China to launch biggest artificial rain experiment ever

China’s artificial rain experiment using military-grade technology will become the largest in history, once the testing phase completes.

In an attempt to solve the problem of water shortage and inducing extra rainfall over the world’s largest plateau -Tibetan Plateau, China has embarked on its biggest rainmaking project that it calls 'Sky River'. Researchers involved suggest that the ambitious cloud-seeding project is expected to increase rain in the area by up to 10 billion cubic meters per year.

Tens of thousands of chambers, which will burn solid fuel to produce a cloud-seeding agent silver iodide, will be built on different locations across the plateau to produce rainfall in an area three times the size of Spain. “[So far,] more than 500 burners have been deployed on alpine slopes in Tibet, Xinjiang and other areas for experimental use. The data we have collected show very promising results,” South China Morning Post quotes one of the researchers.

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According to Fortune, apart from China’s previous record of making use of the technology to induce rainfall, the country is also known to manipulate rainfall for other purposes, such as countering the summer heat or clearing the skies for events such as the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

The process of cloud-seeding involves cloud-seeding chemicals such as silver iodide, potassium iodide which are seeded in the clouds through remote-controlled rockets or other dispersion devices to stimulate artificial rain.

However, completion date for the project remains unknown.