Louise Sallé, edited by Ophélie Artaud 9:12 a.m., August 12, 2022

Make it rain, modify the sunshine... If these ideas seem straight out of a science fiction film, they are part of the solutions on which scientists are thinking to fight against drought.

If China already seems to have serious leads to bring down the rain on command, it is not without risk.

For weeks, this summer has been exceptionally hot.

And unfortunately, it could get worse and worse in the next few years.

So scientists are already thinking about future solutions to fight against drought.

It could almost sound like science fiction, but it would be possible, for example, to modify our climate.

It's possible like making clouds rain.

China is an expert, but changing its weather actually threatens those of its neighbours.

Reality or science fiction?

"China tells us that within three years, it will be able to 'make it rain' on command and over half of its territory," explains Pierre Gilbert, forecaster in climate risks. "We have a lot of concerns because if the China bursts its clouds, for example on the Tibetan plateau, and prevents them from condensing naturally in the Himalayas, from supplying the glaciers which then supply large rivers such as the Mekong or the Brahmaputra, it is the whole region which is in peril."

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Modifying the sunshine also raises questions.

We don't know how to do it yet.

Research is underway in hopes of cooling the planet one degree.

"The idea is to drop microparticles of calcite or sulfur dioxide into the very high atmosphere, which have the ability to reflect part of the solar energy. If we stop sending these millions of tonnes into the atmosphere, for example that we can no longer fly planes or that there is a geopolitical conflict, the temperature would suddenly increase since CO2 would have continued to accumulate in the atmosphere in the meantime", adds the scientist.

A recent idea, on the other hand, is science fiction.

A parasol the size of Brazil sent into space to protect us from the sun.

Impossible to assemble such a structure so far from us.