I don't understand why Google is needed for this. My understanding is that this is basic weather forecasting, something the aviation industry already utilises to avoid turbulence. Seems like it'd be trivial to track cold spots in the sky as an addon. It's worth noting the US military has been doing this for basically ever already and their planes avoid them when necessary.
Regardless, I'm glad somebody is doing something about it as a temporary stop gap.
TIL. Yes, contrails reflect sunlight so in daytime reduce insolation but night time contrails reflect IR back groundwards and have a stronger effect so they are not net beneficial over 24h.
Unless they encourage them daytime and deprecate them night time.
I don't understand why Google is needed for this. My understanding is that this is basic weather forecasting, something the aviation industry already utilises to avoid turbulence. Seems like it'd be trivial to track cold spots in the sky as an addon. It's worth noting the US military has been doing this for basically ever already and their planes avoid them when necessary.
Regardless, I'm glad somebody is doing something about it as a temporary stop gap.
TIL. Yes, contrails reflect sunlight so in daytime reduce insolation but night time contrails reflect IR back groundwards and have a stronger effect so they are not net beneficial over 24h.
Unless they encourage them daytime and deprecate them night time.