China’s “science fiction” plan to control time

China has every intention of controlling the climate. Manipulate the clouds. The rain. The snow. Or hail. And he wants to do it on a scale never seen before. In more than half of the country. In more than five million square kilometers. In a territory equivalent to a dozen times the Spaniards. The Council of State officially announced it last December. And this intrigued everyone, to the point of increasing tensions between neighbors who, in total, constitute the largest part of the world’s population.

There are already those who evoke the possibility of a weather war. Even more so if, as Beijing has made public, the program also extends to a global goal.

Although the how is not a state secret. To do the “Sowing clouds” it suffices to use a chemical cocktail based – generally – on silver iodide, which acts on clouds and has effects by modulating rain, snow or hail. His secret is in the graduation ceremony, he repeats to himself. And it has been known ever since a General Electric employee discovered it by chance after World War II.

The United States attempted to calm hurricanes with this technique as part of Project Stormfury. It experienced a boom in the 1950s-1960s that was partly lost when it was learned that it had been used during the Vietnam War to flood roads and condition the Vietcong. And in fact, Beijing started its development in the 1960s.

Now go up the ladder and China thinks it is breaking all records. According to an official note from Chinese authorities, he hopes to see the plan completed by 2025 in 56% of the country’s total space in terms of rain and snow. In 580,000 square kilometers in terms of hail elimination. “By 2035, the climate change must reach an advanced level of the globe,” the note finally added.

Cover half of the country without causing side effects? What about the global goals? Suspicions are growing. Because although it is expected to help estimate disasters such as droughts and hail and protect the environment by avoiding fires or very high or dry temperatures, cause cloud to be released In one country can be the same as saying no to a neighbor. And that, because of the size of the project it is developing, would affect India (with a population that is also one billion dollars and with which China is already seeing border issues in the Himalayas, with the use of weapons included), Nepal, Burma, Vietnam and many more.

If it rains more in China, will it not rain in your countries? Is the fear real?

Andrea Flossmann, co-chair of the World Meteorological Organization’s focus group on weather modification and professor at Clermont Auvergne University in Clermont-Ferrand, France, responds to The avant-garde: “At the moment, we have no evidence that there is water theft from the neighbor, but so far the planting has not been done on such a large scale. And so the debate. This could change in the future. He must be watched ”.

This same scientist explains that Spain has sown in the past. Israel is doing it now. Other countries are carrying out a hail prevention program, such as France, Russia, Romania and Moldova. “And currently, cloud seeding to increase precipitation is happening on a large scale in Asia, Africa and America. There are over forty countries and there is a tendency to increase due to droughts, given climate change “, details.

Xulio Ríos, director of the Observatory of Chinese Policy and founder and honorary president of the Galician Institute for International Analysis and Documentation (Igadi), nevertheless situates it in the context of a conflict that goes further. .

Why is the cloud a concern in neighboring countries?

“For many neighboring countries, which can understand China’s drought concern, it is raining too wet,” he said. And he continues: “Especially given the problems around the Mekong, which is the most important waterway in Southeast Asia and on which there has been some controversy for years on Chinese reservoirs and power stations. which do not take into account the downstream impact. “So there is a serious problem with the water resources of the region” although, as UN-Water says, there is no other way out than cooperation “, he concludes. than the United States He has already lined up for talks with China.

Part of the dilemma with cloud seeding, however, is that it isn’t always done in a clear manner. “I suspect it’s getting more and more popular, but it’s hard to know who is sowing today or even who was doing it 20 years ago. The successes are quite limited, although better than a long time ago, and this leads to increased pressure to continue even if a positive result is unlikely ”, continues Steven Siems, professor of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Studies at Monash University, based in Melbourne, and one of the major ones in Australia.

Among them, China stands out, with the largest and most ambitious project, both for its scientific and political repercussions. To this he allocated a millionaire budget. And it carries out continuous testing in the form of bullets, planes and rocket launchers filled with minerals. With success, as he demonstrated by getting a good time at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, anticipate the autumn rains before the start of the tournament. Or during various military parades of symbolic significance for Beijing. In 2019, Chinese state media reported that cloud seeding prevented 70 percent of crop damage in the western Xinjiang region.

Flossmann herself points out that “in our documents we confirm that seeding has incremental effects of more than 10% and that humidity and clouds are necessary. China has been doing this for some time now, and at relatively large scales, not only to increase precipitation, but to prevent it ”.

China is also trying to do so with cost cuts, putting planes aside and facing, for example, combustion chambers installed on Tibetan mountain ridges that use the monsoon wind to lift the necessary particles. Because in the Himalayas is where its three great rivers are born, the Yangtze, the Mekong and the yellow. And he wants to control them. As for mega-infrastructures like the Three Gorges Dam. Hence, in turn, another doubt.

Is cloud seeding dangerous for the environment?

Siems answers the question: “I am not aware that commonly used seeding agents (eg silver iodide) have had an impact. In Australia, a very detailed environmental scan was carried out 15 years ago and groundwater continues to be monitored annually. The overall concentration of these seeding agents is in fact very low relative to the fuel needed to disperse them (eg jet fuel or ground generator fuel). Hygroscopic seeding commonly uses salt, which is even more benign. But an effort is being made to develop new, more effective seeding agents and I cannot speak for them. “

Its real impact is somewhat ignored. Hence the growing skepticism. The unilateralism of plans by China also heightens suspicion.

Alexis Rodríguez-Rata

PB