China Claims Score In Weather Manipulation 147
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."
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]
Must have forgot to fire them today (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:On tomorrow's agenda... (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.
Re:On tomorrow's agenda... (Score:1, Interesting)
They hardly used the technology for the Women's Road Race which ran through torrential rain and even flooding problems.
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.
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]
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.
Re:Absence of evidence is not evidence of Absence (Score:3, Interesting)
Apparently even now it is very difficult to say whether seeding any paticular cloud will work or not and if it does whether it would have rained anyway. There are a lot of variables so I'm not sure if "mysterious lost secrets from a dead master" are really going to help. Rain is always going to come eventually so clever confidence tricksters can always win.
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.
Re:On tomorrow's agenda... (Score:1, Interesting)
This is a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Rain, in Beijing, as in many other cities, performs two roles: (1) provides water to everything on the ground and (2) "washes" the air.
So, by making the opening ceremony 'rain free', they've all but guaranteed the rest of the event to have lower air quality. How do I know this?
I've lived in Beijing during this time of year *and* the air on morning/day after a rain event is _always_ much nicer than it was the day before.
So why is it so humid in Beijing? The prevailing wind direction from most weather patterns that affect the city is onshore (wind blows from the sea to the land.) During summer this brings lots of hot moist air from out over the ocean, over the land until it meets the mountains that border Beijing, trapping it. About once every 2 weeks they get a westerly wind pattern and all that crap gets blown out to see - clear skies usually last less than 48 hours.
I'm sure the only people who are surprised about the condition of the air in Beijing are the IOC folks that haven't spent any real time in the city and lapped up whatever the Chinese told them. The Chinese people won't be, anyone who has been to Beijing won't be, athletes maybe (because they've been duped by the IOC.)
So the buildup of bad air continues and one is left to wonder if the Chinese authorities will insist on playing God (and make things continually worse) for the entire event or will let nature look after itself.