Navy to stop sharing satellite weather data with NOAA
The sub-heading for this should be, “And why I hate modern journalism.”
Military Times has this article. The title of which is clearly alarming, especially in light of this weekend’s horrific flash flooding in Texas (which of course liberals are blaming Trump for). According to Military Times;
Navy to stop sharing satellite weather data with NOAA
Why would the Navy do this? This makes no sense, right? The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is an important part of our government’s monitoring of things like hurricanes. The Navy depriving them of all available information is just another example of the Trump Administration’s anti-science stance. Another all-too-common assault against their perceived enemies in the Deep State pushing a radical climate change agenda.
Or so you’d believe if you just read the headline, or at best the top few paragraphs of this report.
According to the Military Times author (I can’t call her a journalist), Zita Ballinger Fletcher;
As of July 31, the Navy’s Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center will stop sharing satellite weather data with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to a NOAA release.
“This service change and termination will be permanent,” according to the NOAA release.
Data gathered from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, or DMSP, all Near-Earth Space Weather instruments and other Defense Department-owned systems will cease to be provided to NOAA.
The DMSP satellites capture global imagery from space twice a day, monitoring cloud formations, velocities, compositions and drifts, and provide NOAA with data and imagery.
“Military weather forecasters [using the DMSP] can detect developing patterns of weather and track existing weather phenomena over remote areas, including the presence of fog, severe thunderstorms, dust and sandstorms, and tropical cyclones,” according to the Space Force.
There’s no rational explanation for this. I am outraged. Trump truly is Satan incarnate, and worse than Super Mecha Hitler! People will die. Hold on, maybe I should take a breath and read past the fold…
As the Defense Department transfers greater reliance onto the newly fielded Weather System Follow-on Microwave, or WSF-M, use of the decades-old DMSPs for weather monitoring is being rapidly phased out.
The WSF-M, a more modern system that can pinpoint developing weather data more exactly, was declared to have reached Initial Operational Capacity this April. The WSF-M, first launched in 2024, can analyze sea ice, soil moisture and snow depth, as well as measure winds and collect cyclone data.
NOAA will now rely on data and imagery provided by WSF-M as well as the Electro-Optical Weather System, or EWS, to replace the DMSP data, according to its July release.
“DMSP satellites remain operational today but are more than a decade past their expected end of life,” the release said.
So…the Navy isn’t stopping the sharing of critical data. In fact, the DoD is sharing data from newer, more modern, more accurate satellites. There’s no loss of capability here. We’re actually seeing an increase.
This is modern (very small “j”) journalism. The headline is all people see, which in this case is wildly misleading, if technically correct. If they delve into the article, they have to get several paragraphs in to get to the real story, which is clearly nothing to be enraged about.
The whole article would be much better, but generate less outrage and fewer clicks, should be inverted. We’ve got new technology to replace the outdated stuff we’ve been using. New, better weather monitoring and prediction capabilities. Which, if you watched the Texas flood, would be a good thing to remind people about. Something to give a little hope for the future.
Journalism is dead. We now live in the age of outrage porn click bait. Don’t be surprised if you see fewer Military Times articles in these parts, as it’s hard to take their reporting seriously when this is how they behave.
