Eighty years ago, on this day, November 19, 1943, the burn-enormous-amounts-of-petrol-to-disperse-fog-so-bombers-can-land was used for the first time.
From the time of the first operational use of FIDO at Graveley on the 19/20 November 1943 until the end of the year, thirty-nine successful landings were made.
Fleming, 2007, p.56.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 310ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was Guy Callendar’s bright idea of burning off fog that would prevent RAF planes from returning to base got its first actual physical use, saving crews’ lives so they could continue bombing campaigns against military targets and against civilians. It’s a war.
What I think we can learn from this
Local weather manipulation and global patterns have a backstory
What happened next
FIDO continued to get used through to the end of the war.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.