Trump delays plan to reduce access to crucial satellite data for hurricanes forecasts | Trump administration
The Trump administration announced on Monday a month to a plan to reduce forecastists for an atmospheric satellite data collection program which is considered crucial for hurricanes forecasts.
There was an alarm among scientists on the plan to reduce data access after their emergence last week in a public opinion sent by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Some scientists had warned the sudden loss of access to the data of the NOAA and NASA experts could establish hurricanes predicting “decades”.
The data is collected and processed by the satellites of the US Department of Defense and had to be suspended on Monday.
We do not know why the decision had been made to reduce forecastists, although media reports suggested that it was motivated by concerns about cybersecurity, and the new opinion on Monday by the NOAA describes the steps as being taken to “mitigate a risk of significant cybersecurity”.
The NOAA had insisted last week that the changes would not affect the quality of forecasts and had previously said nothing publicly on cybersecurity.
In last week’s opinion, the agency said that “due to recent service changes”, the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) “will interrupt the ingestion, processing and distribution of all DMSP data no later than June 30, 2025”.
On a new position on Monday, the NOAA said that the reduction in DMSP data would be postponed until the end of July after a request for the deletion of Dr. Karen Germain, director of the NASA Earth Sciences Division.
The new opinion of the NOAA said that the Fleet Numerical Meteorology Center of the American Navy (FNMOC), which sends the data to the NOAA, had planned to “the DMSP ingestion system cabinet in Monterey to mitigate a risk of significant cybersecurity for the high performance calculation environment.
“However, late Friday, June 27, CNMOC (Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command) received a request from Dr Germain with NASA to postpone the deletion and continue to process and distribute DMSP data until July 31.
“In response, FNMOC coordinated with CNMOC and is ready to continue processing DMSP downloads … An update service will be sent and FNMOC is now expecting the DMSP treatment out of service at the latest on July 31.”
The satellites also follow the modifications of the Arctic and the Antarctica, and have been following changes in the polar sea ice for over 40 years.
Friday, a Space Force official, who is part of the Ministry of Defense, said that the satellites would remain functional.
