Roundup: Cyprus orders probe into whether British bases influence the weather

Cyprus has ordered an official inquiry into widespread claims that the British military, which has two sovereign bases and other military facilities on the eastern Mediterranean island, is influencing the weather, agriculture minister Nicos Kouyialis said on Thursday.

He told state radio he requested a high-tech investigation after claims that British authorities at one of the most important British overseas military facilities, the Akrotiri Royal Air Force (RAF) base, were using cloud dispersal methods to prevent rain.

Such claims have been made on and off for the past few years, but they built up this year after an unusually dry February despite weather forecasts calling for a large amount of rain.

Traditional weather watchers who observe cloud formations early in August make predictions for the next 12 months which prove remarkably accurate in most cases.

But this year, all of them failed in their predictions for February. Instead of rain, there has been unusually dry and hot weather with temperatures about 10 degrees Celsius above the median temperature for the month.

"I cannot understand what is happening. The weather conditions are all contrary to all observations which proved accurate in the past. Something strange is happening," one of those who predicted ample rain for February told a state radio magazine program.

The country's usually very accurate meteorological department also failed in many of its forecasts. The rain they predicted failed to come or was very scant.

Aristodemos Aristodemou, a scientist with a doctorate degree, told state radio his curiosity was raised when he saw small aircraft crisscrossing the sky off the western-most tip of Cyprus, which is closest to the Aegean Greek islands.

He said he started watching the cloud building on the horizon and noticed that though they were clearly black rain clouds, they seldom made it to the shores of Cyprus and over the mountains.

"They shortly turned into white cloud and disappeared," he said.

He added that he systematically watched weather forecasts on the Greek state television predicting rain in Cyprus 24 hours after rainy weather in Greece and its islands but the rain never came.

"I started photographing the cloud and posting pictures on Facebook," he said.

The issue reached parliament, where leaders of agricultural organizations demanded an inquiry into the issue.

The minister of agriculture complied with the demand and asked the ministry of foreign affairs to request official information from the authorities of the British military bases.

Agricultural organizations, environmentalists, and people living close to the RAF base at Akrotiri village claimed they had seen aircraft engage in air spraying.

"On the face of it, but without any corroboration yet, it emerges that such actions could change the climate of the region as they may change the earth's atmosphere, or chemical substances freed in the air could potentially change the ability of the atmosphere to perform specific factions, e.g. produce rain," said Kouyialis in a written statement to the agriculture parliamentary committee.

The authorities of the British bases have maintained they are not engaged in any activity of the kind described at the session of the parliamentary agricultural committee.

Akrotiri RAF base, which hosts planes currently operating against the Islamic State in the Middle East, is also the site of a powerful radar, coupled to the world-wide NATO information collecting apparatus. Endit