Turn clouds into rain, prevent and mitigate disasters, and protect people's livelihood by artificially modifying the weather

◎ Fu Lili, reporter of this newspaper

June 6, Zhangye Airport, Gansu. The reporter saw at the scene with the delegation of the National Weather Modification Work Site Meeting that the "Two-tailed Scorpion A" rain-increasing drone took off and flew to the nearby airspace to carry out the Qilian Mountain terrain cloud artificial rain enhancement operation.

"This operation is part of the normalization of ecological restoration artificial rain (snow) enhancement operations in the Qilian Mountains." Li Jiming, deputy director of the Weather Modification Center of the China Meteorological Administration, said that in recent years, the snow area, vegetation cover, and runoff of inland rivers in the Qilian Mountains have increased significantly, and the background color of the Qilian Mountains has changed from "black" to "green", which is inseparable from the strong support of weather modification.

In fact, not only Qilian Mountain, data show that at present, the average annual rainfall increase area in the country is stable at 500 million square kilometers, the annual average hail prevention area has increased to 65,320 square kilometers, and the weather modification work has produced direct economic benefits of about <> billion yuan per year, which has become a "good helper" for disaster prevention and mitigation, ensuring national food security, alleviating water shortages, and promoting ecological protection and restoration.

Technology Engine Layout "One Cloud"

At the Zhangye National Climate Observatory, the weather modification science popularization cloud room attracted the attention of the participants.

I saw the operator igniting silver iodide in the combustion chamber, extracting the gas after combustion and injecting it into the cloud chamber, and the large screen showed that the liquid water droplets in the cloud chamber quickly turned into ice crystals and grew. This is the image display of the catalytic principle of artificial rain in cold clouds.

Li Jiming introduced that weather modification refers to the use of scientific means to artificially affect the physical processes of the local atmosphere, so that the weather phenomenon is transformed in the direction predetermined by people.

"Weather modification can increase rain, but it cannot create rain and rainfall out of thin air." Li Jiming explained that weather modification requires the use of scientific and technological means to monitor the weather conditions formed by clouds and precipitation, such as the thickness of the cloud is greater than 2000 meters, the water vapor is sufficient, the content of supercold water in the cloud exceeds 0.01 g/kg, etc., after reaching certain conditions, the catalyst is accurately delivered to the appropriate part of the cloud through aircraft, rockets, anti-aircraft artillery and other operational means to accurately deliver the catalyst to the appropriate part of the cloud for operation.

China's weather modification work layout has a long history. In 1958, Jilin Province took the lead in successfully implementing the aircraft artificial rain enhancement test, which kicked off the prelude to China's modern weather modification cause.

After decades of development, weather modification has become an important measure for disaster prevention, mitigation and relief. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the cause of weather modification has entered a new stage of high-quality development.

The high-quality development of weather modification is inseparable from the strong support of scientific and technological means. At present, there are 56 weather modification operation aircraft used for cultivation and rain planting in China, and another 1,7 weather modification ground operation stations are spread throughout the country, which has formed a large-scale space-air-ground coordinated weather modification operation force.

At the same time, China's key core technology research on weather modification has continuously achieved new results, cloud water resources assessment theory, technical methods and research on the physical process of cloud and fog precipitation have been continuously deepened, and the self-developed 1 km horizontal resolution cloud precipitation numerical prediction system has been put into operation.

"At present, China's weather modification operation methods are the most complete and diverse, and the equipment and technical level are generally at the world's advanced level." Li Jiming said.

Pursuing advantages and avoiding disadvantages shows great might

Reeds and grass are connected in patches, mountain springs and lakes are rippling... Zhangye, located in the arid climate zone, retains a wetland area of 6,2 mu.

Zhangye's water, from the Heihe River; The water of the Black River comes from the Qilian Mountains. As an important ecological security barrier in the west and the lifeline of the northeast Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the Hexi Corridor, the Qilian Mountains are directly related to the ecological security of local and large areas downstream in terms of water conservation capacity and ecological restoration and governance.

In 2010, the meteorological department started the normalization and standardization of artificial rain (snow) in the eastern section of Qilian Mountain, and the operation time lasted for more than 8 months every year.

Looking at the whole country, vigorously carry out artificial rain enhancement and hail prevention operations during key agricultural times, and artificial weather modification has become a "reassuring pill" for grain farmers, fruit farmers, and tobacco farmers to get rich and get rid of poverty.

In the northeast, the average annual rainfall (snow) in weather-modified areas increased by 27% compared with before, and the average annual grain output increased by 232.16 billion jin. In Yunnan, the meteorological department has carried out artificial hail prevention operations for a long time, greatly reducing the hail disaster rate of flue-cured tobacco, reducing annual losses of more than <>.<> billion yuan.

In June 2018, a fire broke out in the Daxing'anling forest area of Inner Mongolia. The meteorological department urgently mobilized aircraft across regions to carry out operations, and moderate rain fell in the fire area. The joint command of the fire fighting front commented: "The effect of artificial rain enhancement operation is equivalent to playing the role of thousands of people in fighting fires, and it has become a 'magic weapon' that can be trusted for forest fire prevention and extinguishing at critical moments."

Change is staged in the green mountains and green waters. Satellite remote sensing monitoring results show that since the "371th Five-Year Plan", the vegetation cover in the source area of the three rivers has gradually increased, the water area of Qinghai Lake has increased by about 10 square kilometers, and the vegetation ecological quality index of Qilian Mountains has increased by 30% to <>%.

"Weather modification is becoming a powerful measure to restore the ecological environment and protect a beautiful China." Li Jiming said.