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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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 Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 7:50 am Post subject: Chinese make first artificial snowfall |
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Chinese make first artificial snowfall
By Richard Spencer in Hong Kong
Last Updated: 2:25am BST 19/04/2007
China claimed yesterday to have caused a snowfall for the first time as part of its increasingly ambitious attempts to control the weather.
Officials in the meteorological bureau in Tibet said they had used "rain-seeding" techniques to trigger a snowfall over the city of Nagqu last week.
"This proves it's possible for humans to change the weather on the world's highest plateau," said Yu Zhongshui. The bureau said it had produced just under half an inch of snow at a height of 15,000ft.
Mr Yu said the experiment was conducted in the hope it would lead to alleviating drought on the northern Tibetan plateau, whose grasslands are turning brown as global warming melts and drains its permafrost.
The government also hopes that the project will benefit the great river systems of China. The Yellow, Yangtse, Salween, Mekong and Brahmaputra rivers all rise in Tibet, and the effects of damming and over-extraction for agriculture are beginning to threaten water supplies to major cities.
China is the world's largest practitioner of rain-seeding, a controversial procedure that involves releasing silver iodide as a catalyst into clouds either by aircraft or by firing cannon shells into them. It employs 37,000 people on the programme, which it uses to trigger rainfall principally to maximise water supply in the drought-prone north of the country, although in Beijing it is often said to be part of attempts to ensure a blue sky for major events.
Authorities have already promised to use rain-seeding before the Olympics to clear the often gloomy August skies for the opening ceremony. |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/19/wchina19.xml
I think that eventually humans will have to find ways to control the weather. But, I don't know if I trust the CCP in this capacity. |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 11:25 am Post subject: |
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A shiver just ran down my spine reading this. So, the Chinese are going to try to alter the environment? They've done quite a bit of that in their homeland over the years, it's a freaking mess, and it had nothing to do with snowfall.
God forbid they start to play with more global systems. |
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JongnoGuru
Joined: 25 May 2004
Location: peeing on your doorstep
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| Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 12:30 pm Post subject: Re: Chinese make first artificial snowfall |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 12:45 pm Post subject: |
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| He's looking right at my house!! Well, a little west, but I'm still freaked out. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 4:46 pm Post subject: |
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How about doing that for Australia? They need some rains to feed the cows, and we need Australian beef, mates.
Righto! To the clouds, mates! |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 7:32 pm Post subject: |
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A half an inch of snow at a height of 15k feet?
That's small enough to be believable but also so small as to question how measurable an effect it would be, IOW, was it really them? |
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