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China's Weather Modification Office
China's Weather Modification Office brings the rain at will to Beijing and surrounding areas thanks to the efforts of hard-working artillery gunners ready with silver iodide bombardments for the clouds.
(Artilleryman brings the rain)
Once they're in the clouds, the silver iodide pellets cause moisture to form around them, eventually becoming heavy enough to fall to the ground as rain. And their efforts appear to be working—Between 1995 and 2003, China's overall precipitation increased by more than 7.4 trillion cubic feet.This department of weather gods employs over 37,000 workers, trained to use 37mm anti-aircraft guns, rocket launchers, and aircraft needed for all your weather-controlling purposes.
In Robert Heinlein's 1941 novel Methuselah's Children, the US government has weather integrators that direct the movement of storms across the country.
At this point in the story, Lazarus Long is trying to land a rather large space freighter (with "worn, obsolescent injection meters," no less) in the middle of a storm that was built to order.
Oklahoma and half of Texas were covered with deep, thick clouds. Lazarus was amazed and somehow pleased; it reminded him of other days, when weather was something experienced rather than controlled. Life had lost some flavor, in his opinion, when the weather engineers had learned how to harness the elements...Then he was down in it and too busy to meditate. In spite of her size the freighter bucked and complained. Whew! Ford must have ordered this little charivari the minute the time was set-and, at that, the integrators must have had a big low-pressure area close at hand to build on.
(Read more about weather integrators)
Via Gizmodo.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 5/23/2011)
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I might also be thinking of K-9 from Doctor Who.
