Weather control for the Beijing Olympics

John Chan | Jul 29, 2008

Because Storm from X-Men is fully booked for the year, the capital of China has to come up with alternative methods to make sure there isn't a downpour during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. According to Xinhua News Agency, the official press agency of the Chinese Government, the Beijing Municipal Meteorological Bureau will be using a combination of techniques, including cloud seeding, to make sure it will be dry on the evening of August 8.

Cloud seeding involves spreading silver iodide crystals or dry ice into clouds. Such action can be undertaken to delay or speed up rain, depending on the situation needed at hand. It's not just about controlling the clouds, accurate information is also needed before any action can be taken. It was about a year back that the bureau purchased a powerful IBM supercomputer to predict rain during the Olympic period. The System p575 can deliver a trillion operations per second and was reported to have cost the state several million dollars.

Beijing is sparing no expense to make sure it doesn't rain on its party. Will it work? We'll see in two weeks.

Image of IBM System p575 courtesy of NASI

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