China’s Weather Modification Offices are a network of dedicated units tasked with manipulating the weather throughout China. 

Combating the Climate

As far as its climate is concerned, China is a land of extremes—severe dust and sand storms in the springtime, droughts that drag on for months, rainy seasons that dump more than 65% of the year's rainfall in just two months—and that's just in Beijing. In a rapidly developing country of more than 1.3 billion people, China often doesn't have the luxury of waiting around for weather to arrive—or dissipate. So, it must take action.

How Cloud Seeding Works

Cloud seeding, one of the most widely used forms of weather modification, wherein an attempt is made to increase the amount or type of precipitation that falls within a targeted area. This is done by distributing substances into the air to stand-in as cloud condensation, ultimately changing the microphysical processes occurring in the cloud and causing snow or rainfall.

Step 1

A small amount of a cloud seeding chemical—typically silver iodide—is dispersed across a propane flame on the ground, or out of an aircraft in the sky.

Step 2

The cloud seeding chemical particles rise—or fall—into the target clouds.

Step 3

The cloud seeding chemical panicles cause the cloud moisture to cool—and eventually freeze— creating ice crystals.

Step 4

The ice crystals begin to fall as snow once they have grown big enough.

Weather Modification in Practice

Of course, it’s not just cloud seeding that can change the weather, and it’s not just rainfall and snowfall that is ultimately manipulated. China's weather modification offices can tackle everything from foggy airports to damaging hailstorms, and just about everything in between.

Weather Modification in Numbers

Weather modification on a national scale takes an army—of personnel, of resources, and of weaponry. It's no surprise, then, that China has spent hundreds of millions on their efforts to control Mother Nature over the past few decades.

37000+ People

employed under the country's weather modification program.

12,000 Rocket Launchers

and anti-aircraft guns used to fire pellets containing silver iodide into the clouds.

55 Billion Tons of Rain

created by China every year, making the country the largest cloud seeder on earth.

$150 Million Dollars

spent by China in 2011 on a single regional artificial rain program.

$10l4 Billion Dollars

in economic losses avoided from 2002 to 2012 because of weather modification practices.

Notable Weather Modification Events

China launched its weather modification program all the way back in the 1950s, but it really didn't start bearing significant fruit until the late 1990s and early 2000s. Since then, activity has skyrocketed—China completed some 560,000 weather manipulations between 2002 and 2012.

January 1997

Snow fell on Beijing on New Year’s Day thanks to the Weather Modification Office. Other uses for the technology was for lowering temperatures, especially during summer, in order to reduce electricity consumption.

August 2008

Officials at the Beijing Weather Modification Office used their weather modification technology to dispel rainclouds headed for the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics.

February 2009

Weather modification teams blasted iodide sticks over Beijing and other areas of northern China to artificially induce three days of snowfall after four months of drought.