“Commanding the Sky” - The Artificial Rainfall and the Project of Weather control in the Mao Era -

This paper seeks to reassess the legacy and significance of China’s artificial rainfall program, showing that some of the roots of China’s scientific attempts to control weather can be traced back to the Mao era. In the drought-stricken summer of 1958, a government-sponsored experiment in artificial rainfall in Jilin province was reportedly an immediate success. The experiment was part of an artificial weather control project promoted by a group of meteorologists. Meteorologists of the time believed that weather conditions could be manipulated artificially, and this idea fit well with Communist Party politics, which emphasized the need to maintain new social order by reducing the effects of drought. The artificial rainfall program was part of a scientific and technological project of artificial weather control that sought to intervene in various weather phenomena by controlling the state of water vapor in the atmosphere. In that sense, the artificial rainfall experiments were part of a long-term project to study clouds and other precipitation phenomena. Thus, meteorologists’ work on artificial weather control continued well beyond 1958-59, leaving a scientific legacy.