NOAA Delays the Cutoff of Key Satellite Data for Hurricane Forecasting
Meteorologists and scientists warned of severe consequences last week when NOAA said in the midst of this year's hurricane season that it would almost immediately discontinue key data collected by three weather satellites that the agency jointly runs with the Department of Defense. The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program's microwave data gives key information that can't be gleaned from conventional satellites. That includes three-dimensional details of a storm–what's going on inside of it and what it is doing in the overnight hours, experts say.
The data was initially planned to be cut off on June 30 to mitigate a significant cybersecurity risk, NOAA's announcement said. The agency now says it's postponing that until July 31. Peak hurricane season is usually from mid-August to mid-October.
Spokespeople from NOAA and the Navy did not immediately respond to a request for more details about the update.
NOAA–which has been the subject of hefty Department of Government Efficiency cuts this year–said Friday the satellite program accounts for a single dataset in a robust suite of hurricane forecasting and modeling tools in the National Weather Service's portfolio. The agency's data sources are fully capable of providing a complete suite of cutting-edge data and models that ensure the gold-standard weather forecasting the American people deserve, a spokesperson said.
But Union of Concerned Scientists science fellow Marc Alessi told The Associated Press on Friday that detecting the rapid intensification and more accurately predicting the likely path of storms is critical as climate change worsens the extreme weather experienced across the globe. 'Not only are we losing the ability to make better intensification forecasts, we are also losing the ability to predict accurately where a tropical cyclone could be going if it's in its development stages,' Alessi said. 'This data is essential.' 'On the seasonal forecasting front we would see the effects,' he added, 'but also on the long-term climate change front we now are losing an essential piece to monitoring global warming.'
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