Chinese weather authorities successfully controlled the weather ahead of a major political celebration earlier this year, according to a Beijing university study. The Chinese government has been an enthusiastic proponent of cloud-seeding technology, spending billions of dollars on efforts to manipulate the weather to protect agricultural regions or improve significant events including the 2008 Olympics. Cloud-seeding is a weather modification technique, which sees the adding of chemicals like small particles of silver iodide, to clouds, causing water droplets to cluster around them and increasing the chance of precipitation. The State Council has said it aims to have a developed weather modification system by 2025, including another half a million square kilometres hosting hail suppression technologies. In 2019 officials said weather modification practices, usually the firing of iodine-packed shells to disrupt unfavourable weather fronts, had helped to reduce 70% of hail damage annually in agricultural regions of Xinjiang.

Source: The Guardian December 07, 2021 01:17 UTC