cloud seeding in beijing

[karmgirl]

My dad was saying they fire chemicals into clouds to encourage them to rain so that when they have things like olympics and they want it to be dry, they can make the clouds rain before hand. Is this true? Anyone know about it?

[pug100]

Cloud seeding has and can be done since the late 40's, mostly for military applications. Don't know if the Chinese do it now esp looking at their weather today. More info here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_seeding

[Panic Button]

Yes, they can do it, and indeed did do it before the opening.

The Barrowman Broadcasting Corporation showed them doing it.

However todays cancellations due to bad weather show they can only have short term control of the weather. Man is still too puny to change the weather in our favour.

[adamhornsby]

i think they use silver nitrate

[Panic Button]

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Be ijing-Olympics-China-Uses-Cloud-Seeding-To-Try -To-Change-Weather/Article/200808115073313?f=r ss

[sidkid]

I recall that some horrendous flooding in the Devon/Cornwall area back in the 1950s was blamed on military cloud-seeding trials - might just be a good old conspiracy theory though.....