China builds ‘rain-maker’ network three times bigger than Spain

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The Tibetan plateau — often referred to as Asia’s water tower — is known for its underground water reservoirs and glaciers, which serve as the source of most of the continent’s biggest rivers, namely the Yangtze, Yellow, Mekong, Brahmaputra and Salween rivers.

While these rivers give life to several countries and to almost half of the world’s population, they are still not enough due to water shortages in the continent, as stated in a report by the South China Morning Post on  March 26.

The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, a space and defense company that spearheads national projects, is developing a rain-making apparatus to address the water shortage.

The apparatus would involve a huge network of fuel burning chambers — about tens of thousands of them — that will be installed in the Tibetan mountains. If successful, the rain-making apparatus would increase rainfall by 10 billion cubic meters a year, over an expanse of 1.6 million square kilometers — that’s the size of Spain, times three.

The invention was designed by space scientists and will be placed on the mountain ridges where it will face the South Asia monsoon. As the wind hits the Tibetan mountains, it would sweep particles into the clouds to bring about rain and snow.

“More than 500 burners have been deployed on alpine slopes in Tibet, Xinjiang and other areas for experimental use,” a researcher was quoted by the report. “The data we have collected show every promising results.”

The apparatus, however, was not absent of challenges in its initial stages. One of the problems the rain-maker faced was finding a way to keep its chambers operating while atop the Tibetan mountains, a remote and hostile environment that extinguishes the chambers’ flames immediately.

After much trial end error, however, as well as improvements to the rain-maker’s design, it’s safe to say that it would be able to operate in the Tibetan mountains for years without any maintenance. Cody Cepeda/JB

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