"From: somebody else ® 11/09/2002 12:17:49
Subject: moscow rainmaker post id: 166629
any body know anything about this?

http://www.msnbc.com/news/804645.asp?0dm=C14LT

MOSCOW, Sept. 6 — A day after acrid smoke from forest and peat fires blanketed Moscow, a light rain Friday cleared the air — and the government claimed the credit. The Emergency Situations Ministry said it drew rain clouds to the smog-shrouded capital and created showers by switching on a cube-shaped piece of equipment, 3 feet on each side, that sits atop a ministry building in western Moscow.


It was the first time the ministry used the ionizer, a device developed by its research institute that cranks out electrically-charged atoms.

“YES, WE DID IT,” ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov said proudly of the drizzle that brought relief after several rainless weeks. He said the ministry kept the device working Friday in an effort to repeat the initial success.
It was the first time the ministry used the ionizer, a device developed by its research institute that cranks out electrically-charged atoms. The institute’s director, Mikhail Shakhramanian, said the device, a metal cage crisscrossed by tungsten wire, emits a vertical flow of oxygen ions that stirs the air and raises humidity.
“The flow of ions blew a hole in the smog layer and drove its particles up higher,” Shakhramanian said. “At the next stage, oxygen ions concentrated humidity.”
Shakhramanian promised the ionizer would cause more rain in coming days, but added the process would be slow because the air is bone dry.
He pointed to weather forecasts — which had called for sunny, smoky skies Friday — as proof that his device, not nature, was responsible for the rain.
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http://www2b.abc.net.au/science/k2/stn/archives/archive32/newposts/166/topic166629.shtm