NOAA-20 is better and will still be available.
Also from NOAA: “Noaa said they would not affect the quality of forecasting.”
Decommissioning old sensors?
replies(4):
Also from NOAA: “Noaa said they would not affect the quality of forecasting.”
Decommissioning old sensors?
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-what-pro...
“The ATMS sounder that remains is far inferior to hurricane forecasters than the SSMIS instrument the Department of Defense is discontinuing. Unlike the SSMIS which scans at a continuous resolution, the quality of the ATMS degrades considerably on its edges, rendering the sounder useless for most operational hurricane forecasts. The example below shows the difference between the scans from both instruments for Hurricane Erick last Wednesday, June 18th.”
There is also a useful figure included.
The damage to weather prediction and climate research will go far beyond "decommissioning old sensors." We're talking about an abrupt end to nearly all science related to climate and weather in the US. Even if a future administration decides to turn funding back on, it will take a generation to rebuild the research community.
There is an embarrassing trend at the US EPA for example, to get interns and volunteers to do some official work, with no real way to transition to full time with job security and health insurance. This is partly due to the unending stream of applicants, despite few positions.
So from this context, rebuilding research means .. what? Both institutional knowledge store and authoritative titled positions. After some advances in data management by Google and some other commercial players, it is not clear what role Federal science had anyway, from this desk.