When I heard this tonight on the news it was something that was almost unbelievable. Why would the federal government halt the sharing of this information? The only reasons I can think of is: 1. They want more people to die. 2. They want to be purposefully cruel to people. If any of you, no matter your political stance can think of, or know of a more compelling or different reason, chime right in and let me know:
A critical US atmospheric data collection program will be halted by Monday, giving weather forecasters just days to prepare, according to a public notice sent this week. Scientists that the Guardian spoke with say the change could set hurricane forecasting back “decades”, just as this year’s season ramps up.
In a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) message sent on Wednesday to its scientists, the agency said that “due to recent service changes” the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) will “discontinue ingest, processing and distribution of all DMSP data no later than June 30, 2025”.
Due to their unique characteristics and ability to map the entire world twice a day with extremely high resolution, the three DMSP satellites are a primary source of information for scientists to monitor Arctic sea ice and hurricane development. The DMSP partners with Noaa to make weather data collected from the satellites publicly available.
The reasons for the changes, and which agency was driving them, were not immediately clear. Noaa said they would not affect the quality of forecasting.
However, the Guardian spoke with several scientists inside and outside of the US government whose work depends on the DMSP, and all said there are no other US programs that can form an adequate replacement for its data.
Read that again: NO other U.S. programs that can form an adequate replacement for its data!
Writing for Sanity's Sake 