Did this Russian rainmaking machine really work?

[Duck Duck Goose]

Or was it merely coincidence that it started to rain just as they turned the thing on?

http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/09/06/russia.rain/

Moscow says machine dispelled smog
September 6, 2002 Posted: 11:29 AM EDT (1529 GMT)

MOSCOW, Russia -- Moscow officials say they have dispelled dense, polluting smog in the city that kept thousands of residents house bound by using a machine which induces rain.

The ionizer machine, atop a ministry building in the west of the capital, was used to draw a fine drizzle to help clear the air after a series of forest fires covered Moscow in the worst smog for 30 years, the Emergency Situations Ministry said.

"Yes, we did it," ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov told The Associated Press. And I'm, like, "Hanh?"
The institute's director, Mikhail Shakhramanian, told ORT television that the device, a metal cage crisscrossed by tungsten wire, emits a vertical flow of oxygen ions that stirs the air and raises humidity.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...0131sep07.story

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.And, I'm, like, "Hanh?" again. How could a three-foot-square cube emitting ions make it rain over the Greater Moscow metroplex? Is there any scientific basis for this?

[lieu]

Sputnik was only 2 feet across...

Wow, they've come a long ways.

[andy_fl]

Well it may not be impossible (though appears farfetched).

In the past Silver Iodide has been used to seed rain (http://pearl1.lanl.gov/periodic/elements/47.html)

Also Ionization was used in the past with some success in airport fog control (almost the same thing) - A. C. Hartley. Fog Dispersal; Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, vol XCV, no. 4732, London, Dec. 6, 1946 .

[Mort Furd]

I'm afraid it is only wishful thinking:
The institute's director, Mikhail Shakhramanian, told ORT television that the device, a metal cage crisscrossed by tungsten wire, emits a vertical flow of oxygen ions that stirs the air and raises humidity.
So, umm, where is the additional moisture coming from? How long did they have to run the device before it could pull in enough humidity from god knows where? How much power did this thing consume in the process? How much juice does it take to create an electrostatically induced breeze strong enough change the air flow over the whole city of Moscow? Most importantly: How well anchored is this gadget that is can with stand winds strong enough to change the weather of the city, when those winds are generated by a device no larger than the top of a building?

This is priceless:
More than 4,000 people were used to extinguish 200 local fires on Thursday, covering an area of 537 hectares (1,326 acres), but another 150 flared up later, ORT television was quoted by AP as saying.
I think someone needs to take a remedial english course. That confused mess seems to be saying that 200 fires were put out with 4000 people - what, is water THAT scarce? It then goes on to say that 150 people flared up later. Geez. That must look pretty wild. Imagine a burned area where the fire has been smothered under the bodies of the (presumably) volunteer firefighters. Suddenly, FWOOSH! The body of one of these brave persons bursts out in flames - proof positive of spontaneous combustion.

[Mort Furd]

I'm afraid it is only wishful thinking:
The institute's director, Mikhail Shakhramanian, told ORT television that the device, a metal cage crisscrossed by tungsten wire, emits a vertical flow of oxygen ions that stirs the air and raises humidity.
So, umm, where is the additional moisture coming from? How long did they have to run the device before it could pull in enough humidity from god knows where? How much power did this thing consume in the process? How much juice does it take to create an electrostatically induced breeze strong enough change the air flow over the whole city of Moscow? Most importantly: How well anchored is this gadget that is can with stand winds strong enough to change the weather of the city, when those winds are generated by a device no larger than the top of a building?

This is priceless:
More than 4,000 people were used to extinguish 200 local fires on Thursday, covering an area of 537 hectares (1,326 acres), but another 150 flared up later, ORT television was quoted by AP as saying.
I think someone needs to take a remedial english course. That confused mess seems to be saying that 200 fires were put out with 4000 people - what, is water THAT scarce? It then goes on to say that 150 people flared up later. Geez. That must look pretty wild. Imagine a burned area where the fire has been smothered under the bodies of the (presumably) volunteer firefighters. Suddenly, FWOOSH! The body of one of these brave persons bursts out in flames - proof positive of spontaneous combustion.

[Mort Furd]

Originally posted by andy_fl
Well it may not be impossible (though appears farfetched).

In the past Silver Iodide has been used to seed rain (http://pearl1.lanl.gov/periodic/elements/47.html)

Also Ionization was used in the past with some success in airport fog control (almost the same thing) - A. C. Hartley. Fog Dispersal; Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, vol XCV, no. 4732, London, Dec. 6, 1946 .
Ionization can be used to knock dust and soot out of the air. It might possibly be used to cause water to condense.
Using ionization to clear up fog (which might cause a short lived, very local rainshower) at an airport is not on the same scale as clearing smog from an area the size of Moscow - most assuredly not when you have to summon moisture from somewhere to create your rain.

[Duck Duck Goose]

So, I take it this is a "no, it didn't really work"?

Okay.

[Mort Furd]

Right-o!

[ElJeffe]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The institute's director, Mikhail Shakhramanian, told ORT television that the device, a metal cage crisscrossed by tungsten wire, emits a vertical flow of oxygen ions that stirs the air and raises humidity.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not that I have any idea whether this is feasible or not (my gut tells me no, but it would be cool if it were), but I have to warn against mocking a scientific claim based on its reporting in the media. The media is absolutely *horrible* at accurately relaying scientific claims. It's possible that whatever the director said got completely misinterpreted. Or that the director said something completely true, and the reporter said, "Duh?", at which point the director said something less accurate but more comprehensible, which produced a slightly less confused "Duh?", and eventually the paper would up with something far removed from reality, but that at least a layperson can understand.


Jeff

[Fishhead]

sorry to hijack, but gotta second the Jeffe. I am a scientist that occasionally gets interviewed by the press, and what a mess that can be. Sometimes they bring it by you again before it goes to press to make sure you got it right, and sometimes not. Sometimes they get it so wrong you can't believe they actually talked to you, much less quoted you. Most recently, I got a kick out this article.

Some poor fishery biologist is shaking his head somewhere in Maryland. I mean come on -- fishes don't [I]have[i] lungs, and their sides don't "heave" (it is a physical impossibility) and the oxygen doesn't "drain from their bodies". Hoo boy.

snakehead link (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38036-2002Sep4.html)

[Duck Duck Goose]

Well, hey, whadday know, I found a picture of the thing.
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2002/09/09/011.html

Caption: "An engineer adjusting an ionizer on top of the Emergency Situations Ministry building."

I will describe it just in case they take the picture down. It looks like a 3-foot square wire rabbit hutch or cage--actually, it looks like two or three different size rabbit cages, nested one inside the other. You can see right through it--it's wire mesh, looks like 1 inch mesh. There's nothing inside it at all, no "gizmo". Just wire mesh.

It's up on metal stilts, like a TV set on a stand, and the engineer is having to step up onto a step to "adjust" it, so it's about 7 feet tall. There is a yellow triangle international "electrical" symbol sign posted prominently on the side facing the viewer, and it looks like there's another one on the other side. There are vaguely electrical-looking heavy-duty wires and things coming down off it.

Oh, and the article itself says:
Monday, Sep. 9, 2002. Page 3

Combined Reports

Mikhail Metzel / AP

It was the first time the ministry used the equipment, developed by its research institute, Beltsov said. 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 in a telephone interview. "At the next stage, oxygen ions concentrated humidity."