing is also notorious for having beautiful clear skies when a crucial political meeting occurs – a result of nearby factory shut-downs and weather control.
Chinese scientists are also working on a $19 million project called Tianhe (meaning Sky River) – the world’s largest and most ambitious artificial rain experiment yet. It involves using satellites and rockets to divert excess water vapor above the Yangtze river basin towards the country’s drier parts.
Some experts have speculated that when China begins to suffer the effects of climate change, it will adopt even more ambitious geoengineering projects. For example, the country may turn to seeding the atmosphere with reflective particles to reduce temperatures. While the idea is still just a theory, nobody knows what could happen if the technique is employed. It could have significant unforeseen consequences.
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. While China has not yet shown signs of ‘unilaterally’ deploying geoengineering projects on the ground, the scale of its weather modification and other massive engineering projects, including mega-dam projects (such as the Three Gorges), suggests China is willing to deploy large-scale geoengineering schemes to tackle the impacts of climate change and achieve its Paris targets.
From one perspective, it seems essentially harmless and potentially very helpful in avoiding more significant problems. But from another, it could be a global hazard. Furthermore, neighboring countries have speculated that weather modification could be used to steal rain or as a war tool, giving troops an advantage over their opponent. It’s a controversial practice, that’s for sure.
