China's huge dam changing weather

What promises to be the world's largest dam is already changing local weather two years before building has finished, say scientists. Scientists study the Three Gorges Dam on China's Yangtze River have used modelling and actual meteorological data to suggest that the reservoir is cooling its valley, which is causing changes in rainfall.

"In China there are a lot of people who complain because of the construction of
the dam" and specifically about changes in local weather, says climate
modeller
Dr Liguang Wu of the NASA
Goddard Space Flight Center and the University of Maryland in College
Park.

To find out if the dam was really to blame, Wu and his colleagues collaborated with Chinese scientists to study the changing climate around what will soon be a 1000 square kilometre reservoir of more than 19 trillion litres of water and a hydroelectric power plant 20 times more powerful than the Hoover Dam.The researchers combined satellite data and ground weather stations to create a computer climate simulation, which they then compared to what has already happened in recent years.

Full story: http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1963499.htm?enviro