05

Under the Grey Sky

Rain enhancement operations as an industrial promise of survival

A RENDERED MAP OF THE QAIDAM BASIN AT 1:3,000,000 SCALE. THE SOUTHERN PART THE QAIDAM BASIN, WHERE ELEVATIONS ARE LOWEST, ACTS AS A SINK FOR RIVERS FLOWING FROM THE ADJACENT MOUNTAIN RANGES. Archival photograph, dated on July 24, 1981, taken at 17:12 - 18:12. 4100meter high, North West facing.

The evolution process of Cumulus capillatus. On a fine day, Cumulus, affected by the topographical thermal effect, will steadily build up into a mushroom-like Cumulus congestus. Its top glaciates at the edges and expands, its roots portion becomes large owing to the converging and oblique ascending of flows, and its middle part is relatively small. Virga hangs from the bottom of the cloud. Hence the name Cumulus capillatus with virga.

The upper part of the Cumulus capillatus has the colouration of ice cloud, and its lower part the coloration of water cloud, the dividing line between the two parts being the critical height of freezing level.

Sky River;
the concept, theory, and implication

Sky River as an abstract notion highlights the interconnected logic of coloniality and modernity that permeates the notion of a landscape that has been a vehicle for ordering human-nature relations. As a weather modification technology, Sky River as cloud-water resource governance brings to light two political dimensions. A new ideological politics of the changing human-weather relationship from ‘adaptation’ to ‘tamping’ the weather. The second political dimension points to the unique characteristics of airborne water versus terrestrial- and groundwater.¹

As a theoretical framework, Sky River attempts to define the spatial and temporal method of identifying water resources in the atmosphere as means to alleviate the lack of water on land, specifically for the Asian regions and China.3 The theoretical understanding of water vapor in the troposphere as ‘untapped source of fresh water’ strikes at the heart of the Sky River project, which at the moment, this ‘roadmap’ for atmospheric water extractions is still in development but with great difficulties. The identification of the ‘white water’ [白水] is a new added term to an existing vocabulary in the Chinese language for waters founded in rivers, lakes, underground aquifers, land surfaces and waters transpires from vegetation. ‘White water’ is central to the mission of the Sky River project, which in addition to creating a ‘roadmap’ for atmospheric water extraction, also seeks to manage the formation, transportation, and precipitation conversion of ‘white water’.²

The implication of Sky River– as both a phenomenon and a weather modification project – points to a lack of environmental policy in China which has drastically shaped the north plains of China. The physical altercation made to the north China plain landscape include numerous small to large scale engineering projects with a singular mission – to control and allocate water resources from the marginalized Northern regions of China to the privileged, Southern China. The growing population and industrial expansion of the South promised an extravagant lifestyle that required an exuberant amount of water to upkeep. The Sky Riverproject will likely accelerate the decade long trad-off between the preservation of the privileged natural resources and the exploitation of marginal resources and their underdeveloped counterparts.³

1 Chien, Shiuh‐Shen, Dong-Li Hong and Po-Hsiung Lin. “Ideological and volume politics behind cloud water resource governance – Weather modification in China.” Geoforum 85 (2017): 225-233.
2 Li, Jiaye, Tiejian Li, Guangqian Wang, Jiahua Wei, Deyu Zhong, Yang Su, and Xudong,
2018. “空中水资源及其降水转化分析 [Atmospheric Water Resource and Precipitation Conversion]” Chinese Science Bulletin 63 (26): 2785–96. https://doi.org/10.1360/N972018-00162.
3 Hong, Dong-Li, Shiuh-Shen Chien and Yu-Kai Liao. “Green developmentalism and trade- offs between natural preservation and environmental exploitation in China.” Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 3 (2019): 688 - 705.

Image credit: Sohu news on Cloud-seeding operation in Qinghai-Tibet, China.

Sky River;
a cloud-seeding technology
Sky River, a climate modification technology that attempts to extract water resources in the atmosphere as a geoengineering solution to China’s water crisis, is one of the most ambitious weather geo-engineering projects to date. Sky River employs cloud-seeding technology to induce rainfall to increase precipitation in arid areas in China, as part of a larger engineering effort to govern and allocate water resources, and to maintain a balanced distribution of fresh water between the Southern and Northern plains.

But what is Sky River’s political, emotional, and environmental impact on the region of Qaidam basin, Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP), a Martian-like landscape surrounded by mountains where cold temperatures and lack of water limit vegetative growth. As a weather modification technology, Sky River employs over 500 cloud-seeding stoves across the Qinghai-Tibet plateau in Sanjianyuan (三江源, the Source of the Three Rivers), the testing site where bands of tropospheric water vapors have been identified.⁴ The cloud-seeding furnaces burn fuel to produce an updraft of silver iodide carried by the monsoon winds into cloud formation to induce precipitation.

4 Wang, Guangqian, Deyu Zhong, Tiejian Li, Yu Zhang, Changqing Meng, Mingxi Zhang, Xiaolong Song, Jiahua Wei, and Yuefei Huang. 2018. “Study on Sky Rivers: Concept, Theory, and Implications.” Journal of Hydro-Environment Research 21: 109–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jher.2018.09.003.
ivers: Concept, Theory, and Implications,” by Wang Guangqian et al., 2018.

Sky River;
a planetary scale
Planetary scale is a crucial lens to visualize the impact of Sky River as a weather modification project that seeks to create a global “road map” for freshwater extraction.

Sky River distribution mapping illustrates its ambitious nature of a cloud-water resource governance, extending beyond a weather-modification technology, to a climate-modification technology.⁵ Since 2012, a global distribution map of sky rivers has been established. Shown as a system of pathways, blue colour paths are highlighted on a globe, indicating ‘narrow clouds or rain bands’, akin to the cartographic language of rivers.⁶

5 Jiaye Li et al.'s “空中水资源及其降水转化分析 [Atmospheric Water Resource and Precipitation Conversion],” 2018.
6 Images from “Study on Sky Rivers: Concept, Theory, and Implications,” by Wang Guangqian et al., 2018.

Note: diagram made based on data information released by the head researcher of Sky River, Wang Guanqian.

The testing site:
Qaidam basin of the Tibetan-Plateau.

Qaidam basin is a sunden valley that is enclosed by the Altun Mountains to the north (highest peaks exceed 6,000 meters), the Kunlun Mountains to the south (highest peaks exceed 7,000 meters), and Qilian Mountain to the west with (highest peaks exceed 2,700 - 3000 meters). With an average elevation of 6000 meters, Qaidam Basin is one of the highest, driest, and largest deserts on earth, the evaporation rate is almost 100 times more than its annual precipitation, which is currently at 300mm.

Once a large paleolake until the early Quaternary, Qaidam basin is now defined by hyperarid climate and salty lakes.⁷The stratigraphy of the Qaidam basin reveal a drying trend since 3.3 Ma, which was interrupted during the 2.84 – 2.48 Ma by climate wetting due to intensified East Asian summer monsoon. Halite and gypsum content increased dramatically after 2.5 Ma, indicating the beginning of the formation of salty lakes in Qaidam basin.⁸

Since the mid-20th century, Qaidam basin is has been an extraction site for petroleum, salt, brine lithium, and potash. The basin is currently China’s highest on shore base of oil production and supply. Vegetation is scarce. The eastern region of Qaidam basin receives higher precipitation due to its proximity to the Indian monsoon, as such, this region has a relatively higher level of vegetation coverage. Dominant species include cold-tolerant, xerophytic shrubs. The western part of the basin consists of arid desert with limited vegetation, expanses of gravel and shifting sand.⁹

7 Su, Qingda, Hannah Riegel, Lisha Gong, Richard Heermance, and Junsheng Nie. “Detailed Processes and Potential Mechanisms of Pliocene Salty Lake Evolution in the Western Qaidam Basin.” Frontiers in Earth Science 9 (2021). pg. 2 (https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/feart.2021.736901).
8 Su, pg. 3-5
9 “Central Asia: Central China | Ecoregions | WWF.” Accessed March 6, 2022. https://www.worldwildlife.org/ecoregions/pa1324.

The view of the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau from the International Space Station in May, 2012. Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory

Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, known as the “Roof of the World”, consists of 600-mile stretch of mountains with an average elevation of 4,500 meters.
Image credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Scientific Vizualization Studio

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