12 ms·

US launches next-gen weather satellite that will revolutionize forecasting

185 points by crivabene 10y ago

Dowwie 10y ago
I like their choice in name: GOES-R. Ghostbusters reference: http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/7/7f/Gozer.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140529144058 http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/7/7f/Goz...
- freshyill 10y ago
  I don't think it's intentional.
- rrmm 10y ago
  I believe once they are commissioned they are given a number (eg current ones are GOES-13, GOES-14, GOES-15). They are also given a designation as GOES-EAST or GOES-WEST depending on where they are being used. So GOES-13 was GOES-EAST until it had an anomaly and GOES-14 was moved out of a storage orbit and designated GOES-EAST. It returned to storage once they fixed the issue with GOES-13. The R is just a sequence number for launching; S and T are slated next. If there is a failure before commissioning, it won't receive a numerical designation. So the GOES-R name was just a happy accident I guess.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Wait, if GOES-* is placed in a synchronous orbit, shouldn't the name be GOES-NOWHERE?
- dingaling 10y ago
  Which in turn was the word allegedly scrawled over the walls in the Enfield haunting which inspired the film 'Poltergeist'.
andrewvijay 10y ago
Great thing to know. Hope it reduces fatalities in the near by countries like Haiti too.
- bdamm 10y ago
  The weather predicting organizations of developed nations are remarkably cooperative and significant data are shared widely.
  - kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
    And yet the NWS won't incorporate Canadian radar data from storms moving across the Canadian sword into western New York.
21 10y ago
“This is probably the most complex technology that our species is involved in — weather prediction is,” I think this is just a pattern of people seeing the complexity in their field, but not knowing anything about other fields and thus believing that they are doing the most awesome thing ever. LHC guys will say their technology is the most complex one, Intel, the AI guys, and so on..., not to mention the global infrastructure required to run the Internet.
- matt4077 10y ago
  They're speaking of Chaos Theory, which was invented/discovered for weather prediction. 'Complexity', in this sense, doesn't mean 'it's rocket science' bus is a definable quantity.
  - igravious 10y ago
    No, they are using complex in the it's got may interlocking parts and all those parts are fiendishly difficult to understand individually and put together sense :) They're referring to the total technological package, supercomputer forecasting, in addition to satellite building, lofting, and monitoring. It's not a reference to the complexity of chaos theory. At least that's what I get from the context of the quote, which continues, “And we do it together as one species. It’s one of our greatest successes.” Made me get the warm fuzzies, sometimes we're not so shabby. :)
  - sandworm101 10y ago
    That definition of complexity, counting all the interlocking parts, leads to laughable conclusions. Example: The decision whether to walk my dog at the park or at the beach is now more complex than launching satellites. Since the park/beach decision relies upon both weather forecasts and dog psychology it is therefore more complex than either. Since weather forecasting involves launching satellites, there are more parts in the park/beach decision. To be relevant, complexity should measure not the entire system but the number of variables at a specific point in the system. Rocket science isn't very complex as it is very compartmentalized. Different stages in the process involve discrete decisions divorced from others scheduled to occur at different times. So, weather forecasting wins because the number of variables at every decision is far greater. The flow-chart for a rocketry decision is more vertical whereas the chart for a weather forecast is more horizontal.
the_duke 10y ago
Oh boy, what a flurry of buzzwords. Game changer, Breakthrough, revolutionize... All I got from the actual information is a better resolution and faster analysis, nothing that would support the hyping.
- lllr_finger 10y ago
  Capital Weather Gang usually does a better job explaining things to the masses, so that's a little disappointing. Having a similar conversation with family and friends, it's challenging to explain the hype. Weather is incredibly complex and difficult to model and predict. We have multiple sources of truth to provide the input to our models: radar sites spaced hundreds of miles apart, balloons that are launched twice a day and hundreds of miles apart, METAR stations that record ground observations, satellite, etc. Satellite data is the closest you can get to seeing the entire atmosphere as an interconnected system with no gaps in data, but is limited by being a top-down view (better spectral information will help), somewhat low resolution, and 5-15 minute update intervals (storms can go from nothing to tornadic in 45 minutes). CIMSS and other groups of researchers are doing great work with our current satellite data like identifying when supercells are likely to produce tornadoes and estimating instability in a column of the atmosphere. Increasing spectral information, resolution, and frequency will enable products to be refined and new products to come out - such as lightning detection, which currently relies on private networks. Severe weather nowcasting is only one of the areas that will benefit from this, but the one that I'm familiar with as an amateur meteorologist. GOES-R has the potential to cut false alarm rate and increase warning times for severe weather. Weather nerds are rather excited, as this stands to be a powerful new tool.
- JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  So tired of "game changer". If you have to declare it, it usually isn't.
- InclinedPlane 10y ago
  Maybe this is your speed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WQAwQ0SGkc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WQAwQ0SGkc GOES-R represents a nearly 2 orders of magnitude improvement over previous generations. Imagery will have higher spectral and spatial resolution, by significant margins, and provide coverage in new areas. Consider just one aspect: lightning observation, GOES-R will vastly increase the amount of data available. This is a huge amount of data that wasn't previously available and will no doubt be able to be used in improving weather modelling. However, lightning intensity has been recently discovered to be a key predictor in thunderstorm intensity and tornado formation so having that data available in real time will likely end up leading to better tornado predictions and many lives saved. And that's just one element, every aspect of the satellite is a huge leap over previous generations and will have a tremendous impact on weather forecasting and climate research for years to come.
paul_f 10y ago
Would love to read the article, but paywall.
- edsouza 10y ago
  no problems reading it myself, never seen paywall on Washington Post articles
  - ars 10y ago
    There is, it's a soft paywall, letting you read a certain number per month.
- ars 10y ago
  Click 'Reader View' in firefox.
pseudometa 10y ago
When will humanity have enough sensors and computing power to give a similar forecast that Dark Sky provides today, but 7 days in advance? What will that system look like? It seems like it is a mostly matter of time, but I just don't grasp what all will need to be done to get there and if it is 15 years out or 100.
- Retric 10y ago
  The only real hope for that is if we start directly controlling weather. The last 1,000,000x increase in processing power has bought less than a days worth of accuracy. In the very short term you can just model the momentum of the air, but the feedback loops quickly reduce stability.
edsouza 10y ago
This is actually pretty cool. I last worked with satellite data from GOES 8 and 9 in '98. I remember satellite images were sent sent every 3 hours and full disk images were 12 hours. I worked in a weather office where they had one pc running DOS that received the data from Satellite and saved the data where various HP-UX servers manipulated the data. Last i remember, all data transmitted by these satellites are not encrypted, anyone can build a receiver to gather the data to generate satellite images. One day I hope to have time to do this myself.
- aeroevan 10y ago
  I currently use an SDR to capture ADS-B messages, but it can also be used for satellite images fairly easily: http://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-tutorial-receiving-noaa-weather-satellite-images/ http://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-tutorial-receiving-noaa-weath...
  - edsouza 10y ago
    Thanks for the link to that site. GOES weather satellites use a different format. Found the beginning article to the series here: http://www.rtl-sdr.com/setting-up-a-goes-weather-satellite-antenna-system/ http://www.rtl-sdr.com/setting-up-a-goes-weather-satellite-a...
- woodman 10y ago
  Isn't there a lot of work that goes into post processing the data? It wouldn't matter if you just want an awesome background image, but using the data for some kind of actual work... there is a lot of calibration to be done. I was working with some ESA Sentinel data several months ago - not fun. Edit: For those who don't normally work with this stuff, I'm talking about not only correcting geospacial data - but also bringing the sensor data in line with a bunch of other sensors and past datasets. It quickly goes from "Oh, pretty pictures!" to "Do I really want to do this anymore? Can I ever trust data again?" That said, doing your own ground segment is cool - just know that there is a whole lot more work to do beyond actually receiving the radio transmissions. https://earth.esa.int/web/sentinel/level-1-post-processing-algorithms https://earth.esa.int/web/sentinel/level-1-post-processing-a...
wheaties 10y ago
This is great. I worked on the ground processing systems for this satellite. I left before my own algorithmic systems went through final review. Was good for me to leave career-wise but I wish I could have seen it through to the end.
bdg 10y ago
Woah, something from the next generation? Someone call the temporal agents and let them know. This is exactly what we faught against in the temporal cold war.
jellicle 10y ago
Enjoy it while you can, as most likely the incoming administration will turn off this satellite. Why spend a lot of money to discover politically inconvenient data? Two birds, one stone.
- bdamm 10y ago
  The parent is downvoted but raises the noteworthy point that congress has in fact diverted funds away from atmospheric research specifically to avoid climate science. I'm not sure where this GOES satellite falls in the constellation of climate study tools.
  - SEJeff 10y ago
    Ironically, they can't fully defund it as it is mission critical for the military industrial machine. All deployed aviation assets in the US military have somewhere attached to them a USAF meteorologist. I flew the Shadow 200 TUAV "drone" in Iraq from 2003-2004 and we always had a single air force person with us for weather stuff. It is critical for safety of flight. Also, for launching things like missiles and really anything airborne, you need to know the weather for safety reasons. It only lightly touches on it in the article, but this is why the DoD is so serious about funding and working with NOAA even though NOAA is part of the Department of Commerce.
    - hackuser 10y ago
      > they can't fully defund it as it is mission critical for the military industrial machine The U.S. military lacks critical funds at this point due to defunding, depending on how you define "critical". The service chiefs testified that they will not be able to defend the country unless they get more money. http://breakingdefense.com/2016/09/four-service-chiefs-say-they-cant-defend-us-under-sequestration/ http://breakingdefense.com/2016/09/four-service-chiefs-say-t...
      - SEJeff 10y ago
        They've been saying that since the dawn of the US Military. I genuinely don't buy it. It is just like Trump's alarmism over the size of our military (the navy specifically) shrinking under Obama post-GW Bush surge. The technology has gotten so much better and automation in specific allows us to do more with less people. This is by design and I'd almost argue if the tech wasn't getting better and needing less humans, our R&D is clearly failing. The current Order of Battle of the entire US Military calls for us to be able to fight two large scale wars simultaneously. We've done that arguably well/poorly with Iraq and Afghanistan. They're coming to grips that with unconventional warfare, you simply need a LOT more boots on the ground trudging around. Our technology advantage alone allows us to realistically probably coast for 6-8 years and still be matched only realistically by China. Russia has a few things that can match current US kit (their new tanks are excellent and they have some of the best anti-air kit in the world), but the Kremlin simply far and above lacks the cash to be in a position to afford to pay for a serious modernization. Obama's sanctions along with the massive drop in oil have put a dent in Russia's economy regardless of Putin's posturing. Sure they have very nice new jets, but they have precious few of them. We have nice new jets, better radars, and all of our older jets can spank the pants off of their older jets, etc, etc. This is really just my anecdotal experience as a US Army veteran who was in OIF II 2003-2004.
hackuser 10y ago
I think people are accustomed to it and therefore overlook it, but note that government, using taxpayer dollars, delivers the most high-tech systems in the world - not only for meteorology, but also science, medicine and space exploration (as well as military and intelligence). There is a benefit to countries and to the world when the people pool their money for something big.
- wheelerwj 10y ago
  *taxpayer funded research Government doesn't do shit, except write the check. this all comes from acadamia, nasa, darpa, etc. You're point that science is pushed forward by people pooling resources is absolutely correct, I just want to make it clear that Government has very little to do with it. This is just societ bolstering the resources of our greatest minds.
  - tw04 10y ago
    >Government doesn't do shit >nasa, darpa I don't think you understand...
    - wheelerwj 10y ago
      They are government funded but have exactly nothing to do with governance. They could be privately funded and accomplish the exact same things.
      - MPSimmons 10y ago
        In a mathematical sense, yes, every citizen who gives a certain amount of tax money to the government to pay for research bodies could, instead, give money straight to some sort of central body to distribute it to the same various groups. But they wouldn't. And you know it. Even the Science Philanthropy Alliance (http://www.sciencephilanthropyalliance.org/what-we-do/resources/faqs/ http://www.sciencephilanthropyalliance.org/what-we-do/resour...), which funds researchers using privately-donated money, says that taxes are necessary to have scientific progress.
kylehotchkiss 10y ago
I wish they'd leave the 100mhz APT signals on these so kids around the country could build their own little "weather stations"... Being able to listen to those (I never had a wideband enough radio to see them) was one of the coolest things.
- tjohns 10y ago
  Are they not? (I haven't heard anything either way.)
  - kylehotchkiss 10y ago
    They've moved to Ghz band (Ku?) for weather several years back [1]. Great moves for science and I am happy that we are advancing tech, but an upgraded version of APT nowadays with how cheap tech is getting could have provided people in developing countries some better pictures of coming weather. Also could have kept the 10 year old inside of us with cheap 100mhz radios outside at night, listening to the satellites passing over our heads. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_picture_transmission#Future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_picture_transmission... & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-resolution_picture_transmission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-resolution_picture_transm...
SEJeff 10y ago
The only thing this will revolutionize, is the alt-right's ability to deny more facts that climate change is real :(
- todd8 10y ago
  Wouldn't more information make it more difficult to claim unscientific things?
  - SEJeff 10y ago
    You would certainly think so, but clearly you can't reason with the alt-right. The Trump election proves that somewhat handily.
- skoczymroczny 10y ago
  I think the bigger issue is whether climate change is manmade, rather than if it exists. Climate has always changed, was ice age caused by cavemen making too many campfires?
  - Brakenshire 10y ago
    The arguments shift, a few years back there was very widespread denial that the climate was changing. Following repeated record years now there is a reasonable consensus that the climate is changing (up to about 60% of conservatives in the US and UK), and people now seem to think this acceptance was always there. The next argument as you say is whether it is manmade, after that it will be about whether it is serious enough to need tackling, or about whether it's so serious that nothing can be done. Underlying this is the basic worry to avoid damaging quality of life (which is a perfectly reasonable concern) and the ideological motivation to avoid intervening in the economy. Beyond the motivated reasoning there is also the actual scientific argument about whether the climate sensitivity is 1C, or 2.5C, and whether therefore we should be taking moderate action or severe action. There's not much of a scientific debate about whether we should be doing nothing at all. Ironically in the Anglosphere there is a consensus for moderate action amongst the public, including the conservative public, but the political elites haven't yet caught up.
cucucaca 10y ago
GLOBAL WARMING IS A HOAX! A LIE!
tonyplee 10y ago
I started to depend on the hourly rain, snow prediction data from google/weather.com in the last year or so. Especially when planing ski trip. I found them amazingly accurate. Now I know why. I am looking forward the future forecast provided by next gen satellite.
NietTim 10y ago
Sure it will.

185 points by crivabene 10y ago

I like their choice in name: GOES-R. Ghostbusters reference: http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/7/7f/Gozer.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140529144058 http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/7/7f/Goz...

freshyill 10y ago
I don't think it's intentional.
rrmm 10y ago
I believe once they are commissioned they are given a number (eg current ones are GOES-13, GOES-14, GOES-15). They are also given a designation as GOES-EAST or GOES-WEST depending on where they are being used. So GOES-13 was GOES-EAST until it had an anomaly and GOES-14 was moved out of a storage orbit and designated GOES-EAST. It returned to storage once they fixed the issue with GOES-13. The R is just a sequence number for launching; S and T are slated next. If there is a failure before commissioning, it won't receive a numerical designation. So the GOES-R name was just a happy accident I guess.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Wait, if GOES-* is placed in a synchronous orbit, shouldn't the name be GOES-NOWHERE?
dingaling 10y ago
Which in turn was the word allegedly scrawled over the walls in the Enfield haunting which inspired the film 'Poltergeist'.

andrewvijay 10y ago

Great thing to know. Hope it reduces fatalities in the near by countries like Haiti too.

bdamm 10y ago
The weather predicting organizations of developed nations are remarkably cooperative and significant data are shared widely.
- kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
  And yet the NWS won't incorporate Canadian radar data from storms moving across the Canadian sword into western New York.

21 10y ago

“This is probably the most complex technology that our species is involved in — weather prediction is,” I think this is just a pattern of people seeing the complexity in their field, but not knowing anything about other fields and thus believing that they are doing the most awesome thing ever. LHC guys will say their technology is the most complex one, Intel, the AI guys, and so on..., not to mention the global infrastructure required to run the Internet.

matt4077 10y ago
They're speaking of Chaos Theory, which was invented/discovered for weather prediction. 'Complexity', in this sense, doesn't mean 'it's rocket science' bus is a definable quantity.
- igravious 10y ago
  No, they are using complex in the it's got may interlocking parts and all those parts are fiendishly difficult to understand individually and put together sense :) They're referring to the total technological package, supercomputer forecasting, in addition to satellite building, lofting, and monitoring. It's not a reference to the complexity of chaos theory. At least that's what I get from the context of the quote, which continues, “And we do it together as one species. It’s one of our greatest successes.” Made me get the warm fuzzies, sometimes we're not so shabby. :)
- sandworm101 10y ago
  That definition of complexity, counting all the interlocking parts, leads to laughable conclusions. Example: The decision whether to walk my dog at the park or at the beach is now more complex than launching satellites. Since the park/beach decision relies upon both weather forecasts and dog psychology it is therefore more complex than either. Since weather forecasting involves launching satellites, there are more parts in the park/beach decision. To be relevant, complexity should measure not the entire system but the number of variables at a specific point in the system. Rocket science isn't very complex as it is very compartmentalized. Different stages in the process involve discrete decisions divorced from others scheduled to occur at different times. So, weather forecasting wins because the number of variables at every decision is far greater. The flow-chart for a rocketry decision is more vertical whereas the chart for a weather forecast is more horizontal.

the_duke 10y ago

Oh boy, what a flurry of buzzwords. Game changer, Breakthrough, revolutionize... All I got from the actual information is a better resolution and faster analysis, nothing that would support the hyping.

lllr_finger 10y ago
Capital Weather Gang usually does a better job explaining things to the masses, so that's a little disappointing. Having a similar conversation with family and friends, it's challenging to explain the hype. Weather is incredibly complex and difficult to model and predict. We have multiple sources of truth to provide the input to our models: radar sites spaced hundreds of miles apart, balloons that are launched twice a day and hundreds of miles apart, METAR stations that record ground observations, satellite, etc. Satellite data is the closest you can get to seeing the entire atmosphere as an interconnected system with no gaps in data, but is limited by being a top-down view (better spectral information will help), somewhat low resolution, and 5-15 minute update intervals (storms can go from nothing to tornadic in 45 minutes). CIMSS and other groups of researchers are doing great work with our current satellite data like identifying when supercells are likely to produce tornadoes and estimating instability in a column of the atmosphere. Increasing spectral information, resolution, and frequency will enable products to be refined and new products to come out - such as lightning detection, which currently relies on private networks. Severe weather nowcasting is only one of the areas that will benefit from this, but the one that I'm familiar with as an amateur meteorologist. GOES-R has the potential to cut false alarm rate and increase warning times for severe weather. Weather nerds are rather excited, as this stands to be a powerful new tool.
JustSomeNobody 10y ago
So tired of "game changer". If you have to declare it, it usually isn't.
InclinedPlane 10y ago
Maybe this is your speed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WQAwQ0SGkc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WQAwQ0SGkc GOES-R represents a nearly 2 orders of magnitude improvement over previous generations. Imagery will have higher spectral and spatial resolution, by significant margins, and provide coverage in new areas. Consider just one aspect: lightning observation, GOES-R will vastly increase the amount of data available. This is a huge amount of data that wasn't previously available and will no doubt be able to be used in improving weather modelling. However, lightning intensity has been recently discovered to be a key predictor in thunderstorm intensity and tornado formation so having that data available in real time will likely end up leading to better tornado predictions and many lives saved. And that's just one element, every aspect of the satellite is a huge leap over previous generations and will have a tremendous impact on weather forecasting and climate research for years to come.

paul_f 10y ago

Would love to read the article, but paywall.

edsouza 10y ago
no problems reading it myself, never seen paywall on Washington Post articles
- ars 10y ago
  There is, it's a soft paywall, letting you read a certain number per month.
ars 10y ago
Click 'Reader View' in firefox.

pseudometa 10y ago

When will humanity have enough sensors and computing power to give a similar forecast that Dark Sky provides today, but 7 days in advance? What will that system look like? It seems like it is a mostly matter of time, but I just don't grasp what all will need to be done to get there and if it is 15 years out or 100.

Retric 10y ago
The only real hope for that is if we start directly controlling weather. The last 1,000,000x increase in processing power has bought less than a days worth of accuracy. In the very short term you can just model the momentum of the air, but the feedback loops quickly reduce stability.

edsouza 10y ago

This is actually pretty cool. I last worked with satellite data from GOES 8 and 9 in '98. I remember satellite images were sent sent every 3 hours and full disk images were 12 hours. I worked in a weather office where they had one pc running DOS that received the data from Satellite and saved the data where various HP-UX servers manipulated the data. Last i remember, all data transmitted by these satellites are not encrypted, anyone can build a receiver to gather the data to generate satellite images. One day I hope to have time to do this myself.

aeroevan 10y ago
I currently use an SDR to capture ADS-B messages, but it can also be used for satellite images fairly easily: http://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-tutorial-receiving-noaa-weather-satellite-images/ http://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-tutorial-receiving-noaa-weath...
- edsouza 10y ago
  Thanks for the link to that site. GOES weather satellites use a different format. Found the beginning article to the series here: http://www.rtl-sdr.com/setting-up-a-goes-weather-satellite-antenna-system/ http://www.rtl-sdr.com/setting-up-a-goes-weather-satellite-a...
woodman 10y ago
Isn't there a lot of work that goes into post processing the data? It wouldn't matter if you just want an awesome background image, but using the data for some kind of actual work... there is a lot of calibration to be done. I was working with some ESA Sentinel data several months ago - not fun. Edit: For those who don't normally work with this stuff, I'm talking about not only correcting geospacial data - but also bringing the sensor data in line with a bunch of other sensors and past datasets. It quickly goes from "Oh, pretty pictures!" to "Do I really want to do this anymore? Can I ever trust data again?" That said, doing your own ground segment is cool - just know that there is a whole lot more work to do beyond actually receiving the radio transmissions. https://earth.esa.int/web/sentinel/level-1-post-processing-algorithms https://earth.esa.int/web/sentinel/level-1-post-processing-a...

wheaties 10y ago

This is great. I worked on the ground processing systems for this satellite. I left before my own algorithmic systems went through final review. Was good for me to leave career-wise but I wish I could have seen it through to the end.

bdg 10y ago

Woah, something from the next generation? Someone call the temporal agents and let them know. This is exactly what we faught against in the temporal cold war.

jellicle 10y ago

Enjoy it while you can, as most likely the incoming administration will turn off this satellite. Why spend a lot of money to discover politically inconvenient data? Two birds, one stone.

bdamm 10y ago
The parent is downvoted but raises the noteworthy point that congress has in fact diverted funds away from atmospheric research specifically to avoid climate science. I'm not sure where this GOES satellite falls in the constellation of climate study tools.
- SEJeff 10y ago
  Ironically, they can't fully defund it as it is mission critical for the military industrial machine. All deployed aviation assets in the US military have somewhere attached to them a USAF meteorologist. I flew the Shadow 200 TUAV "drone" in Iraq from 2003-2004 and we always had a single air force person with us for weather stuff. It is critical for safety of flight. Also, for launching things like missiles and really anything airborne, you need to know the weather for safety reasons. It only lightly touches on it in the article, but this is why the DoD is so serious about funding and working with NOAA even though NOAA is part of the Department of Commerce.
  - hackuser 10y ago
    > they can't fully defund it as it is mission critical for the military industrial machine The U.S. military lacks critical funds at this point due to defunding, depending on how you define "critical". The service chiefs testified that they will not be able to defend the country unless they get more money. http://breakingdefense.com/2016/09/four-service-chiefs-say-they-cant-defend-us-under-sequestration/ http://breakingdefense.com/2016/09/four-service-chiefs-say-t...
    - SEJeff 10y ago
      They've been saying that since the dawn of the US Military. I genuinely don't buy it. It is just like Trump's alarmism over the size of our military (the navy specifically) shrinking under Obama post-GW Bush surge. The technology has gotten so much better and automation in specific allows us to do more with less people. This is by design and I'd almost argue if the tech wasn't getting better and needing less humans, our R&D is clearly failing. The current Order of Battle of the entire US Military calls for us to be able to fight two large scale wars simultaneously. We've done that arguably well/poorly with Iraq and Afghanistan. They're coming to grips that with unconventional warfare, you simply need a LOT more boots on the ground trudging around. Our technology advantage alone allows us to realistically probably coast for 6-8 years and still be matched only realistically by China. Russia has a few things that can match current US kit (their new tanks are excellent and they have some of the best anti-air kit in the world), but the Kremlin simply far and above lacks the cash to be in a position to afford to pay for a serious modernization. Obama's sanctions along with the massive drop in oil have put a dent in Russia's economy regardless of Putin's posturing. Sure they have very nice new jets, but they have precious few of them. We have nice new jets, better radars, and all of our older jets can spank the pants off of their older jets, etc, etc. This is really just my anecdotal experience as a US Army veteran who was in OIF II 2003-2004.

hackuser 10y ago

I think people are accustomed to it and therefore overlook it, but note that government, using taxpayer dollars, delivers the most high-tech systems in the world - not only for meteorology, but also science, medicine and space exploration (as well as military and intelligence). There is a benefit to countries and to the world when the people pool their money for something big.

wheelerwj 10y ago
*taxpayer funded research Government doesn't do shit, except write the check. this all comes from acadamia, nasa, darpa, etc. You're point that science is pushed forward by people pooling resources is absolutely correct, I just want to make it clear that Government has very little to do with it. This is just societ bolstering the resources of our greatest minds.
- tw04 10y ago
  >Government doesn't do shit >nasa, darpa I don't think you understand...
  - wheelerwj 10y ago
    They are government funded but have exactly nothing to do with governance. They could be privately funded and accomplish the exact same things.
    - MPSimmons 10y ago
      In a mathematical sense, yes, every citizen who gives a certain amount of tax money to the government to pay for research bodies could, instead, give money straight to some sort of central body to distribute it to the same various groups. But they wouldn't. And you know it. Even the Science Philanthropy Alliance (http://www.sciencephilanthropyalliance.org/what-we-do/resources/faqs/ http://www.sciencephilanthropyalliance.org/what-we-do/resour...), which funds researchers using privately-donated money, says that taxes are necessary to have scientific progress.

kylehotchkiss 10y ago

I wish they'd leave the 100mhz APT signals on these so kids around the country could build their own little "weather stations"... Being able to listen to those (I never had a wideband enough radio to see them) was one of the coolest things.

tjohns 10y ago
Are they not? (I haven't heard anything either way.)
- kylehotchkiss 10y ago
  They've moved to Ghz band (Ku?) for weather several years back [1]. Great moves for science and I am happy that we are advancing tech, but an upgraded version of APT nowadays with how cheap tech is getting could have provided people in developing countries some better pictures of coming weather. Also could have kept the 10 year old inside of us with cheap 100mhz radios outside at night, listening to the satellites passing over our heads. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_picture_transmission#Future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_picture_transmission... & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-resolution_picture_transmission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-resolution_picture_transm...

SEJeff 10y ago

The only thing this will revolutionize, is the alt-right's ability to deny more facts that climate change is real :(

todd8 10y ago
Wouldn't more information make it more difficult to claim unscientific things?
- SEJeff 10y ago
  You would certainly think so, but clearly you can't reason with the alt-right. The Trump election proves that somewhat handily.
skoczymroczny 10y ago
I think the bigger issue is whether climate change is manmade, rather than if it exists. Climate has always changed, was ice age caused by cavemen making too many campfires?
- Brakenshire 10y ago
  The arguments shift, a few years back there was very widespread denial that the climate was changing. Following repeated record years now there is a reasonable consensus that the climate is changing (up to about 60% of conservatives in the US and UK), and people now seem to think this acceptance was always there. The next argument as you say is whether it is manmade, after that it will be about whether it is serious enough to need tackling, or about whether it's so serious that nothing can be done. Underlying this is the basic worry to avoid damaging quality of life (which is a perfectly reasonable concern) and the ideological motivation to avoid intervening in the economy. Beyond the motivated reasoning there is also the actual scientific argument about whether the climate sensitivity is 1C, or 2.5C, and whether therefore we should be taking moderate action or severe action. There's not much of a scientific debate about whether we should be doing nothing at all. Ironically in the Anglosphere there is a consensus for moderate action amongst the public, including the conservative public, but the political elites haven't yet caught up.

cucucaca 10y ago

GLOBAL WARMING IS A HOAX! A LIE!

tonyplee 10y ago

I started to depend on the hourly rain, snow prediction data from google/weather.com in the last year or so. Especially when planing ski trip. I found them amazingly accurate. Now I know why. I am looking forward the future forecast provided by next gen satellite.

NietTim 10y ago

Sure it will.