Beijing is one of the most polluted cities in the world, but there is a day when the sky almost certainly breaks through and the light returns to the city It is when an important political meeting or event of international relevance is held. And it is no coincidence.
The Chinese government has been using time manipulation programs for years and this past December took a step further: announcing its objective to expand its capacity of operations in this area substantially.
China plans to expand its artificial rain or snow program to cover 5.5 million square kilometers in 2021, almost the 60% of its territory (almost three times Mexico).
The announcement generated concern in neighboring countries such as India, between the uncertainty about the impact of this technology and regional tensions.
Three objectives
The announcement came on December 2, through a statement from the State Council of China, the Executive.
In it, a guide for the development and expansion of the program manipulation of time and established three specific objectives :
- than for 2025, it is expected that “the area affected by operations to increase artificial rain (or snow) will reach more than 5.5 million square kilometers” ;
- that by that same date, “the area protected by hail prevention operations will reach To over 580. 10 km2 ”;
- and that, “for 2035” , an “advanced global level” is reached thanks to innovation in key research and technology, as well as improved “comprehensive prevention of security risks.”
The program, the statement said, will help in disaster relief, the prod agricultural action, response to forest and grassland fires, as well as in the management of unusual high temperatures or droughts, although it did not provide much more detail about it.
“As the title of the document is ‘an opinion in development’ , it usually implies that the central government will set the general framework while the different ministries and local governments will develop concrete measures, the latter usually receiving generous funding, ”explains the BBC journalist in Beijing, Yitsing Wang.
Wang quotes, for example, the case of Gansu province (in the north), which “immediately announced ambitious goals”, with large drones at the center of its strategy.
China deploys large #UAV # Ganlin-1 for artificial precipitation; it aims to conduct weather-modification missions in complex weather conditions. pic.twitter.com/PtnSGDdrX1
– China Xinhua News (@XHNews) January 9, 2021
In fact, it took less than a month to become the place where China debuted its weather modification show based on drones capable of causing precipitation, with the maiden flight of Ganlin-1 (“sweet rain”, in Spanish), according to the official Xinhua agency.
Cloud seeding
However, the call “Seeding clouds” is not new, neither in China nor in other countries of the world.
“ They are quite common, many countries use this technology . China has been using it for a long time, India does too, in sub-Saharan Africa and the northeast of the continent as well, where there are very problematic droughts. Or Australia, for example, “Dhanasree Jayaram, climate expert at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education in Karnataka, India, tells BBC Mundo.
However,” the scale of the projects is not that big … removing this one ”, he emphasizes, referring to the Beijing plan.
Cloud seeding consists of spraying substances such as silver iodide in the clouds, to try to make them produce precipitation, and it is one of the techniques used in weather manipulation.
The first investigations in this regard began at the end of the years 40, mainly in the United States, but there are still great doubts about this method.
“There are very few scientific articles written on its effectiveness “, explains to BBC World John C. Moore, chief scientist of the Faculty of Earth System Sciences and Global Change at Peking Normal University .
“” It was developing without having gone through any type of scientific validation (…) Even today you talk to scientists specialized in aerosols in China who do experiments with airplanes and things well, and they will tell you that it is a strange matter, that it is done routinely without having a [investigación] complete scientific ”.
In the Asian country, weather manipulation through cloud seeding is a kind of “operational issue”, adds the specialist. “It is not a research exercise or anything remotely scientific. Basically, it is done at the communal, city and town level. ”
One of these best-known practices in China at an international level is related to major events , although in those specific cases, such as the important conclaves of the Communist Party in Beijing, factory closures also usually come into play to reduce pollution .
Specifically, Moore notes that 50. 000 Chinese municipalities practice cloud seeding on a regular basis to avoid damage to their fields: “Basically, [se trata de] trying to prevent hail storms from destroying crops, so you try to get the rain out of the clouds before it is Too dangerous”.
“The other issue – he adds – is that cloud seeding only works effectively in the country for one or two months a year.”
This past December, the specialized magazine New Scientist echoed a recent investigation that found that the seeding of orographic clouds can increase rainfall, but noted that the increase is lower than the 10 percent.
Who owns the rain?
The doubts on this technique have not prevented China from investing heavily in it, and that feeds neighboring concerns at a time of growing disputes between the Asian giant and other countries.
“One of the fears that this technology is applied in China massively is whether it will have an impact on the summer monsoon in India, which is also key for the entire region, but not there are many studies in this regard “, specifies the specialist from Karnataka Dhanasree Jayaram.
The expert considers that this type of announcement could have gone unnoticed if the relationship was going through a better time, because border tensions, with various clashes between soldiers from both countries on the roof of the world, have increased anti-Chinese sentiment in India.
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Taiwan also sounded the alarm.
Researchers from the National Taiwan University pointed out in a report published in 2017 that the lack of coordination in time manipulation activities can lead to accusations about the “Rain theft” between neighboring countries.
In any case, there is no scientific evidence to support this type of accusations, says Moore, although with the Asian monsoon the situation is more delicate.
“One of the drivers of the monsoon is the difference in temperature between the Tibetan plateau and the Indian Ocean. So if you made significant changes to the Tibetan plateau, as some are planning (…), I think that could have quite drastic effects ” , keep going.
Moore refers to a plan of Chinese engineers at the provincial level to carry out a large-scale cloud seeding project throughout the Tibetan plateau, although this initiative does not have national support or previous research, he remarks.
“ It’s like a bunch of cowboy builders [obreros poco fiables, sin formación adecuada] building a spaceship copying Elon Musk or something like that, without the groundwork (…) Most of the Chinese scientists I work with are pretty horror raised by this approach. ”
But the greatest concern in the region goes beyond the seeding of clouds and focuses on the possibility that China implement more ambitious geoengineering technologies (such as the management or control of solar radiation) without consulting with other countries, especially when relations go through a low moment as it is now with India, says Dhanasree Jayaram.
“I don’t think the technology itself is alarming. It could be useful (…) And each one has sovereignty in their territory. But the problem comes when you do it unilaterally (…) What happens, for example, if something goes wrong with this type of technology? Who’s going to pay? ”
Dhanasree Jayaram considers it urgent to establish a global framework to regulate these practices and possible conflicts, an idea with which the specialist from the Peking Normal University agrees.
However, Moore, who leads the geoengineering program in China, tries to calm the spirits in this area: “China – he assures – is very interested in being one of the good ones ”.
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