...But not 0ur man made weather
FROM-Sidney Morning Herald
China blames freak storm on global warming
BEIJING: Freak snowstorms and record low temperatures sweeping northern China are linked to global warming, say Chinese officials.
But, unlike the unseasonal snow falls that hit Beijing at the start of winter, the dump this week appears to have no link to the Government's relentless efforts to change the micro climate.
There are about 2000 weather modification offices in China, according to the media, which are responsible for bombing the skies with silver iodide to induce precipitation.
More than 2 million Beijing and Tianjin students were given the day off school yesterday because traffic was in chaos. On Sunday the capital received its biggest snow dump since 1951, immediately followed by the harshest Siberian winds in decades.
Tomorrow morning the mercury is forecast to plunge to minus 16, a 40-year low, after a day-time maximum of minus 8.
The head of the Beijing Meteorological Bureau, Guo Hu, linked the blizzard-like conditions this week to unusual atmospheric patterns caused by global warming.
''In the context of global warming, extreme atmospheric flows are causing extreme climate incidents to appear more frequently, such as the summer's rain storms and last year's icestorm disaster in southern China,'' Mr Guo told Beijing News.
Beijing winters are normally cold but arid, with most years recording only a light dusting of snow. On Sunday most of Beijing recorded between 10 and 20 centimetres of snow.
The city's north received 33 centimetres.
No officials have claimed credit for inducing or increasing the snow dump, in contrast to November 1 when Beijing recorded its earliest winter snowfall in 22 years. The Beijing Weather Modification Office later admitting it had fired 186 rockets into the air to break the drought.
Weather officials told some state media they were also behind a second snowfall in November, but told other outlets they were not. They kept silent when the city recorded its third big unseasonal dump that month.
The Beijing Weather Modification Office also claimed some credit for turning oppressive smog to a brilliant blue sky just in time for the national day military parade on October 1.
And it blasted the sky with 1104 rockets to keep the rain at bay for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games last year.
Inner Mongolia, a region that is battling severe desertification, rents seven planes to seed rain clouds, according to the National Weather Modification Office.
''Our work scale is the largest in the world,'' Guo Xueliang, director of the Weather Modification Office told Southern Weekend. The newspaper reports that the program had previously been halted in 1980, after a decade in which 169 people were killed and 410 injured due to unspecified weather manipulation-related accidents.
Beijing's first attempt at weather modification involved a fighter bomber dumping 200 kilograms of dry ice or common kitchen salt - depending on the source - into the clouds to break a drought in 1958, after an edict from the leader Mao Zedong.
CITIES SHIVER AROUND GLOBE
Cold weather has sent the mercury well below zero in:
Moscow -20C
Beijing -14C
Berlin -8C
New York -7C
London -5C
More...
FROM-Sidney Morning Herald
China blames freak storm on global warming
BEIJING: Freak snowstorms and record low temperatures sweeping northern China are linked to global warming, say Chinese officials.
But, unlike the unseasonal snow falls that hit Beijing at the start of winter, the dump this week appears to have no link to the Government's relentless efforts to change the micro climate.
There are about 2000 weather modification offices in China, according to the media, which are responsible for bombing the skies with silver iodide to induce precipitation.
More than 2 million Beijing and Tianjin students were given the day off school yesterday because traffic was in chaos. On Sunday the capital received its biggest snow dump since 1951, immediately followed by the harshest Siberian winds in decades.
Tomorrow morning the mercury is forecast to plunge to minus 16, a 40-year low, after a day-time maximum of minus 8.
The head of the Beijing Meteorological Bureau, Guo Hu, linked the blizzard-like conditions this week to unusual atmospheric patterns caused by global warming.
''In the context of global warming, extreme atmospheric flows are causing extreme climate incidents to appear more frequently, such as the summer's rain storms and last year's icestorm disaster in southern China,'' Mr Guo told Beijing News.
Beijing winters are normally cold but arid, with most years recording only a light dusting of snow. On Sunday most of Beijing recorded between 10 and 20 centimetres of snow.
The city's north received 33 centimetres.
No officials have claimed credit for inducing or increasing the snow dump, in contrast to November 1 when Beijing recorded its earliest winter snowfall in 22 years. The Beijing Weather Modification Office later admitting it had fired 186 rockets into the air to break the drought.
Weather officials told some state media they were also behind a second snowfall in November, but told other outlets they were not. They kept silent when the city recorded its third big unseasonal dump that month.
The Beijing Weather Modification Office also claimed some credit for turning oppressive smog to a brilliant blue sky just in time for the national day military parade on October 1.
And it blasted the sky with 1104 rockets to keep the rain at bay for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games last year.
Inner Mongolia, a region that is battling severe desertification, rents seven planes to seed rain clouds, according to the National Weather Modification Office.
''Our work scale is the largest in the world,'' Guo Xueliang, director of the Weather Modification Office told Southern Weekend. The newspaper reports that the program had previously been halted in 1980, after a decade in which 169 people were killed and 410 injured due to unspecified weather manipulation-related accidents.
Beijing's first attempt at weather modification involved a fighter bomber dumping 200 kilograms of dry ice or common kitchen salt - depending on the source - into the clouds to break a drought in 1958, after an edict from the leader Mao Zedong.
CITIES SHIVER AROUND GLOBE
Cold weather has sent the mercury well below zero in:
Moscow -20C
Beijing -14C
Berlin -8C
New York -7C
London -5C
More...
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