Can countries control clouds? And they must?

Since climate change pays floods and drought, the rain industry in fashion all over the world, despite the mixed evidence that it works and is interested in that it can spoil tensions across the border.

While trying to control weather may seem like science fiction, the two countries were sowing the clouds for decades to try to make rain or snow fall into specific areas.

The seeds were invented in the 1940s, sowing a variety of technologies, including adding molecules to aircraft clouds.

It is used today all over the world in an attempt to relieve drought, fight forest fires and even to disperse fog at airports.

In 2008, China used to try to prevent rain from falling at the Beijing Olympic Stadium.

But experts say that there is not enough supervision of this practice, as the two countries show increasing interest in this and other geological engineering techniques with the warmth of the planet.

The American Meteorological Association said that “unintended consequences” of cloud sowing were not clearly displayed – or excluded – and concerned that the unexpected effects of weather modification can cross the political borders.

But experts say the main risks may be more perceived.

“If a country knows that its neighbor changes the weather, the blame will be seduced on the neighbor to explain the drought,” according to a research note published this month by Marine de Gollemo Weber, a researcher at the Institute of Strategic Research in France at the Paris Military School (Araem).

China, for example, is one of the most weather rates in the world, as it launches the Sky River initiative in 2018 with the aim of lowering water shortages and increasing food security in the country.

The country has performed operations on the Tibet Plateau, but de Golimo Weber warned that this could be seen as affecting the availability of water in the estuary countries, such as its rival India.

“The theft of the cloud”

French writer Matthew Simonte, who carried out a campaign to obtain protection from the United Nations, said the seed can raise fake news and wrong information “in the world of explosive today.”

“I think the real danger to stealing the cloud is psychological,” he said.

In 2018, for example, an Iranian general accused Israel of “stealing clouds” to prevent rain in Iran, which was suffering from severe drought.

In the context of “very intense media jamming”, de Gollemo Weber warned: “Sometimes the plot that wins,” adding that this can be fed by the confidence of scientific institutions.

In 2024, for example, in the aftermath of the huge floods in southern Brazil and in the United Arab Emirates, thousands of skeptical social media accounts in the climate published false accusations that heavy rains arose through cloud sowing.

De Julilmo Weber said this raises the challenge of proving or refuting the weather adjustment.

There were cases when cloud sowing was deliberately used in the war.

The United States used it during the “Popeye” to slow the enemy’s progress during the Vietnam War.

In response, the United Nations has established the 1976 agreement prohibiting “military or any other hostile use of environmental modification techniques.”

De Julilmo Weber said a number of countries did not sign the conference. She added that the agreement is “very limited” and does not apply if the country causes a climate risk by chance.

“Silver bullet”

Researcher Laura Cole said there is a “great danger that cloud sowing may cause greater harm”, in the 2022 article on the bulletin of the atomic scholars.

“Perhaps cloud sowing is the final silver bullet, in which craft silver is stitched in the form of silver -silver in clouds, causing the formation of ice and water crystals for condensation in the rain or snow,” wrote Cole, a co -professor at the University of North Eston in the United States, and she specializes in climate adaptation.

She said that technological reforms such as weather manipulation can distract attention from the most complex discussions and enhance things like access to unequal water.

Meanwhile, research was mixed about the effects of cloud sowing on the neighboring areas – and some evidence indicates that it does not work very well even in the targeted area.

The evaluation, which was published in 2019, found an expert team on weather amendment from the World Meteorological Organization that seeds increase the rains between “zero mainly” and about 20 percent.

I realized that more countries turn into cloud sowing, but added: “Sometimes desperate activities depend on empty promises instead of sound science.”

This story was originally shown on Fortune.com

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2025-03-28 15:51:00