Post by Dr. Ryan N. Maue
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) picks an odd time and a curious target for their latest missive pondering whether We Really Need a National Weather Service? Most of their arguments are not particularly persuasive and are easily dismissed by bringing a few background facts to the discussion. While it’s undeniable that the Obama administration has used the National Weather Service and “satellite funding” for political purposes, questioning the continued need for the NWS stretches the imagination.
The CEI article begins: (emphasis mine)
While Americans ought to prepare for the coming storm (Irene), federal dollars need not subsidize their preparations. Although it might sound outrageous, the truth is that the National Hurricane Center and its parent agency, the National Weather Service, are relics from America’s past that have actually outlived their usefulness.
Today the NWS justifies itself on public interest grounds. It issues severe weather advisories and hijacks local radio and television stations to get the message out. It presumes that citizens do not pay attention to the weather and so it must force important, perhaps lifesaving, information upon them. A few seconds’ thought reveals how silly this is. The weather might be the subject people care most about on a daily basis. There is a very successful private TV channel dedicated to it, 24 hours a day, as well as any number of phone and PC apps. Americans need not be forced to turn over part of their earnings to support weather reporting.
First, the CEI lowers itself when using the language of the left; hijack is not a term to be used for emergency warnings on the radio. Private radio and private television meteorologists cut-in all the time to their local stations for up-to-date weather information. If not in front of a TV or radio, they use their handheld devices. But where do these private outfits get their data? Where do these private outfits get their forecasts from? It’s the National Weather Service! In one way or another, almost the entire private weather forecasting industry is dependent upon the services provided by the government including NOAA, NWS, and even NASA with other data sharing arrangements with various world governments.
Indeed the Weather Underground, the Weather Channel, and Accuweather may simply reprint the forecast numbers of temperature and precipitation chances directly from the National Digital Forecast Database put out by the NWS. I know of many nationwide local television meteorologists that sometimes phone it in by forecasting MOS everyday. Regardless, the NWS forecasts or the output from the many different numerical weather prediction products is the first or second place that private forecasters go for guidance.
With the ongoing Hurricane Irene, let me discuss how these supposedly useless government funded forecasts are being used. First, in order to generate the best possible initial conditions for tropical storm track, and the entire weather model forecast, we need lots of data both in-situ (stations, balloons, aircraft), as well as satellite remote sensing. This is not only a nationwide effort but a truly global scale endeavor. If we do not know the initial conditions over China, our 5-day forecasts over the west coast would be considerably worse. Similarly, if the government funded reconnaissance flights from the military and NOAA did not fly through Irene or sample the environment around the storm, our track and intensity forecasts would be worse, a lot worse.
NOAA, the NWS, and the National Hurricane Center have coordinated for decades with universities and other government labs to develop the best possible data assimilation and mathematical modeling techniques. The national research and operations infrastructure developed, maintained, and advanced using government funding is truly something to be prideful about in America.
Suggesting that insurance companies or other private entities would have come up with this sort of infrastructure is fantastical and exhibits ignorance of the military-scale coordination necessary for the entire system to work. Since the private corporations are taxpayers as well, they are justified in making use of the government subsidized data network including satellites and supercomputer weather forecasts — and adding value for their particular sector of the economy. While food stamps and unemployment checks may be the best way for the Obama administration to stimulate the economy, I’d argue that providing the best forecasts, technology, and expertise in weather is one of the best fiscal multipliers out there aside from the threat of space alien attacks.
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The National Weather Service like ALL government agencies have bloated pensions and health benefits that require an ever increasing budget. CEI can go after that — but the NWS should be way, way down the list for potential targets of government waste. The fearomongering by the President and the NOAA administrator is disgusting but typical. They are politicians or political appointees scared for their jobs by a pitchfork wielding electorate.
CEI lays an egg on this one and should retract their article lest someone takes it seriously.
You’re right on this one. NWS should be way down on the target list. There are far juicier targets that need the axe first.
The link to the OPINION: Do We Really Need National Weather Service? as found on foxnews.com is gone.
http://pvw.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/08/27/do-really-need-national-weather-service/
Perhaps someone was paying attention.
LOL and another Obama epic fail, he took over the helm of what basically turned into a bad rainstorm for a nice picture and yet another sky is falling emergency pass this now moment. And the line “I stand behind the governors” from his presser is appropriate.. when has he ever successfully taken the lead on anything
That being said I hope everyone is safe tonight.
I’ve sent a note off to CEI, advising them of their ill timed and over the top missive, and this response.
They really needed the reality check provided by Dr. Maue.
Bloated pension and health benefits?! I just barely was able to get some cheap dental insurance for cleanings and emergency care. Prior to this I had none, zero, nada on my bloated NWS insurance plan. My pension is simple. They contribute to my retirement, which I suspect to not receive the way things are going, and allow me to invest in the stock market. Yippee. I have lost years off my retirement in the last few months. I love my job and am proud of my agency. But let’s be truthful about bloating.
Firmly agree.
This is one of the BASIC services that any government should provide, and it performs remarkably well.
Its forecasts aren’t always better than the commercial services, but they’re available FREE, and in great detail for those who know how to read the details.
I’d much rather get rid of the military, which has not served American interests or protected American lives since 1945. In theory it should, but since we haven’t used it correctly for 66 years, better to abandon it.
@- Anthony Watts
I fear your missive may fall on some deaf ears.
It is clear there is a body of political opinion that regards it as an ideological absolute that just about ANY government funding of public projects or services is a VERY BAD THING.
About the only exceptions they seem to make are the military and abstinence only sex-ed programs.
Those with a dogmatic opposition to any government funded project would NOT share your view that “The national research and operations infrastructure developed, maintained, and advanced using government funding is truly something to be prideful about…” as the first post hints there is an absolute dogma against the bloat and waste of ALL government organizations.
If it is used so widely by private media, cable tv, radio and papers, then it clearly has a product of value and I am sure some voices within the CEI would argue that it SHOULD be a competitive enterprise. They could point to the many other National weather services that have been privatized – at least to some extent – and now charge for their weather data products. Otherwise those that derive the most benefit from the NWS are being subsidized by the general taxpayer.
Charging for its product would expose the NWS to the efficiency rigors of the free market where other private sources of data could compete.
And if weather reports were constrained by the cost rather than free there might be rather less of all that reporting of extreme snowfalls, record rainfall/flooding, persistent drought, exceptional tornado events and major storms.
Reducing all the awkward questions about AGW magnifying the severity of recent weather….
It is an interesting question: if the government did not do weather, who would do the weather and how good a job would they do? What are the pros and cons of the government doing the weather? Is there any intrinsic reason why government should do the weather science rather than private companies? Maue and Watts may not have the proper perspective to be sufficiently open minded about this question. The reality is that most the politicized scientists who have perpetrated the scam of catastrophic human caused global warming work for the government or are funded by the government. Our taxes have enabled these hacktivists to politicize science.
The cost, size, and power of the federal government needs to be radically reduced asap. If space exploration can be transferred over to private enterprise, why not weather? Maybe it is a good idea, maybe it isn’t, but it is healthy to have an open, honest, and thorough discussion of the pros and cons of having the government do our weather science.
[RyanM: proper perspective? please elaborate — because the NWS doesn’t do anything associated with global warming]
As the producers of raw materials, the NWS does not have the benefit of being able to look at other entities’ forecasts and data when generating its forecasts. We have to do it all from scratch. Especially in the west, where systems move in off the data void of the Pacific. In the east, at least things have move across three time zones and been observed and recorded. But I’m not bitter. 😉
I would say that the NWS is one of the few things the federal government should be doing. We need weather forecasting and trying to do it on a state level makes no sense.
Here in northern Utah the University Climate Center is run by those supporting human caused climate disruption. There is a problem when those attracted to the weather service bring their bias withthem.
Ditto Maue!
And, when it comes to saving a penny, this NWS item falls in the same category as “Corporate Jets”. Want to save some real money? Go back to Pre-1929 Government Entitlement Programs and work your way forward to the present. We made a lot of stupid laws since the Great Depression began with the Stock Market Crash of ’29. Any attempts to patch and mend with band-aides is going to accomplish absolutely nothing whatsoever. Can anything like that be done in this day and age? Sure it can. We have got lots of computers and more PhD’s than you can shake a stick at. Besides that, most of the people in this country are just as smart as their parents and grandparents were.
Will it be done? No! Not with this Commiecrat Administration and anyone over 60yoa in Congress who’s been there for more than 2 years. Want to fix the real problem? Elect a new President and a Brand New Senate and House with young American minds who don’t give a tinker’s damn about School Lunch Programs, Old Folks who don’t need Social Security, a National Healthcare Program, saving the Planet for Gore’s Global Warming insanity, EPA rules for making everything in some other country, a complicated worthless taxcode, etc., etc., etc.
I know, life’s a beach! Pick up a rake, there’s a lot of mess to clean up.
All private weather companies have so many failures not catalogued because they are a private(not public) industry it is not even slightly humorous. This contributor to Faux News is embarassingly underinformed as to the nature and inaccuracy of many private weather services, their inability to play well together, suing each other at a moment’s notice, and putting profit well before lives. This article is sad, and dangerous.
3 examples of where the NWS is useful…and there are more if you dig around:
1. A commercial airliner takes off from Houston and flies to Chicago, both airports use different private weather forecasting companies. Both companies agree there will be thunderstorms, but the one in Houston feels they wont be so close as to stop flights while the one in Chicago does. As the flight passes into southern Illinois, the runways are closed. Having one entity put out the forecasts for both helps.
2. Small Town Airport X has weather sensing equipment for the purposes of take offs and landings. Airport X cannot afford this equipment on the equipment on their own and it is a safety hazard to not have the information it provides. NWS currently pays for and maintains many of these systems.
3. Speaking of equipment and instruments…would we have to start paying to use the radar data that covers nearly the entire US since it too would have to go to a private company? To try and go to just the radars that the big city TV stations have would leave enormous gaps and leave many people in harms way.
Usually CEI is spot on , but not this time . As far as I know , most local meteorologists rely on data from the NWS . Of course , what they do with it is another matter ….
It might be interesting to ask someone like Ron Paul, the consummate libertarian, for his take on this. I guess it really boils down to each person’s idea of the necessary functions of a federal government (personally I feel the only function of government is to protect private property and keep us from killing each other when we’re having fun). Once that has been established and if a national weather service is one of those functions the battle then becomes one of efficiency
I have dealt with and/or work with only a few of federal agencies, but from my limited experience, with few exceptions the overall efficiency of those agencies has been pretty pathetic when compared to the private businesses I have worked with or for. While we are lucky to have quite a few dedicate public servants that are proud of their work and that do excellent work, the system is just not set up to foster efficiency. The compensation of both the workers and management is almost totally disconnected from any benefit they provide to their employers (i.e., us, the taxpayers) and, in the case of management, the compensation is more a function of the size of their budget and the number of people they manage. So, why should they be concerned about efficiency when it is not to their benefit?
Personally I think the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) is barking up the wrong tree. While they are no longer a large portion of the electorate, there is not a farmer or fisherman out there that doesn’t rely heavily on the National Weather Service and would agree with its elimination . Rather than looking for agencies to disband (i.e., the employees are never fired, just shuffled off to other places within the government), they should return to the function implied in their name and work to make the government competitive.
Is everyone here aware that the internet began as a government project and that this enormous, job-creating, free enterprise-maxing medium would not exist where it not for the initial government funding? Without the National Weather Service, there would be no private weather services. They rely almost entirely on the NWS for the data which they convert into paid services.
Piers Corbyn is an astrophysicist and solar weather forecaster. Through his company Weather Action, Piers seems to do a better job of forecasting than does Britain’s national weather office. Corbyn offered advice to U.S. authorities re Irene and other tropical storms.
http://www.weatheraction.com/displayarticle.asp?a=366&c=5
http://twitpic.com/6brruh
[RyanM. that’s BS]
Ref – Jerry Bowles says:
August 28, 2011 at 9:25 am
“Is everyone here aware that the internet began as a government project and that this enormous, job-creating, free enterprise-maxing medium would not exist where it not for the initial government funding?…”
Yhea! Me and about 13.3million other guys & gals invented, perfected, and capitalized on it. Then, funniest thing, about 24 light years later this bozo, who went to college with some real famous actor (Tommy Lee Jones) shows up and tells everyone “he” invented it. I think he’s somewhere in the public sector selling wrinkle-cream, health elixers, and linament oils for horses to little old ladies, and propositioning hotel maids and poor girls no older than his own daughter. Forget his name; I think it rimes with something that smells terrible, isn’t very pretty, and makes most people puke. I think his wife finally divorced him, and his dad got rich in politics.
What was his name? Bore? Core? Door? Fore? Hore?… Oh well, just like him, not important. He’s a flake.
While it makes sense to most to keep the NWS, I would think private enterprise like the weather channel could replace it rather easily. They already have their own experts and make their own predictions.
Ryan Maue writes:
“NOAA, the NWS, and the National Hurricane Center have coordinated for decades with universities and other government labs to develop the best possible data assimilation and mathematical modeling techniques. The national research and operations infrastructure developed, maintained, and advanced using government funding is truly something to be prideful about in America.”
Your position might prove to be correct ultimately. However, you do yourself and your position no service by presenting a series of fallacious arguments. In the statement quoted above, you assume what you want to prove, namely, that the services provided by NOAA and the rest are effective. You are Arguing in a Circle or, as it was once known before the broadcast babes changed its meaning, Begging the Question. I take particular offense at your statement that they have “develop[ed] the best possible data assimilation and mathematical modeling techniques.” I think the standards you are applying would be approved by Michael Mann, Phil Jones, Jim Hansen, and Kevin Trenberth. In my mind, that means the standards are worthless. It is ironic that you state this argument now during a major fail on Irene by NOAA and everybody.
I do not have time to engage in extended argument over this matter. But if I did I wouldn’t. I would not because it would end up with you asserting some tired platitude such as “It is better to be safe than sorry.” No, it is better to be safe and to not spend the money.
I would have thought by now that everyone who contributes articles to WUWT, the sceptical site par excellence, had learned that you must contribute at least one substantial argument that is not obviously fallacious. You cannot argue that NOAA and similar folks are effective in their output by asserting that they are successful in their output. You have to prove something about their effectiveness. To do that here, you will have to adopt standards for data assimilation and modeling techniques that are seriously higher than those used by NOAA and others in defense of their awesome wonderfulness. You have work to do.
[RyanMaue: with all due respect, you are mixing Climate Change scientists (Mann, Hansen, and Trenberth) with the National Weather Service who have NOTHING to do with the NWS. In other words, you have no idea what you are talking about. Why the blinkered vitriol towards the NWS? Your position like CEI is ignorant.]
You want a National Weather Service?? Fine, organize one on a subscription or contribution basis privately. I am amazed that people STILL can’t see the problems with the Federal Government trying to run anything with the problems already shown to be chronic in ALL areas in which they are involved.
Let me say again. The private weather services rely almost exclusively upon information provided to them free by the NWS and other national weather services around the globe. Not even Apple or Google could afford to build such an infrastructure from scratch. You obviously did not read the post upon which you are commenting or you would know that.
[RyanM: ditto ditto ditto]
No more Piers Corbyn references please. Geeze.
REPLY: Yeah double ditto on that. – Anthony