China Is Building a Rain-Making System Three Times as Big as Spain

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2138866/china-needs-more-water-so-its-building-rain-making-network-three

by kawera • 8 years ago

216 146 8 years ago

jkw• 8 years ago

This sounds like a potential military weapon as well

mc32• 8 years ago

They mention the US, CN and then SU, now RU, had engaged in weather research for offensive purposes --but at least some of that has turned to defensive measures now, given pop growth and climate change.

zingmars2• 8 years ago

The conspiracy theorists are going to love this.

callmeal• 8 years ago

It is. And it worked so well, there's an international treaty[0] against using it in war.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Modification_Con...

hyperpallium2• 8 years ago

I've always thought Australia should build a giant canal from the Great Australia Bite up through central Australia. Perhaps forming a permanent inland sea. The sea water evaporating would fall as rain (not sure where, though...).

A question for this article is who would have gotten that rain had it not been seeded.

akerr• 8 years ago

Do you mean Lake Eyre? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Eyre

There has been discussion about flooding it with sea water for years but it seems impractical.

hyperpallium2• 8 years ago

Not specifically, more DIY inland sea.

I think the big problem is motivation: we have heaps of arable land, and people are increasingly concentrated in cities.

EDIT thanks for the headsup, there's quite a bit online about it. I had this idea pre-internet, but haven't had the idea of googling it. IANA millennial, AMA (but I won't know).

ThrustVectoring• 8 years ago

The Qattara Depression in Egypt should probably get dug to the sea first. It's significantly deeper, which would allow you to generate significant amounts of hydroelectric power by flooding the depression.

cbHXBY1D• 8 years ago

Judging by the Suez Canal or the Salton Sea it doesn't have good long term effects. Eventually it dries out and the salt left behind gets flung around surrounding areas, contaminating water supplies and ruining crops.

zenmollusc• 8 years ago

Where would this rain that's being diverted normally end up?

Is some other country going to have a drought because of this?

jcoffland• 8 years ago

It's possible, even likely, that much of the rain would have fallen on the ocean.

Thetawaves• 8 years ago

Really? Because most of the moisture originated from the oceans in the first place. Are you saying that after genesis, it travels for some time over land before being deposited back in an ocean?

bigbluedots2• 8 years ago

The potential environmental impact of loads of silver iodide on human and other animal life is of concern. But it is China, so they probably don't care about that aspect.

murukesh_s• 8 years ago

Not only China, but which large country cares about larger environmental impact? Looking at the weapons the big countries are still building (man made floods, tornadoes etc) I don't think it's fair to target China alone.

bigbluedots2• 8 years ago

You have a point, but other large countries don't manage to pollute their environment anywhere near as badly, except for possibly India. For example: https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http...

rattray• 8 years ago

which large country cares about larger environmental impact?

Germany and Japan come to mind.

collyw3• 8 years ago

So far we have made a mess of the climate without trying to. Is it really a good idea to start messing with these systems?

practice9• 8 years ago

That's a good question. Messing with weather may cause all sorts of unintentional second-order effects

ggm• 8 years ago

Excluding systems which put water into the air, Atmospheric water is a zero sum game AFAIK so if this causes rain to fall where the Chinese want it, somebody else misses out.

Freshwater from high mountains in the India/China region is a hot topic. They're running out of glaciers.

thinkloop4• 8 years ago

Agree. It would work out if the rain was destined for the ocean or other unusable area. Otherwise they are taking it from other people.

rz2k• 8 years ago

I wonder how much of it is equivalent to depriving the Pacific Ocean of rainfall, and whether that has meaningful implications.

dengnan• 8 years ago

It worth to mention that the southern part of China has a different climate than the north. It is very normal that during summer, there is flood in South but drought in North. The situation may different from year to year but the trend is very clear. That is also why there is South–North Water Transfer Project[1]

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/South%E2%80%93North_Water_Tr...

saagarjha2• 8 years ago

The "stolen" rainfall doesn't have to be spatial, necessarily; it could be temporal as well. It might provide a way to control seasonal floods caused by excessive rainfall during a short period.

titzer6• 8 years ago

It's hard to see how moisture can stay in the air for months at a time, but I am not a climate scientist, so who knows.

tim3332• 8 years ago

It's not fully zero sum - the air that water is taken out of gets humid again when it goes over the sea.

jacquesm• 8 years ago

That's the start of a new cycle, so yes, it gets taken out, unless it evaporates again before it reaches the oceans.

dbatten• 8 years ago

Came here to ask if this was a zero sum game (verbatim, actually). So, thanks for this.

Given how much human conflict has erupted over access to rivers and other water sources, I can't imagine it will go well if a lot of countries start to do this at scale...

It's also fascinating how we muck-up water management in seemingly contradictory ways. I live in a temperate climate with a good amount of rainfall, but my town is already jockeying with its neighbors for the last remaining access points on the local water reservoir. Meanwhile, every time we get a heavy downpour, local creeks overflow due to excessive runoff from parking lots and what not and end up flooding all kinds of places (the local mall floods pretty much once every year or two, it seems). Fascinating how we can have not enough fresh water and too much fresh water all at the same time.

Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.

gfo• 8 years ago

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought of this immediately after reading the article.

You mentioned another point that's worth investigating with this technology - some places see excessive rainfall to the point where it disrupts populated areas.

Perhaps in the long-term we can learn if there are specific areas these systems tend to draw from and determine how weather patterns contribute to that. Eventually, we may be able to use these systems in a way that takes just the right amount of excessive rainfall from areas where it's becoming a nuisance and evenly distributing them to areas where water is scarce.

One could hope that countries experimenting with this across the globe would be willing to find ways to make that happen, although that could create huge dependency chains that quickly fall apart as soon as one country backs out suddenly.

philipodonnell• 8 years ago

Wouldn't higher temperatures and lower humidity due to water vapor extraction lead to an increase the evaporation from the oceans to maintain the balance?

Not saying that wouldn't have other effects, just wondering if atmospheric water is really a zero sum game.

Based on this [0], it looks like the weather systems head out over the pacific after passing China, so should have ample time to refuel?

[0] http://wasatchweatherweenies.blogspot.com/2012/02/jet-stream...

crowbahr• 8 years ago

It's not a 0 sum game so much as an equilibrium expression.

They're just putting their thumb on one side of the scale. Where the extra evaporation comes from and how it affects global climates is too tricky to predict but that's not going to stop them so we'll just have to live through it.

DaniFong• 8 years ago

You're right, but it would depend a lot on the weather conditions downwind

saas_co_de• 8 years ago

I don't think that is necessarily true. Whatever rain falls evaporates again. If you increase the amount of rain in one place then evaporation also increases. You have increased the capacity of the water cycle at least in a local area. Also most of earth is ocean so increasing rain on land does not necessarily take from other land.

lxmorj• 8 years ago

What if they're "stealing" rainfall that otherwise hits oceans?

mac01021• 8 years ago

I'm not the best at reading meteorological maps but, if I understand this jet stream forecast right, it looks like it's Beijing and South Korea that are going to miss out.

http://www.weatherstreet.com/international/asia-10-day-forec...

product50• 8 years ago

In other news, in San Francisco, the NIMBYs won an agitation to prevent a 4 school building from being constructed.

I am kidding..maybe.

In all honestly, I think the time for US to create large scale construction projects that serve humanity (at the expense of environment) are over. We are lucky that the interstates got build in 1950s, that the NYC Subway was formed in late 19th century etc. Today, the regulations and outrage is so strong that none of these would have been possible.

It is good to see other countries such as China being on the cutting edge to see what is possible.

drieddust• 8 years ago

They have not learned from sparrow killing episode I guess. This time though cost may be very high and entire world might end up paying.

brailsafe• 8 years ago

I feel like there's a bit more nuance in who's lucky that the interstates were built. But I do see your point.

ehnto• 8 years ago

I see your point, but I think we have done enough at the expense of the environment. A little more forethought in that area is welcome at least.

Some wild ambitious construction in favour of the environment and humanity would be excellent. But we seem suddenly frugal when that comes up.

It's of course more nuanced than I am about to make it seem, but that world governments are not chomping at the bit to install as much solar as possible is telling. The price is right, but the incumbents are hard to motivate, and for some reason generation of one of our most important, most volatile and most polluting resources is a private market concern.

tomcooks2• 8 years ago

Not an engineer but, if your infrastructure is that old first of all I'd focus on maintenance, rather than having dick measuring contests with countries that have questionable attitudes towards pollution, safety and nature.

spiderfarmer3• 8 years ago

The condition of the roads and infrastructure in a large part of the US is very, very bad when compared to countries like the Netherlands. It’s like the US is a superpower with third world infrastructure.

echevil2• 8 years ago

Not only old but also not enough. In areas that population have grown a lot in the past few decades, it makes a lot of sense to build new infrastructure to keep up with the demand

joering2• 8 years ago

Absolutely, +1. And that bridge collapse in Miami. God bless those poor souls but that bridge cost 14 million dollars!!! Yes! 740 feet of concrete at the expense of $14MM, now moved to garbage yard. Then add the most expensive mile in history (New York suway - one, cool, billion, dollars, for, one mile) and no wonder our infrastructure is in such poor state ;(

CompelTechnic• 8 years ago

I think that the $14 million for that bridge was a reasonable cost (assuming it was a functioning bridge).

shuntress• 8 years ago

Apparently $14MM is not enough to buy a bridge that works.

RobertoG• 8 years ago

I though the problem in USA for getting things done with infrastructure was the deficit hysteria, not the regulations and the outrage. Was I wrong?

sgc• 8 years ago

I think it's mainly that construction costs in the US are extremely high and it's not affordable in many locations.

ThomPete• 8 years ago

NIMBY is one of the worst and most elitarian movements that exist out there and the opposition to Nuclear Power by environmentalist is not only ironic but it's hurting both the environment and making people poorer than they needed to be.

Even Democrats are starting to see that now.

thinkloop4• 8 years ago

MIT figured out fusion this month, water shortages are on the verge of being solved since water is not scarce, just dirty/salty - it's an energy problem.

dx0342• 8 years ago

I think the recent 200GW solar power deal between Saudi Arabia and SoftBank has more potential to solve desalination problems than Fusion (at least over the medium term).

thinkloop4• 8 years ago

That too, although solar still has relatively high costs per watt. Fusion can make energy nearly free.

collyw3• 8 years ago

Really as I though such an achievement would have gathered a lot of press attention. It could literally "save the planet". All I saw in the news was Kardashians.

muthdra• 8 years ago

By that logic, what isn't an energy problem?

panic• 8 years ago

Googling around a bit, there seems to be a long history of weather-modification news coming out of China.

In 2008, according to the Beijing Weather Modification Office, China used rockets to make sure the Olympic opening ceremony was rain-free: https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/how-beijing-use...

In 2013, China was producing "55 billion tons of artificial rain a year" according to the China Meteorological Administration: https://qz.com/138141/china-creates-55-billion-tons-of-artif...

Last year, the CMA spent millions on airplanes and rockets to affect rainfall: http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/206...

That said, it's unclear whether cloud seeding actually works: https://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i22/Does-cloud-seeding-reall.... An experiment in the US, the Wyoming Weather Modification Pilot Program, gave somewhat positive but inconclusive results on the order of a 5 to 15 percent increase in precipitation amount: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/we-may-never-know-how-w...

And, sure enough, in 2011, China's rainmaking tech wasn't enough to fix the Yangtze delta drought: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/jun/01/china-dr...

To me, all this rain-making news out of China seems like either propaganda or some Chinese government bureau justifying its existence by inflating how much this cloud-seeding technology can actually do. But that's just my feeling from an hour of searching around and skimming articles -- I'd love to hear how I'm wrong!

TheSpiceIsLife• 8 years ago

Hydro Tasmania had run a cloud seeding program for a while.

I just looked it up again and the program has been on hold since 2016.

https://www.hydro.com.au/water/rainfall/cloud-seeding

furyg3• 8 years ago

To me, all this rain-making news out of China seems like either propaganda

It's easier to organize a very public and sophisticated rain dance than it is to properly manage water resources at scale.

volgo• 8 years ago

Sounds like your ego is talking. This is called confirmation bias. When you firmly believe in something, you'll find the search results for it.

Name any "initiative" and I'll find you at least 10 articles on it

gregw134• 8 years ago

Really cool. It uses silver iodide though. How much silver would need to be consumed to make this work? That probably won't be cheap.

cdepman• 8 years ago

I think access to water resources has always been part, if not the bulk, of modern China's Tibet play. And now they're starting to tap into those resources. I wonder what the effects will be once they start pumping / rain-making at an even more massive scale.

More on water resources in Tibet: http://www.tibetnature.net/en/introduction-water-resources/

sametmax4• 8 years ago

Well yeah. It's a territory next to India, which is short on water, has a huge population and the atomic bomb. So it was always about who would get it first without getting busted.

aeroman• 8 years ago

Unfortunately there is little evidence that cloud seeding is actually able to increase the overall precipitation in most cases [0 - response to NRC report on cloud seeding].

There are spectacular results when glaciating individual clouds [1] and there is some evidence of glaciogenic cloud seeding (the kind done with silver iodide) working in mountainous regions where supercooled clouds are common [2 - paywalled unfortunately]. However, much of the Tibetan plateau has high amounts of dust, which means that the clouds already form ice at relatively warm temperatures [3]. In this case, silver iodide might not be expected to have a large effect on precipitation formation.

It is also very difficult to detect a change in precipitation, as it varies strongly in both space and time, requiring long averaging periods to detect a change. This will be an very useful experiment if it goes forward, but I suspect that concerns over rain-stealing are rather overblown, as are hopes that it could significantly enhance rainfall in arid regions.

[0] https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/BAMS-86-5-647

[1] https://www.ge.com/reports/snow-men-cometh-kurt-vonnegut-ice...

[2] http://www.pnas.org/content/115/6/1168

[3] http://www.pnas.org/content/107/25/11211

speeq2• 8 years ago

This is total conspiracy theory stuff and I'll probably get downvoted into oblivion but has anyone else in London found it really strange on how on the day of the Brexit referendum - we had these sudden overnight thunderstorms which resulted in many roads being flooded, polling stations being inaccessible and huge delays / suspensions of the Tube? Just a coincidence and bad luck?

* http://uk.businessinsider.com/polls-open-britain-eu-referend...

* https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/06/22...

* https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/uk-weather-commuters-u...

The next morning it all cleared away and it was a beautiful sunny day to the point where even Nigel Farage had to make a comment / joke about it [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLCb1cGROAw].

If localized rain-making on a massive scale like this is possible, I wonder if it was used to manipulate the referendum by whoever might be interested in that.

orf• 8 years ago

I reckon there are far cheaper ways to influence the vote than that. Like sticking a big whopping lie on the side of a bus and parading it around as truth, then admitting it's a lie 30 minutes after the results

baxtr• 8 years ago

Rain coming down over London is really strange and noteworthy.

speeq2• 8 years ago

The issues were caused after the South East was struck by a massive thunderstorm, which saw a month's worth of rain fall in an hour, in the early hours of EU referendum day.

I've lived in London for a while, it was definitely not your usual bit of rain.

frockington2• 8 years ago

Did the sun rise the following morning too?

trisimix• 8 years ago

steals tibet fucks it up with silver iodide

dang• 8 years ago

Please don't do internet tropes here. They're bad for discussion quality. On HN the idea is to (a) have a substantive point to make and (b) make it thoughtfully.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

f_allwein• 8 years ago

The system, which involves an enormous network of fuel-burning chambers

Oh dear... Wonder what will be burned there?

Digit-Al• 8 years ago

Sounds like a bad idea [1] to me.

1. http://www.ranches.org/cloudseedingharmful.htm

rdsubhas• 8 years ago

Not being apocalyptic and all, but reminds me of this:

http://matrix.wikia.com/wiki/Operation_Dark_Storm

rgrieselhuber• 8 years ago

Interesting how quickly we went from “weather modification is a conspiracy theory” to reporting about it on an increasingly regular basis.

hungerstrike• 8 years ago

You're right. As a fan of conspiracy theory drama, I love it when I make this discovery (how something went from conspiracy theory to non-conspiracy theory). I had actually read about this before it had its own Wikipedia page and people thought I was crazy if I chose to speak about it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Popeye

Those who have a deep desire to be in control will try almost anything.

As far as actual conspiracy theories go, I don't see why some people have such a hard time imagining that powerful, control-hungry people could form groups and work together to feed their desires. I guess they just can't relate because that's not how they think or they just don't want to think about it because it makes them uncomfortable.

RosanaAnaDana2• 8 years ago

Its in my 'Petersons guide to Weather' from the early 90's. Interestingly, it was Kurt Vonnegut's brother who did much of the early research.

IAmEveryone• 8 years ago

Doesn’t it actually disprove the conspiracy theories, considering how open these schemes are handled?

tim3332• 8 years ago

The chambers burn solid fuel to produce silver iodide

seems a little off - most fuel doesn't contain silver or iodine. I expect what happens is the put silver iodide on the fuel and then they heat produced causes it to rise up in the manner of a hot air balloon.

Incidentally silver iodide seems to cost $300-$500 / kg but you don't need very much of it

Wikipedia has "Approximately 50,000 kg are used for cloud seeding annually, each seeding experiment consuming 10–50 grams."

AlexC04• 8 years ago

     Under the guidelines of the Clean Water Act by the 
     EPA, silver iodide is considered a hazardous 
     substance, a priority pollutant, and as a toxic 
     pollutant.(10) Some industries have learned this all 
     too well. ... If the toxicity manifests in pollution 
     and illnesses, the effects may not be reversible ...

http://www.ranches.org/cloudseedingharmful.htm

So.... this doesn't seem like the best idea.

celticninja• 8 years ago

China seems to be somewhere that is happy with short term solutions without considering longer term impacts.

staz• 8 years ago

compared to the rest of the world?

onetimemanytime• 8 years ago

I think it's a developmental stage. Do it and then stop it. See those (ex-)factories near major US cities?

China has stopped of pollution already, after ruining the manufacturing base in richer countries.

jesseb• 8 years ago

Interesting. Cloud seeding using Silver Iodide is still in use in Canada, as part of the Alberta Hail Suppression Project[0]. These little differences between Canada and the US always surprise me.

[0] https://globalnews.ca/news/3514775/alberta-severe-weather-su...

truculation• 8 years ago

Regardless of the merits or demerits of this particular scheme, I admire the spirit. With a fraction of such confidence we could revive the Neanderthals, build an asteroid defence system, clean up the oceans, on and on. Instead we're not trying much. We feel ashamed... because... why?

RobertRoberts2• 8 years ago

At what cost? Some cultures do not value the health and life of the every day person. I don't think that is something to be honored or respected.

Raphmedia2• 8 years ago

Well, it's that spirit in the first place that gave us such polluted oceans.

XR0CSWV3h3kZWg2• 8 years ago

Unintended consequences.

Communist party of china has a pretty bad history of large unintended consequences from their actions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy#Effects

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#Policy_and...

blondie9x• 8 years ago

This should be regulated internationally by the UN. This solution is like turning on the AC when it's hot out. It won't make it less hot outside and you will need more and more electricity to power the AC as the world heats up from increased CO2 levels.

This technology releases significant amounts of CO2 and as the Earth's temperature rises from increased greenhouse gas concentrations, solutions such as these will show diminishing returns because the technology they are built upon only worsens the underlying problem by producing significant amounts of the gas causing the problem in the first place.

Disappointing approach to solving climate change and mitigating it's impacts.

sametmax4• 8 years ago

What's more, local weather is always existing in a global context. When they'll modify the meteorology at the scale of their country, it may very well impact the climate of the entire planet. Water must come from somewhere. Air current will be impacted. And temperature deltas.

It's very concerning.

unsigner• 8 years ago

How dare they think of their own country! Those are trully irresponsible national leaders.

tptacek• 8 years ago

The UN has no authority to regulate China like that.

schoen• 8 years ago

I guess the the previous poster is implicitly proposing an international treaty on the atmosphere (edit: maybe creating a new UN specialist agency). Of course, there are already a number of other treaties in this area and while some of them have worked reasonably well (like the treaties to protect the ozone layer by eliminating use of CFCs), others have been fraught with difficulty.

There are already international treaties on water rights, even with dispute resolution mechanisms in some cases, so maybe these mechanisms could be extended somehow to water rights in atmospheric water. (Not that this is by any means easy in the case of surface water.)

Giorgi• 8 years ago

What exactly is being burned to produce silver iodide?

_bxg1• 8 years ago

The chambers burn solid fuel to produce silver iodide, a cloud-seeding agent with a crystalline structure much like ice.
...releasing only vapours and carbon dioxide, which makes them suitable for use even in environmentally protected areas.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm

maxgiraldo• 8 years ago

Why not plant trees? https://forestsnews.cifor.org/10316/make-it-rain-planting-fo...

mdorazio• 8 years ago

They are [1]. Planting trees alone is not enough.

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-tree-pla...

RosanaAnaDana2• 8 years ago

So trees don't change the 0 sum aspect behind cloud seeding: if the rain falls in one place, it can't rain in some other place. The primary reason why plants (read: anything photosynthetic) have a role to play in where it rains is the same principle behind cloud seeding. Plants, when they don't have sufficient nutrients to run photosynthesis and make new plant material, release unused photosynthesis as short chained hydrocarbons, usually ethane and some derivatives. Idea here is that it gives them a place to land the electrons from photosynthesis without tearing themselves apart when nutrients aren't readily available. These short chained hydrocarbons go on to play the same role as the silver compound used by China; they form the 'seeds' for droplet formation.

Neither method does anything to address the fact that there is only so much water in the atmosphere (although that is changing with a changing climate).

echevil2• 8 years ago

China is probably planting more trees than any other country in the world.

http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/20305/20160321/china...

“Based on the images captured by NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), it was revealed that 1.6 percent of the total land surface of China became heavily forested in a span of only ten years from 2000 to 2010.”

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/284/1854/2016...

“China is investing immense resources for planting trees, totalling more than US$ 100 billion in the past decade alone”

magwa101• 8 years ago

What could go wrong?

trophycase• 8 years ago

I'm sure this will have no unintended consequences...

China Is Building a Rain-Making System Three Times as Big as Spain

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