Chinese meteorologists are drawing up plans to force rain ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics because past weather patterns indicate a high likelihood that showers could occur during the Games.
Wang Yubin, an engineer with the Beijing Meteorological Bureau, told a reporters that they have been studying historical data from the past 30 years.
Their studies indicate there is a 50 percent chance of rain for the opening ceremony on August 8, 2008 and the closing ceremony roughly two weeks later.
"We are now drafting the implementation plan for the artificial rain mitigation for the opening and closing ceremonies," said Wang Yubin.
"We will take necessary measures for the possible rain mitigation."
Wang Jianjie, another meteorologist with the bureau said that rain could
also help clean Beijing's polluted air.
"When conditions permit, we will artificially increase rainfall," she
said.
"Rainfall is a way to naturally clean the air."
Beijing's air pollution is among Asia's worst.
Officials have shuttered several chemical and steel plants on the city's edge, and many polluters will shut down, or cut back, during the Games.
But the city also has 2.9 million registered vehicles, and the number is expected to reach 3.3 million by the Olympics, a 13 percent increase.
Though unusual in many parts of the world, China has been tinkering with artificial rainmaking for decades, using it frequently in the drought-plagued north.
Last year, Beijing boasted having generated rainfall to clear the air and
streets following the worst dust storm in a decade.
Technicians with the Beijing Weather Modification Office said last May
they had fired seven rocket shells containing 163 cigarette-size sticks of
silver iodide over the city's skies, which they claimed forced four-tenths of an inch (one centimeter) of rain.
Whether cloud-seeding actually works has been the subject of debate in the scientific community.
In 2003, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences questioned the science behind it as "too weak."