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China Claims Score In Weather Manipulation
Posted by
timothy
on Sun Aug 10, 2008 05:31 AM
from the home-field-advantage dept.
from the home-field-advantage dept.
hackingbear writes "Despite prior skepticism over effectiveness, China claims successful application of weather intervention to ensure a stunning Olympic opening ceremony, according to a report by the official Xinhua News Agency:
'We fired a total of 1,104 rain dispersal rockets from 21 sites in the city between 4 p.m. and 11:39 p.m. on Friday, which successfully intercepted a stretch of rain belt from moving towards the stadium,' said Guo Hu, head of the Beijing Municipal Meteorological Bureau (BMB).
While there wasn't a single drop of rain over the National Stadium — also known as the Bird's Nest — during the opening ceremony from 8:00pm-12:00am on August 8, the weather services said that Baoding City of Hebei Province, to the southwest of Beijing, received the biggest rainfall of 100 millimeters Friday night, and Beijing's Fangshan District recorded a rainfall of 25 millimeters."
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On tomorrow's agenda... (Score:4, Interesting)
Olympic cyclists had a hard time coping with the combined effects of the humidity, temperature, and smog laden air and visibility of the flame cauldron was barely a mile.
http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/trackandfield/columns/story?columnist=caple_jim&id=3475952 [go.com]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The smog in China could be a tourist attraction itself. I have shown people photos just so they can see the smog engulfing the city skyline.
No where in the world have I seen smog like China, it is a unique sight.
Re:On tomorrow's agenda... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's dramatic but unfortunately it's not unique. Half a century ago the west were suffering pea-souper's [wikipedia.org] of our own. Here in Melbourne Australia we have smog from bushfires during most summers, the summer of 06-07 was exceptionally bad with most of December looking like a bad day in Bejing.
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THERE IS NO SMOG., (Score:4, Funny)
That's just mist. It'd just evaporation and humidity. Stupid American propagandists.
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Re:On tomorrow's agenda... (Score:4, Funny)
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The most controlled Olympics ever? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The most controlled Olympics ever? (Score:4, Informative)
I watched it on tv too, and wasn't surprised that, on some parts of the course, there were no people there - I've been there, and it's quite a difficult place to get to even when the roads are open...of course, the roads would be closed for the races.
I wonder what the locals do....
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Re:The most controlled Olympics ever? (Score:4, Interesting)
locals? I don't think you'll find many locals left in Beijing near the Olympic stadium. From the news that gets out it seamed like a robocop style Olympic village build.
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Re:The most controlled Olympics ever? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, they're there. Just look behind their big walls:
http://omoikane.minstrum.net/one-world.jpg [minstrum.net]
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Re:The most controlled Olympics ever? (Score:5, Interesting)
1) the event wasn't near the olympic stadium....it was from Beijing city up to the great wall.
2) the people who were claimed to 'live' where the stadia were built were most likely migrants that were squatting there illegally - it is very common in BJ.
3) there *are* locals living right near the main stadium - there are blocks of flats right next to the village occupied by locals. The flats are very similar to the one I lived in until a couple of months ago.
4) Do you *really* believe what you're shown/told on the news? If living in China has taught me one thing, it's to question what you're told. I thought that I knew this before I went there...but now I am back in 'the west', I find the amount of (apparent) BS on the news (particularly the BBC) quite disgusting - it seems they go knowing what to look for and if they find it, they don't look for reasonable (or even unreasonable, but culturally different) explanations...they just go 'ooh, look at the aweful Chinese; aren't they bad'. It's pathetic, sometimes (seems to be getting better now the games are actually running though).
All, my opinion though...and I seem to be in a minority in this respect on /., so I guess I'll be moderated troll or flamebait, because that's how people will respond....which isn't my fault.
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Re:The most controlled Olympics ever? (Score:5, Insightful)
Media manipulation is a global phenomenon. Just about every country has their own agenda with it. For example in China, the media is controlled to protect the CCP and maintain control of the populous through mis-information. In the USA however, the media is all about the cultural "shock value". The more shock, the higher your ratings become for profit.
If anyone thinks there is a shred of honor left in any of the media conglomerates would be sorely mistaken. It's about bending, shaping, and molding the premise which to base the news on to achieve the predefined objective.
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Re:The most controlled Olympics ever? (Score:5, Interesting)
> in China, the media is controlled to protect the CCP and maintain control of the populous through mis-information
That's not my experience. It's more like they know to avoid certain topics. I was told that it's very different to how it used to be too - it's now all kind of unwritten, unlike a decade or so ago when it was a much more direct level of control.
I recall a recent BBC story where they were searching for Chinese arms in Dafur. I mean, they weren't looking for arms from anywhere else. Eventually, after much effort, they found a couple of lorries (trucks), and they called that a success. Pathetic.
To be fair, they did 'discover' that the Chinese had sold them fighter jets before the embargo, which they said was understandable, but that the Chinese were still training them.
I find myself with many questions: 1) is that all? 2) did they 'sell' the training with the jets and so it's also prior to the embargo, 3) what about all the other weapons that the Sudanese were using?
I am not the most well educated person, especially when it comes to politics and such like, but if *I'm* coming up with these questions, surely they must too; but they weren't addressed, so I ended up writing the report off as biased.
I find it happens a lot these days. They come to a 'conclusion' before all the (obvious) questions are answered.
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Absence of evidence is not evidence of Absence (Score:5, Insightful)
It's very hard to prove a negative. You could also claim that a squig of nutmeg around your neck will prevent alien abductions.
The tests of various rain-making programs have been more or less a wash. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't, or to look at it a diffrent way, sometimes it rains and sometimes it does not. I'll believe it when they can A) stop rain on demand, or B) start rain on demand. If you can't do either, sell your snake oil somewhere else.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You could also claim that a squig of nutmeg around your neck will prevent alien abductions.
Well, it's worked for me so far.
Re:Absence of evidence is not evidence of Absence (Score:4, Informative)
I'll believe it when they can A) stop rain on demand, or B) start rain on demand.
A) They did stop rain on demand.
B) There is quite a difference between dispersing clouds that are already there and creating clouds out of nothing.
And any system that be able to effectively deliver water on demand would probably be far more expensive than digging a ditch and letting water flow through it.
Unless you are thinking of something like this at 5:00. [youtube.com]
That might work... with some changes to the laws of physics.
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Re:Absence of evidence is not evidence of Absence (Score:5, Insightful)
It's essentually just a bunch of water vapor suspended in the air with some dust particles.
Eventually the air becomes soo saturated that the water vapors combine and become too heavy to say airborne, turning into rain.
One thing I've noticed living here in Florida for 20+ years where it's quite moist is that it seems to rain on almost every holiday where there's
a) Masses of people BBQ-ing
b) Masses of people setting off fireworks
Both of these activities fill the air with excess dust particles, which eventually crowd the area where water vapor accumulates quicker than happens naturally & causes the rain to fall. I think it happens like that here in Florida because of the relative humidity. I believe the same thing would happen in for instance, Seattle where it's very wet.
Given the Chinese are using rockets, I think there's a very good chance they actually can control the weather, to a point. It's kinda like detonating land mines before troops get to them, except in this case it's all about making the rain fall before it gets to the place an event is being held.
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Re:Absence of evidence is not evidence of Absence (Score:5, Informative)
We've been doing cloud seeding since the 60's or so here in Australia. It works under a fairly specific set of circumstances. You need clouds that are 'bursting at the seams' and are going to drop their rain at some point in the very near future. Given such clouds, you drop silver iodide into them and you'll increase the chance of the rain event happening now rather than a bit later, and probably increase the volume of rain too.
You'll never get rain out of air that just doesn't have enough moisture in it to begin with though.
And you can't stop it raining somewhere, except by coaxing the clouds into making their rain somewhere else first, which is what I think China did (or what I think China think they did :)
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Re:Absence of evidence is not evidence of Absence (Score:5, Informative)
This guy supposedly did it a century ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Hatfield [wikipedia.org]
Supposedly Hatfield noticed that it would frequently rain on battlefields somewhat after the fighting had died down. Extrapolating from this, he considered that perhaps something in the explosions was affecting clouds overhead.
Unfortunately, his chemical formula died with him, but it's an inspiring story if he really did come up with this idea himself and actually put into practice.
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Re:Absence of evidence is not evidence of Absence (Score:5, Funny)
Given such clouds, you drop silver iodide into them and you'll increase the chance of the rain event happening now rather than a bit later, and probably increase the volume of rain too.
I'm wondering, from a purely technical point of view, whether this technique would be appropriate for the smug clouds known to exist over parts of Los Angeles. And if so, would you get rain, or an increase in the smugness index?
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Ob. Simpsons (Score:4, Funny)
Or, to put it in a more Slashdot-friendly way:
Homer Simpson: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm.
Lisa Simpson: That's specious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: Thank you, dear.
Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Oh, how does it work?
Lisa: It doesn't work.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: It's just a stupid rock.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around, do you?
[Homer thinks of this, then pulls out some money]
Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.
[Lisa refuses at first, then takes the exchange]
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Must have forgot to fire them today (Score:3, Interesting)
Confucius say (Score:5, Funny)
He who controls the weather, reigns supreme
Thanks, I'll be here all week!
International implications? (Score:4, Insightful)
The system in use does not prevent rain, it just makes it fall elsewhere. Assuming for a moment that the system will get better, and perhaps we will be able to control other aspects of the weather like wind or temperature, I can see weather control becoming an international issue in the future.
One country could blow smog away over another, or prevent it from entering their airspace. What if two neighbouring countries have different ideas, or one decides to wreck the other econnomy (deliberately or otherwise) by preventing rainfall over their neighbour, perhaps by "stealing" it for themselves?
Beijing as seen by a meteorologist (Score:4, Informative)
The weather and air quality have been fairly close to the worrisome scenario painted months ago. I've been checking meteorological observations every day, finding the dew point at Beijing's airport in the mid and upper 70s on a regular basis and visibility of 1-2 miles common (It is currently under 1 mile, but there is rain falling).
Back in February I wrote on my blog [geofffox.com] of the potential Olympic weather: "So, when the deputy chief engineer of the Beijing Meteorological Bureau says, "Even if the rare extreme weather hits Beijing in August, people will not feel muggy. High humidity will not accompany the hot weather in August because their climax periods are different, " I'd hide the silverware and other valuables."
Current Beijing observations are here [noaa.gov].
Dew points (the real number you should look at when you think humidity) have been consistently in the 70s--often the upper 70s. That's like walking around with a warm, damp cloth wrapped around your body. Much of yesterday had Beijing more humid than Miami.
I would feel better about what the Chinese say if dissenting voices were allowed to speak about the air!
There is an independent group from Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants in England who have been monitoring the air and issuing their own forecasts which have been much more pessimistic than the official government version. Now that forecast is gone! From Telegraph.co.uk: British scientists monitoring air quality in Beijing have been ordered to close down their website after their readings clashed with official statistics showing the city was meeting its pollution targets.
Re:China... (Score:5, Funny)
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