Modifying Weather for the Bejing Olympics
Meteorologists in China say that that if necessary they will modify the weather on August 8 so it doesn’t rain on the 2008 Summer Olympics opening ceremonies.
Training with the Olympics in mind, the meteorologists have been practicing their “rain mitigation” techniques since 2006. They have had a couple of dry runs, so to speak — a China-Africa summit and a panda festival in Sichuan province, among others.
“We have the largest program in the world with the most people involved and the most equipment, but it is not really the most advanced,” Wang said. That honor belongs to the Russians, who he says used sophisticated cloud-seeding in 1986 to prevent radioactive rain from the Chernobyl reactor accident from reaching Moscow. [LINK] [via link]
