China Using Artificial Rain to Clear Dust

[AGENDA21]

Beijing will use artificial rainmaking to clear the air after a choking dust storm coated China's capital and beyond with yellow grit, prompting a health warning to keep children indoors, state media said Tuesday.

The huge storm blew dust far beyond China's borders, blanketing South Korea and reaching Tokyo.

The storm, reportedly the worst in at least five years, hit Beijing overnight Sunday, turning the sky yellow and forcing residents to dust off and hose down cars and buildings.

Hospitals reported a jump in cases of breathing problems, state television said.

The government was preparing to seed clouds to make rain to clear the air, state TV said, citing the Central Meteorological Bureau. It did not elaborate, and the bureau refused to release more information.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/04/18/D8H2GIU00.html

[Akoto]

1. Rather clever idea, though ...

Is seeding clouds to make it rain safe? Just wondering. :)

[MADem]

2. Interesting article on the subject, here

...Over the years, cloud seeding has been haunted by a couple of questions. Some were concerned that adding chemicals to clouds would pollute the earth, but the national Weather Modification Association insists that the amounts are so low as to be insignificant. The amount of silver used in seeding a cloud is less than 0.1 micrograms per liter, about 1/500th the concentration deemed acceptable by the U.S. Public Health Service.

Still others are concerned that producing rainfall in one area will come at the expense of areas farther downwind, the old "robbing Peter to pay Paul" syndrome.

Bomar admits that not enough research has been directed at that, but most experts insist that wringing rain out of a cloud will not cause adverse effects elsewhere.

"We've seen no evidence that anyone is being deprived of the usual or normal amount of rainfall in or near a cloud seeding target area," Bomar says. That's because the amount of moisture that comes out of a cloud during a rain storm is really only a tiny fraction of the moisture that's available in the atmosphere...

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/print?id=98859

[converted_democrat]

3. I'm not sure.. I know that my Dad and a group of other farmers pitched

money together to do it in 88 when there was a major drought in the midwest.. They had the procedure done, but instead of getting rain where they wanted it, they got huge hail, and it spread to adjoining counties too.. Instead providing the much needed rain for the corn crop, it provided hail that destroyed the corn crop.. (And just about every other crop that was in the field at the time..) The guy that did it came from Russia to do it, and the whole thing cost like 10,000.. I wrote about it here on DU on another occasion.. Let me see if I can track down that past post.. It was a really interesting deal for me.. It was the first time I had met someone who spoke broken English, and the idea of "making it rain" was just crazy to me.. I'm sure the technology is better now than it was then, but it didn't work out for my family at all..

[W_HAMILTON]

4. Whaaat?

I've never even heard of anything like this. I guess it's cool in a way, because I had no clue we could essentially make it rain. When I saw the article's title, I figured it was going to just be a big truck spraying water out the top or something. Interesting.