Houston Community News >> China Creates First Artificial Snowfall
4/17/2007-- Chinese weather
experts claim to have triggered the first artificial snow showers by releasing
tiny particles into clouds over the Tibetan plateau.
The experiment was hailed as a success for the drought-stricken region, where
freshwater lakes are drying up as warmer temperatures force thousands of
glaciers into rapid retreat.
A spokesman for the Tibet meteorological office said artificial snowfall was
created by seeding the clouds with particles of silver iodide. The fine
particles encourage the formation of ice crystals in the clouds, which grow
until they fall as snowflakes.
The state news agency, Xinhau, said the snow reached a depth of 1cm and
accumulated on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, which feeds the Yangtze river. The
experiment proves it is "possible to change the weather through human efforts on
the world's highest plateau", Yu Zhongshui, an engineer with the Tibet
meteorological office, told Xinhau. "To launch artificial precipitation can help
alleviate drought on the grassland in northern Tibet." Last year UN researchers
reported that tens of thousands of glaciers in Tibet were melting rapidly and in
danger of disappearing within 100 years because of global warming. Rising
temperatures on the world's highest plateau have speeded up the shrinkage of
more than 80% of the glaciers. Although the melting glaciers have released more
water into rivers such as the Yangtze, dry regions in the north are facing
severe water shortages.
Many weather experts doubt the effectiveness of cloud seeding, in part because
it is impossible to prove a cloud would not have shed snow or rain without being
seeded.
The technique is common in China, where officials have used it to trigger
downpours before public holidays to clear the skies of pollution. China plans to
use it before the 2008 Olympics.
(Contributed by Guardian Limited)