Under the Weather at the Beijing Olympics

At 08-08-08 at 8pm, the Beijing Summer Olympics will kick off their highly anticipated opening ceremonies and they are leaving nothing to chance.

For starters, the date and time have been carefully chosen to highlight ‘eight’, a lucky number in Chinese culture that symbolizes prosperity.

Also, with the clock ticking, there is already major skepticism as to whether China will be able to clean up their air before the games. A recent visit by Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, caused concern when he told reporters that some Olympic events might be postponed if the pollution puts athletes at risk: a potentially disastrous situation for everyone involved.

This could lead to some drastic measures such as mass closures of factories and traffic restrictions prior to the games.

Poor air quality isn’t the only concern of the Olympic Committee. Summer is Beijing’s rainy season and historically there has been a 50 percent chance of rain on the day of the opening and closing ceremonies. Not willing to rely on the whims of nature, China has alternative plans.

Weather modification.

China has been conducting this for some time, and they aren’t alone. The technology was pioneered in back in the 1940’s by the US, to stimulate rain, flood trails, and reduce hail in the prairie states. Now, more than 30 countries attempt to manipulate the weather, including Morocco, Israel, Australia, and Russia.

China has taken this technology to the next level.

Ours is the largest artificial weather program in the world in terms of equipment, size and budget. The annual nationwide budget for weather modification is between US$60 and $90 million,” reported Wang Guanghe, director of the Weather Modification Department under the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, in the Asia Times.

Originally developed to solve environmental issues such as: desertification, water arid crops, and to fill reservoirs. The WOD has now been assigned a new task: sunny skies for the ceremonies.

Rockets will be prepared to launch pellets of silver iodide into the clouds in the hopes of concentrating moisture and causing rain. The theory is that when the silver iodide hits the clouds, it will create raindrops, because its chemical structure closely resembles ice.

This increases precipitation.

The controversial process is called ‘cloud seeding’. Proponents believe it can increase precipitation by 5 to 25 percent, given the right conditions.

The idea is that when a cloud is drained of precipitation, it is incapable of producing rainy weather, afterward.

Wang said similar efforts in the past have already helped to create good weather for a number of international events held in China, including the 1999 World Horti-Expo in Yunnan and the 1993 East Asian Games in Shanghai. However, because there is no way to establish how much rain may have fallen without intervention, he admits that it is difficult to measure the true impact cloud-seeding has.

This is believed to be the first Olympics in the history of the world to potentially employ weather modification.

However, tests for the long-term effects of silver iodide in the water supply have not been conducted. There have been reported issues of weather modification in one region adversely affecting those in another.

While weather modification may seem like a good idea on the surface, it may only be a mask for a deeper, underlying problem.

In case you were wondering, I haven’t written in a while because 1. I’m incredibly busy and 2. I went through a bit of a ‘blah’ period regarding sustainability. Maria is shaking me out of it, so she helped me write (and mostly wrote) these next couple of articles. Either way, it’s good to be back at it.

By

Mike Catherall

and

Maria Hruschak