Word: weather
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...disrupting flights in and out of Beijing and hampering shipping off the Chinese coast. Still, expect few complaints from the generally dry region; it's the most accumulation the city's seen in a decade, and further proof the Chinese may be becoming the world's best at managing weather. In a 2008 experiment, scientists seeded clouds in advance of the Beijing Olympics, successfully ensuring clear skies for the opening ceremony...
...Everybody complains about the weather," the old saying goes, "But nobody does anything about it." That is, until now. A Nov. 1 snowfall in Beijing - the city's earliest since 1987 - is due, Chinese scientists say, to a campaign of "cloud-seeding" to encourage precipitation. If true, it's the wettest success yet in a long-standing effort to bring moisture artificially to the parched northern regions of China. So how'd they do it? (See pictures of the science of snowflakes...
...those who haven't had a meteorology class since middle school, a quick review of Weather 101: Colder air encourages precipitation, so when the temperature drops at high altitude, water naturally condenses out of the air. Clouds are formed when this moisture, suspended in tiny droplets or crystals, meets a condensation nuclei - small particles of dust or ice that are blown about the upper atmosphere. Without these small particles, clouds can't form...
...likelier explanation, he and others say, is a combination of factors, including changes in weather patterns. Fewer clouds and more sunlight would create a layer of warm air right at the glaciers' surface, which would cause some melting. But most of the ice loss, he suggests, is due to sublimation - that is, ice turning directly into water vapor with no intermediate step. That tends to happen when temperatures are cold and the air is extremely dry, which is the case at Kilimanjaro's higher-than-19,000-ft. summit (it's the same reason ice cubes slowly wilt away...
...Still, even if Mote is right, that doesn't rule out global warming as a root cause of glacier retreat. Climate scientists have long maintained - and evidence from the real world is already confirming - that warming doesn't just result in higher temperatures. It also leads to changes in weather patterns, including more intense precipitation in some areas, more severe droughts in others (and sometimes, as in the case of the American Southeast, a little of both). And that may well be what's happening at Kilimanjaro. While strongly disputing Thompson's explanation, Georg Kaser of the Institut...