Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Loss of key US satellite data could send hurricane forecasting back 'decades'

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 167 posts

Re: Loss of key US satellite data could send hurricane forecasting back 'decades'

#81

Post by NickC25 »

deadbabe wrote: post #42
jonwachob91 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not at all how insurance companies price risk. Unknown risk is more risk, and more risk is more expensive. Therefore, unknown hurricane data is more risky and thus more expensive. If you know your car's engine is going to need replaced after exactly 100,000 miles, you know to save up for a new engine or a new car - and you know how long you have to save, so you can precisely set aside an appropriate figure eve…

Hurricane risk has been grossly exaggerated for years. Every year people say it will be the end of Florida as we know it. But those promised hurricanes never come. The worst is some flooding and damage at coastal areas, but it’s always anti-climactic. The real reason insurance is high is because of fraudulent claim risk. Hurricanes themselves are more or less a solved problem in Florida. That data is useless.

>The worst is some flooding and damage at coastal areas, but it’s always anti-climactic.

The residents of what used to be Ft. Meyers Beach would probably disagree with you.

>Hurricanes themselves are more or less a solved problem in Florida.

I have been in Florida for nearly a decade now. I'd say that the above statement is at best, disingenuous. It's just not true. MAYBE Cat1 hurricanes are a solved problem, but nothing above that. The busiest economic center in Florida (Miami's Brickell area) is 6 feet above sea level. Any major storm locks that part of town down for days. My own building's parking lot is 5 feet above sea level, and yes, it's flooded every time we have a storm.

Re: Loss of key US satellite data could send hurricane forecasting back 'decades'

#82

Post by sorcerer-mar »

deadbabe wrote: post #64
counters wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hurricane risk has been grossly exaggerated for years Year-over-year, economic impacts and disruptions due to tropical cyclones are dramatically rising. Most of this is an exposure issue. But long-tail events - like Andrew's utter devastation of Homestead in 1992 or Katrina's unique confluence of storm surge in urban/suburban parishes in LA - can and do happen. One day, there will be another Galveston or Homestead.

There won’t be another Andrew because the building codes were changed so that all new construction must withstand category 5 storm force, which when Andrew came around was not a requirement. Over time, there is a natural selection that occurs where destroyed buildings are replaced with stronger buildings with stricter codes.

....all of which makes them more expensive to insure (and build, obviously)...

Re: Loss of key US satellite data could send hurricane forecasting back 'decades'

#83

Post by JumpCrisscross »

tialaramex wrote: post #66
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SCOTUS, which has demonstrated that it is ideologically aligned with the regime If you read SCOTUS's opinions this is obviously false. Alito and Thomas are bought. But the others have their own quirks and agendas.

You could probably imagine that ACB is just very stupid I guess? She's made choices which only make sense if they're out of blind loyalty to the man who gave her a job she shouldn't have or because she's not smart enough to understand the consequences. For ordinary people it can feel reasonable to keep your head down and hope that somehow this blows over. But for SCOTUS it's entirely within their power to draw a line…

> could probably imagine that ACB is just very stupid I guess? She's made choices which only make sense if they're out of blind loyalty to the man who gave her a job

Barrett has sided with the liberals on various decisions. SCOTUS has a problem. But its problem isn't blind loyalty to Trump. It's that there is a deeper conviction about the way the world should work that sometimes aligns with Trump in ways that are deeply damaging to our society.

If you want to see a judge who's blindly deferential to Trump, that's Aileen Cannon.

Re: Loss of key US satellite data could send hurricane forecasting back 'decades'

#84

Post by Shivatron »

softwaredoug wrote: post #57

The problem of important projects surviving political change is a tough one. A lot of these important projects have a single point of failure - who is the president every four years. I wonder how we build institutions and resources resilient to that? I realize privatization is an ugly word, but could some of this stuff be provided by the private sector? Can we make it possible to fund initiatives in a multinational m…

> A lot of these important projects have a single point of failure - who is the president every four years. I wonder how we build institutions and resources resilient to that?

We already did. The legislative branch allocates funds for stuff that the people deem worthy. That budget becomes law. The Constitution says the "President shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." There's even a specific law that prevents the President from withholding Congressionally-approved funds.

What you are seeing here is not a lack of designed resilience, it's the wilful removal of that system.

Re: Loss of key US satellite data could send hurricane forecasting back 'decades'

#85

Post by trauco »

ars wrote: post #71
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #2

“Researchers say the satellites themselves are operating normally and do not appear to have suffered any errors that would physically prevent the data from continuing to be collected and distributed, so the abrupt data halt might have been an intentional decision.” Wait, the U.S. aren’t even going to try selling the satellites? We’re just scrapping them?

This story is NOT TRUE. There is one operating satellite in this constellation, and congress voted to shut down the program in 2015. The DMSP program was discontinued in 2015 by a vote in congress[1]. Virtually every working stallelite in this program has failed. As best as I can tell there's just a single working one specifically NOAA-19[2]. Instead the program has switched to JPSS[3] which is part of GEOSS[4]. [1]…

The key facts are:

- DMSP satellites are up and measuring data - These data will continue to be measured after Monday - the government is discontinuing processing and public access to the data - This will impact our capacity to predict hurricanes and monitor sea ice.

Which of the above are “not true”?

Re: Loss of key US satellite data could send hurricane forecasting back 'decades'

#86

Post by trauco »

timewizard wrote: post #6
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #2

“Researchers say the satellites themselves are operating normally and do not appear to have suffered any errors that would physically prevent the data from continuing to be collected and distributed, so the abrupt data halt might have been an intentional decision.” Wait, the U.S. aren’t even going to try selling the satellites? We’re just scrapping them?

That claim does not seem justified. > 2016 failure of DMSP 19 without replacement[edit] On 11 February 2016, a power failure left both the command-and-control subsystem and its backup without the ability to reach the satellite's processor, according to the U.S. Air Force Space Command investigation released in July 2016 that also announced that DMSP 5D-3/F19 was considered to be 'lost'. The satellite's data can still…

The satellites that are still up are still collecting critical data. That’s not disputed.

Re: Loss of key US satellite data could send hurricane forecasting back 'decades'

#88

Post by BriggyDwiggs42 »

ars wrote: post #77
Animats wrote: post #5

It's part of the Administration's war on ... Florida?

This is such a bad article. They shut down this specific program in 2015, and switched to JPSS instead. There is no war on anyone, and this has nothing to do with Trump, DOGS, or Climate change. Rather there were too many satellite failures, leaving just a single operating one in orbit.

There was no reason not to continue providing the data from the satellite. It’s still operational.

Re: Loss of key US satellite data could send hurricane forecasting back 'decades'

#89

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ars wrote: post #76
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We can't actually say this was DOGE The article is saying it was DOGE. DOGE directly attacked our hurricane-forecasting capacity [1]. OMB, i.e. Vought, continues that attack [2]. Given the top three states by hurricane risk voted for Trump in ‘24 [3][4] this should make for an entertaining hurricane season. (Particularly if both a red and blue state get hit and request federal assistance.) [1] https://apnews.com/ar…

> The article is saying it was DOGE Yah, but it's the guardian. They aren't exactly reliable. For it to be DOGE would require a time machine, because this project was shut down in 2015.

> but it's the guardian. They aren't exactly reliable

This is valid and I'm open to someone calling out the reporting as non-factual with evidence.

Pretending The Guardian is trying to imply this was DOGE when it straight out says as much, on the other hand, is closer to a reading-comprehension issue.

Re: Loss of key US satellite data could send hurricane forecasting back 'decades'

#90

Post by KerrAvon »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #83
tialaramex wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could probably imagine that ACB is just very stupid I guess? She's made choices which only make sense if they're out of blind loyalty to the man who gave her a job she shouldn't have or because she's not smart enough to understand the consequences. For ordinary people it can feel reasonable to keep your head down and hope that somehow this blows over. But for SCOTUS it's entirely within their power to draw a line…

> could probably imagine that ACB is just very stupid I guess? She's made choices which only make sense if they're out of blind loyalty to the man who gave her a job Barrett has sided with the liberals on various decisions. SCOTUS has a problem. But its problem isn't blind loyalty to Trump. It's that there is a deeper conviction about the way the world should work that sometimes aligns with Trump in ways that are dee…

SCOTUS is essentially blindly local to Trump — pay attention to the latest Constitution-shredding decisions; they sure wouldn’t be doing those under a Dem president, and they’re twisting themselves in knots trying to make the illogical logical — it just manifests differently at their level.
Post reply on HN