It's so smoggy in China, the air smells, it's hard to breathe and in really worst case scenarios, children are getting cancer. But authorities in China may have found a solution: artificial rain.

The China Meteorological Administration is planning to allow local weather authorities to use cloud seeding to create rain. Hopefully, that would solve a bit of the smog problem.

The initiative will go live in 2015, but will this help clear the skies? New Scientist ponders:
The technique the Chinese use involves firing rockets carrying a payload of silver iodide particles into the clouds. Ice crystals then form from super-cooled liquid water in the clouds, using the particles as nucleation points. The crystals fall as rain or snow depending on the temperature below. The idea is that the artificial precipitation should clear the smog below... [But] smog is made of particulates of soot and dust, which should already have acted as ice nuclei. If it hasn't rained already... then adding more particulates in the shape of silver iodide won't help.
A little help is better than non. [New Scientist]