tndl

These models actually outperform traditional methods on many fronts, including accuracy a lot of the time. They are technically generative AI models, but they're definitely not LLMs.

Really exciting to see NOAA finally make some progress on this front, but the AIGFS suite likely won't outperform ECMWF's AIFS suite any time soon. The underlying architecture between AIFS and GraphCast/AIGFS is pretty similar (both GNNs), so there won't likely be a model-level improvement. And most of ECMWF's edge lies in its superior 4DVar data assimilation process. AIGFS is still being initialized on NOAA's hybrid 4DEnVar assimilation process as far as I understand it, which is still not as good as straight up 4DVar unfortunately.

That seems to be the case from what I've heard.

Very interesting, I'd love to hear more about it! In short, yes, we plan to do descents near urban areas if there's a route where we can go down to a safe height and stay away from any airspace. What cities are you looking at right now?

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One of the first ideas we explored was putting an electrolyzer on the balloon to replenish hydrogen over time. Unfortunately right now, for balloons our size and power budget it's just not feasible. And actually, we can get a pretty low leakage rate with our materials which lets us stay aloft for a really long time, but eventually the UV degradation becomes to extreme.

We're actually just going to have kids launch our balloons, it's no problem:

  A person who is 6 years of age or younger who
  intentionally releases, organizes the release of, or
  intentionally causes to be released balloons as 
  prohibited by s.
  379.233 does not violate subsection (4) and is not. 
  subject to
  the penalties specified in subparagraph 1.