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China's Plan To Seed Himalayan Clouds
China's Plan To Seed Himalayan Clouds
A massive weather modification network – the largest ever — is being planned for the
Tibetan Plateau. The plan, according to recent reports, is to cover an area of the size of
Spain with thousands of fuel burning chambers (roughly akin to upside-down rockets) to
blast silver iodide into the atmosphere, stimulating cloud formation and precipitation.
The immediate aim of the project, as proposed by the Aerospace Science and
Technology Corporation (a major military contractor), would be to channel additional
rainfall into China’s northern regions to the tune of 5-10 billion cubic meters per year.
This could have devastating effects on the livelihoods of the pastoralists and peasants
living at the Tibetan Plateau. But the effects could be even more far-reaching: the project
will have unknown effects on global climate patterns, and could potentially create a de
facto infrastructure for geoengineering.
The South China Morning Post recently reported that 500 such chambers have already
been built. But a massive proposed expansion, known as Tianhe or “Sky River,” would
involve the addition of tens of thousands of these burning chambers over the vast
plateau. Additionally, a satellite monitoring network planned for 2020 would provide
data to fine-tune the effects and track monsoon weather patterns as they form over the
Indian Ocean.
Ecological impacts
Construction on the Songta dam in Tibet. Photo: International Rivers
This isn’t the first time China has used weather modification technology, having
famously used artillery and rocket launchers to ensure clear weather for the opening
ceremonies of the Olympic Games in 2008 and celebrations in 2009. The technique of
cloud seeding was first developed in the US in the late 1940s. Within a few decades, the
US military was using it to attack Vietnam and Cuba by disrupting weather patterns.
More recently, Russia, India, several US states and other countries are attempting to use
cloud seeding to address droughts and water shortages.
Though widely used for cloud seeding, silver iodide is considered toxic to aquatic life,
and the downstream ecological effects of its large-scale use are not well understood. A
chemical engineer told Asia Times that “once silver iodide enters the groundwater, as
rain, it is not expected to be in a very toxic form, but it may disrupt the aquatic
ecosystem.” A 1970 scientific paper suggests that silver iodide could affect the life
cycles of aquatic microorganisms, disrupting nutrient cycles.
Similarly, the downwind and downstream effects of changing weather patterns on a
continental scale are poorly understood. The China’s river diversions and vast network
of more than 22,000 dams have had profoundly debilitating effects on rivers, which in
some cases have stopped flowing altogether.
In contrast to these unknowns, the proposed expansion of the weather modification led
by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation is the subject forcefully
optimistic discourse. Sky River, according to the company’s CEO, “will make an
important contribution not only to China’s development and world prosperity, but also
the well being of the entire human race.”
Tibet without Tibetans?
Geopolitical Concerns
If it works as advertised, China’s Sky River project could give the country significant
control over the water supply that about half of the world’s population depends on. The
Tibetan plateau feeds not only the Yellow and Yangtze rivers that flow through China,
but also the Mekong, Salween and Brahmaputra rivers, which are important for
Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and India.
While it’s unclear how China’s project would affect those rivers, it would be difficult not
to perceive even potential control as a geopolitical threat. The Brahmaputra River, as one
Indian researcher has noted in the Asia Times, regularly floods, causing major damages
and loss of life. Could China use future weather modification infrastructure to mitigate
flooding… or intensify it? The geopolitical applications of vast networks like the
proposed Sky River are scarcely mentioned, but real nonetheless.
Geopolitical concerns only increase with the possibility that this project could be used to
modify global temperatures in the future. A sophisticated network like Sky River raises
the possibility – though far from certainty – of modifying weather patterns in different
parts of the world, potentially unbeknownst to those whose weather is being modified.
Environmental Modification Convention
Observers – including the author of the aforementioned Asia Times article – have noted
the use of weather modification technologies by the United States, particularly Operation
Popeye, the country’s attempt to create unfavourable weather conditions for the North
Vietnamese during the Vietnam War.
What is less often mentioned is the international treaty that was signed as a result:
the Environmental Modification Convention, which came into force in 1978. It has since
been ratified by China, the United States, Russia, Brazil and the United Kingdom as well
as 73 other signatories. ENMOD, as it is known, bans all use of techniques for
modifying the environment – for “military or hostile” purposes.
While ENMOD has fallen dormant, it represents an established framework for
addressing concerns about vast weather modification networks like the Sky River
proposal. At the very least, it could be used to push for more transparency about China’s
use of weather modification technology and put explicit limits on geoengineering
applications.
China is also a signatory of the Convention on Biological Diversity where a de facto
moratorium on geoengineering was established in 2010. While the stated intentions of
Sky River do not include geoengineering as defined in the CBD moratorium, the
project’s scale and potential for geoengineering should be reviewed by the CBD as a
potential violation of the moratorium.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has also expressed concern about both
geoengineering and weather modification, stressing that it is difficult to contain weather
modification to a limited area. “The atmosphere has no walls,” a member of the WMO’s
expert team was quoted as saying. “ What you add may not have the desired effect in
your vicinity, but by being transported along might have undesired effects elsewhere.”