This WaPo report is disturbing in the face of the recent spate of bad weather parts of the United States has been experiencing:
What if, suddenly, decades of progress in weather prediction was reversed and monster storms that we currently see coming for days were no longer foreseeable? The toll on life, property and the economy would be enormous. Yet the government’s science agencies say such a loss in forecast accuracy could happen if the Federal Communications Commission and the U.S. wireless industry get their way.
Both the FCC and the wireless industry are racing to deploy 5G technology, which will deliver information at speeds 100 times faster than today’s mobile networks. But scientists have found this technology could interfere with critical satellite data used in weather forecasting, pitting the interests of science and safety against a pressing national priority.
The FCC and the government’s science agencies, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA, have battled over this issue for several years.
Hurricane Sandy (2012)
In case it’s not clear, the sensors which measure the data in question must have a frequency on the electro-magnetic spectrum clear in order to accurately measure the phenomenon in question, which is water vapor data. As it happens, 5G technology will operate quite near that frequency if the FCC has its way.
Yet on Tuesday, CTIA, the trade group representing the U.S. wireless communications industry, unleashed a scathing rebuttal of the Jacobs’ assertion.
“It’s an absurd claim with no science behind it,” wrote Brad Gillen, CTIA’s executive vice president, in a blog post.
And this is what troubles me. This CTIA’s motivations has little to do with weather forecasting; for them, it seems probable that it’s all about the money.
Meanwhile, the government is putatively charged with our safety, and excellent weather forecasting is part of that responsibility. While many will point at various corruptions that have occurred in the past in the government, such as the alleged “capture” of the FCC by the companies it is supposed to regulate, it remains the point man on the subject in our current societal design.
So, in my mind, we need the CTIA to step back and have a neutral third party that is scientifically competent take over as their advocate, a third party whose first responsibility isn’t making money, but public safety. I think Congress may have had such an agency at one time, but the Republicans eliminated it.
In this way, CTIA isn’t required to move out of its bailiwick of making money through the provision of communications, and the government isn’t forced to give up a key responsibility to a party that doesn’t have an inherent interest in it.
