It's going to be Made in China weather for the Beijing Olympics next year with officials putting in place plans to modify climatic conditions. China's vaulting ambitions on the world stage have propelled it to engage in feats of engineering excess that were hitherto considered humanly impossible. Now, the final frontier that limits humans from performing acts of God is about to be crossed. "Beijing municipal government's meteorological experts have been working with Russian experts to prevent rain during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, scheduled on August 8, 2008," Sun Weide, deputy director of the Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, told DNA. As part of the weather-modification exercise, experts will resort to cloud-seeding in order to induce precipitation ahead of that red-letter day.
Meteorologists also plan to blast rain-bearing clouds with chemical-embedded shells fired from anti-aircraft guns. "In the past few years, we have conducted a number of experiments in the area of weather modification, and we have been very, very successful," Sun said. The programme's objectives include precipitation enhancement, suppression of hail, dispersion of fog, and the prevention of frost. The programme, which has been underway for over a decade, also aims to check the desertification of China's northwestern region, and to improve the prospects for agriculture in a country that lacks arable land. These efforts have driven China to the forefront in the weather-modification service scale.
Beijing has also drawn up extensive plans to ensure that sandstorms, which blow in from the dry western regions of the country, don't play spoilsport with the Olympics. "Beijing authorities have joined hands with five neighbouring provinces to check the spread of desertification," Sun said.
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Venkatesan Vembu / DNA - Daily News & Analysis. China eyes weather control Gold in 08 Olympics. Copyright 2007 DNA - Daily News and Analysis.
