China ready to launch weather warfare?

Large-scale projects of China have not been surprising for a long time. However, the last one has produced a serious effect. China has passed to weather manipulation. Weather warfare, a so-called Wunderwaffe of conspiracy theorists is within a stone's throw.

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In fact as it was reported, local authorities of one of the Chinese regions which suffers from drought got concerned about meteorology and are ready to invest money into creation of artificial rainy clouds in order to improve water supply of the Qinghai province. Experts offered to launch the process over the Tibetan plateau, so that more than 5bln cubic metres of water will be produced a year. Abundant rains should flow ultimately into the Yellow River.

It is noted that the project competes with the project which is to turn some flows of the big Chinese rivers (the Yangtze and the Yellow rivers) to the north and east.

However, Andrey Ostrovskiy, deputy director of the Institute of Far Eastern Studies, member of the European Association of Chinese Studies, told Pravda.Ru that 'no water is needed on the Tibetan plateau. Snow melting is enough for rivers. And what about agriculture, water is needed in the northern part of the country and in the north-west.'

Problem of water supply in the Chinese cities really exists but not around the whole country. Coastal regions do not suffer.

It should be noted that China has announced 30m dollars-worth funding at the beginning of the year to incorporate 'weather technologies'. By 2020 the country hopes to get 60bln cubic metres of rainy water. It should be a serious supplement to the arid regions.

Engineers who deal with such kinds of technologies in the US say that they will easily increase the water yield under artificial rain by 15% and even more. And the drones are certainly necessary, as they can cheaply disperse silver chemicals and are more accurate.

Such methods are actively used throughout the world. The only thing that impresses specialists here is the scale. Thus, a number of experts doubt that over 5bln cubic metres of water can be produced a year due to artificial rain.

What about weather control in China, 'they won't be able to control what they create,' Andrey Kiselyov, senior fellow at the Main Geophysical Observatory named after Voyeykov, commented Pravda.Ru on the matter. 'They just let the genie out of the bottle. The technology is used not where rain is needed, but where it makes fewer troubles,' Kiselyov said.

According to Leonid Savin, Chief Editor of the Katehon analytical centre, the Chinese project is interesting because of its double-purpose technologies first of all. In case the Chinese manipulate weather, it will backfire on another region. And it will certainly generate discontent in the neighbouring countries. Such consequences have been already evidenced. India regularly drains water off and it floods the neighbouring Bangladesh, while in the Central Asia conflict at a diplomatic level are taking place regarding construction of energy plants and change of the riverbed. China is interested in cultivation of its territories, but the Tibetan plateau is not among such lands, on the contrary, it's a source of main water resources and not only for China, but also the neighbouring India and Pakistan'.

And the main point is that such systems are not reliable. They may be effective at one place and ineffective at another, for a sea coast for example where cyclones take place. Thus, the results may be evidenced only after an experiment.

In 2013 the Far East faced a flood, which had been generated artificially as China had been testing climate control. Heavy rains in China at the time rose waters of the Amur River. Side effect should not be excluded, as Savin noted: "The US made attempts to control weather as early as at the beginning of the century. A range of technologies were tested and they were destructive for the US itself first of all as hurricanes took place after those experiments. There were a lot of speculations regarding the US actions in the Arctic zone, but the project has been frozen.'

The volume of precipitations and water vapour may turn out to be too big. And to let the 'Sky River' descend from the clouds at due time and place is not so easy even under very good funding of the project.

Farhat Izmaylov

Pravda.Ru

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