White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA • Hacker News Board

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#171

Post by AlbertoGP » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 9:59 AM UTC

Cutting their satellite programs would be a loss for the whole world: some years ago we[1] used it to find gas flares in Nigeria and estimate their environmental damage and the amount of energy wasted by flaring it instead of power generation for the population of the Niger Delta:

http://gasflaretracker.ng/

[1] I built the application working as freelancer for http://www.stakeholderdemocracy.org/

While processing their raw data I got a small discrepancy and they very kindly replied my questions with the exact formulas and constants they used: the cause was that they used the density of methane at 20°C instead of 25°C as I had done.

Getting that kind of data from similar agencies in other countries, even Western European ones, is immensely more difficult even when it exists.

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#172

Post by exclusiv » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 10:02 AM UTC

rabidrat wrote: post #163

exclusiv wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest. I was pretty clear that I think it's a state issue but was interested in hearing whether it's feasible for the states to handle. If it isn't, then I could see that being a valid justification as a federal investment which is undergoing cuts that may affect the service.

Every state has weather that can be devastating; also weather does not usually confine itself to state boundaries.

I'm not sure what your point is. Is it that since every state benefits from NOAA data it's a sensible investment federally? What if a state requires 5x as many resources as another state? We already have a scenario where southern states draw a lot more than they contribute. We enable states to avoid managing their own citizen's welfare. A lot of people don't want to pay for other people to live in known tornado alleys, just like those people wouldn't want to pay for people to live on fault lines overlooking the ocean or in flood plains.

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#173

Post by jsprunck » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 10:28 AM UTC

cool_look wrote: post #147

mistermann wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the first link: "Note how a huge swathe of South America has been labelled as “record warmest”. And what is this based on? In fact, there is virtually no temperature data available at all for that particular area, including nearly all of Brazil. The so-called record temperatures in Brazil and neighbouring countries are pure fabrication." That seems like a pretty bold charge, how does someone who knows nothing ab…

that was just one of many many charges of tampering[1]. honestly this cristicism of the NOAA, NASA is pretty unwelcome by most HN people, so im not proposing everyone accept this immediately. but the facts are out there and slowly if what i am saying is correct ( time will tell ) the the tampering will start being rolled back. [1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11367272/Climategate-the-...

Here is an analysis from a data-driven organization dedicated to listing, understanding and reducing biases in science records. They have covered the National Climate Data Center data (which apparently GISS uses).

http://berkeleyearth.org/understanding-adjustments-temperatu...

Edit: this discussion does focus on the U.S. network, where some of the articles you listed referred to data from Africa and South America, but assumedly the corrective techniques are similar.

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#174

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 11:47 AM UTC

davesque wrote: post #159

blackaspen wrote: post #73

Yikes. But unfortunately not unsurprising. I live in Boulder and drive past the NOAA (and NIST, and I think parts of CIRES) offices every day. I've had family and countless professors that have done joint research with them, and very, very good friends and colleagues that have started their careers there. Part of how I wound up here (in the tech sector, posting to HN) was on an eighth grade field trip there asking ho…

Yep. I'm in Boulder too. NOAA, NCAR, and NIST have always been fixtures (almost cultural, not just scientific institutions) of this town. It's sad to hear this news and just serves to reinforce the sense of helplessness I feel when faced with climate science doubters. There really couldn't be a more important issue facing the planet right now. But, alas, humans mostly don't care.

> But, alas, humans mostly don't care.

Humans mostly do. But not all humans get to vote in the US elections.

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#175

Post by cool_look » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 11:57 AM UTC

Rebelgecko wrote: post #153

mistermann wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the first link: "Note how a huge swathe of South America has been labelled as “record warmest”. And what is this based on? In fact, there is virtually no temperature data available at all for that particular area, including nearly all of Brazil. The so-called record temperatures in Brazil and neighbouring countries are pure fabrication." That seems like a pretty bold charge, how does someone who knows nothing ab…

I recently read a very convincing (to me at least) debunking of that first link, but unfortunately I'm not able to find it right now. But from memory: The claim is that the temperature data in the first map is made up because some of its data isn't present in the second map (just look at Africa, South America, and the oceans). HOWEVER: The first map shows a combination of two data sets. The second map only shows one…

From the stackoverflow comments its clear that theoretical models have been proposed to infer the temperature on land from the ocean database.

the main concern is that the models are pure junk science.

so saying "our models say it is so" is precisely the problem

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#176

Post by 50CNT » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 12:29 PM UTC

LnxPrgr3 wrote: post #162

krapp wrote: post #33

Of course they are. NOAA does nothing which panders to populist sentiment. NOAA can't put steel workers to work. NOAA is not the grit of honest American labor, or the power of military conquest, or the gold of a halcyon age. NOAA cannot Make America Great Again, but a new fleet of aircraft carriers can. So it goes. Tie a rock to a string and hang it outside your window to see which way the wind is blowing.

Sure, but its products help keep those populists alive—or at least give them a fighting chance. I bet everyone in Alabama at the time remembers April 27, 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Super_Outbreak

Also, isn't accurate weather information and prediction essential for forecasting in industries such as Energy, Agriculture, Transportation, Construction, etc.?

There's a 2002 paper by NOAA which outlines some of their estimates (http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/worldsummit/pdfs/economics...) regarding economic impact.

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#177

Post by Broken_Hippo » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 12:43 PM UTC

akhilcacharya wrote: post #113

pauloday wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's easier to lie about things when there's not any hard data available, and they do seem to lie a lot.

They do it even when there's data available, they don't care either way I think.

Without data, folks can't prove they are lying, though.

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#178

Post by dingaling » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 1:29 PM UTC

icehawk219 wrote: post #16

acomjean wrote: post #4

http://weather.gov (run by NOAA and the national weather service) is my go to weather site. No ads, no hyperbole. I found out about it when some senator wanted to stop them from posting weather online because it competed with "private sector" weather companies. A couple times I've seen that tv news weather leaves the site up on their monitors during newscasts.

I've used weather.gov for years and love the service. Every person I've talked to who complains about the crap coverage by the weather companies in the US that I've shown it to uses it exclusively as well. It's a perfect example of the governments lack of profit motive producing a genuinely better product than the competition. I know this isn't always the case but it certainly is here. I don't agree with lots of thin…

> It's a perfect example of the governments lack of profit motive producing a genuinely better product than the competition

There is no better product because it's not commercially viable to compete against the free money that NOAA receives. If NOAA didn't exist, others would try to compete commercially in that space.

In the UK the Met Office is notionally a part of the Ministry of Defence[0] but is required to be profit generating, so basically operates as a commercial enterprise. Whilst they provide free weather forecasting and alerts for the public, commercial users have to pay for data ( raw and processed ).

After 93 years the BBC decided to change from the Met Office to another source, the free market at work. The Met Office has to improve its product and / or reduce its costs to keep competing; NOAA has no such incentives towards efficiency or improvement.

[0] Correction: transferred to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in 2011

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#179

Post by Esau » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 1:45 PM UTC

mhneu wrote: post #58

ajmurmann wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm not mistaken than the vast majority globally is convinced of man made climate change being an issue. The holdouts primarily seem to be a subset of US Americans. There is disagreement on what a fair solution would look like but the vast majority agrees on the problem.

But close the loop - the reason US Americans don't believe in climate change is because energy companies have paid politicians and fringe scientists to deny climate change. Why do energy companies care? Because climate change mitigation would cost them a lot of money.

This here is indeed the real problem - corporations who are so unethical that they would damage the entire world in order to make some cash.

These are the people who Trump wants to set free of all regulation.

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#180

Post by tremon » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 2:08 PM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #96

mikeash wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? B has all the power. It's easy to say "get rid of them" but how do you actually do it?

Maybe B has overwhelming power now. But if B's position is untenable, that will eventually become apparent. And yes, that may take far too long to be of any good.

But if B's position is untenable, that will eventually become apparent.

Sure. That's why B is investing heavily in its military.