face their most significant drought in livelihood retentiveness , China is turning to swarm - seeding to bring rain to the parched reservoirs along the Yangtze River – the longest river in Asia that provide weewee for hundreds of millions of people .
It ’s been a summer ofrecord - breaking heatwavesin the US and parts of Europe – and it ’s no different in China .
The National Metrological Centre put out a “ blood-red alarum ” conditions warning last week with temperature in a handful of regions expect to top 40 ° C ( 104 ° F ) , the state - rivulet newspaperChina Dailyreports . Temperatures in China have remain gamey for over 63 day and they ’re not await to drop anytime soon .
With these bake temperature come drouth . Rainfall isreportedlydown 45 percent from average in China and water in the main body of the Yangtze – as well as two major lakes in its basin , Dongting and Poyang – has fall to its lowest record level .
Local authority have been advised to spray fields with a " water - keep agent " to keep water supply from evaporating or seeping away . Meanwhile , factories in some parts of the country were force toshut downlast week due to a billowing requirement for air conditioning and shortages of water to generate hydropower .
Many responsibility are also looking to battle the drought with help of swarm - seeding operation , according toChina Daily . Some provinces have opt for the use of swarm - seeding plane , while others have used ground - to - air cloud - seeding missiles .
Cloud seed techniques can diverge , but the process generally involve “ seeding ” the skies with silver iodide or other crystalline particle that have a structure alike to ice in cloud . Water droplet assemble around the meth crystal in the atmosphere , like seeds for rainfall droplet , thereby increasing the chance of precipitation .
It ’s far from the only metre China has splash around with weather adjustment such as this . Last yr , it was shown thatBeijing used swarm seeding engineering science to see the celebrations of the Chinese Communist centennial would be sanctify with blue skies and Sunday . They pull off a like exploit to make certain the 2008 Summer Olympics were not halter by rain .
Not all scientists are convince that cloud seeding is an effective means of model rain . Some studieshave set up that swarm - seeding had little - to - no impact on the amount of rain in a given season , while othershave foundit may have some pregnant impact on precipitation .
Nevertheless , the motive to address the drought is exculpated . The coming weeks are a key period for the autumn harvesting of rice , grain , and other craw in the Yangtze catchment area . As reported byReuters , high temperature and desperate teetotal soil have impacted 457,500 hectares ( 1,130,507 acres ) of land and already cost China $ 400 million in economical legal injury .
If left to remain , this drouth could have a whack - on impression mat throughout the global economic system .
