At a time when climate change is making its influence felt somewhat more, particularly leading to profound modification of rainfall patterns, it's important to focus on techniques aimed at making it rain or, conversely, stopping it. These techniques are no longer science fiction, as they were when Edgar P. Jacobs introduced them to readers of the adventures of Blake and Mortimer in SOS Météores. These two adventurers were confronted with the Machiavellian plans of Professor Miloch and Colonel Olrik, aiming at modifying the weather by creating an incessant rain, sowing chaos and facilitating a later military invasion.

In 1959, artificial rainfall techniques via cloud seeding already existed and must have inspired the cartoonist. A chemist working for General Electric, Vincent Schaefer, was responsible for the first experiments in the field. Considering them to be promising, the US Department of Defense then joined forces with General Electric to extend this research to the fight against hurricanes, before giving birth to the Cirrus project. This initiative aimed to experiment militarily with seeding techniques using silver iodide in the low layers of clouds.

US military staff went on to use these techniques during the Vietnam War, through Project Popeye, slowing the advance of North Vietnamese Army logistical columns by flooding the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Results were deemed promising enough for the Pentagon to continue the operation from 1967 to 1972.

Climatic modification as a weapon was formally prohibited on October 5, 1978, with the entry into force of the ENMOD international convention (Environmental Modification Convention). ENMOD signatory States undertake "not to engage in military or any other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects as the means of destruction, damage or injury to another State party" (Article 1).

It must be noted that geoengineering – the capacity that humans now have to modify the weather – circumvents ENMOD today and is not the subject of any international convention in peacetime. The American National Intelligence Council warned as early as 2020 that the absence of international dialogue on the subject could lead a State or a group of individuals to manipulate the climate.

Climate engineering is indeed increasingly in use – some 50 countries practice it, from the United Arab Emirates to Australia. But it's China, and more specifically the Chinese army, that has become a master in this field.

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