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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Addendum to my post above:
I could approve of NWS, NOAA, and the others if they would systematically incorporate a sceptical critique of all their work as it is published. I will be happy to perform that necessary function for them. After the Irene fiasco, every ear at those “agencies” would be burning with fire and some heads would roll.
When the meat goes bad, you throw it out. You don’t try to fix it. Once an organization has been co-opted to serve socialist ends, it can never be fixed. It is spoiled meat.
Agreed. There are plenty of things to cut out of the federal government, but the NWS is a long-standing public good. Increasing the flow of information is one of the most important things that the government can do easily and successfully.
http://www.postlibertarian.com/2011/08/thank-government-for-something-national-weather-service/
In the photo, President Obama at hurricane central but it’s not working for him:
Approval in Gallup down to 38%, record low
http://www.gallup.com/poll/113980/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Job-Approval.aspx
FYI: CEI’s environmental director Jonathan H. Adler believes in the man made “climate change” crap.
http://volokh.com/2011/08/22/an-inconvenient-truth-christie-is-right-on-climate/
rbateman said the article had been withdrawn from Fox. It is
Sunday, 8/28, 2:07pm MDT and the article is still there.
If there is any part of government conservatives should use hurricanes to highlight getting rid of, it should be the incompetent 30-year-old FEMA, not an old relatively cheap service that has been around since long before our government got into financial trouble. Businesses and non-profits do a much better job than the government at identifying people’s needs in disasters and fulfilling them, but they don’t do a better job at setting up thousands of river gauges, ocean buoys, and radar systems, gathering data from all these sources for decades and making the data available to the public for free. The government’s problem now is that it tries to do things for specific people that cost more money for every new person and disrupts their incentives to take care of that themselves. The National Weather Service is not one of those things. Its information is a public good whose costs do not increase relative to the population but whose value actually increases as the information helps more and more people make better decisions. It is not a trivial distinction.
From polistra on August 28, 2011 at 3:11 am:
Too true. The military has especially protected no American lives since 9/11, having it just makes us a juicy target for more terrorist attacks. As clearly seen by the lack of terrorist attacks since then, the military just isn’t required. Indeed, as you postulate, the military really hasn’t done anything like they should since WWII. If we had abandoned having a standing military right after WWII, the Soviets would have seen us as a pacifist non-threat, left us completely alone, and merely concentrated on taking over all of Europe and Asia (to start), which in no way would have been against American interests as the Soviets wouldn’t have been bothering us.
Good point!
It seems that people have no clue just what the National Weather Service does — and how forecasts are prepared, what data goes into them, and the expertise required to produce a product that isn’t crap.
Blindly linking the NWS with climate change is ignorant. I’d wager that the vast majority of forecasters at WFO’s around the country give two-sh*ts about climate change, and most are like television personalities that are disgusted with the leftist political hype surrounding global warming.
Target your vitriol at the purveyors of this disaster pornography, but make sure you have your facts right.
The weather. It’s a socialist plot of monstrous proportions. Did you ever notice how it affects everyone equally? What commie came up with that, anyway? The weather needs to be educated about the free markets. The weather should subject itself to the same incentives as other enterprises in a free market, and permit people to bid on its movements. People with means should be able to pay to escape tornados and hurricanes. The poor? Who cares?
As Steven Goddard points out here:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/08/28/gfswrf-forecast-was-almost-perfect/
NOAA and NCAR weather modelers did very well in forecasting what would happen with Irene. This animation from 2 days ago matches well with what did pan out:
“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.”
How specifically has the Obama administration used the NWS for political purposes?
From an economics perspective the NWS products comprise a group of quasi-public goods. These goods are non-rival, which means that consumption of them does not impact their further consumption. They also might be non-excludable by their purpose of promoting the general welfare. Wide and free distribution of them promotes the general welfare. These goods unlike other government services or goods are clearly constitutional and are a legitimate function of government.
The question CEI raises is the analysis of data provided by the NWS. CEI simply points out that this analysis has a higher error rate than privately provided analysis. Perhaps NWS should simply maintain its sensors both ground and satellite and forget analysis. This site has clearly found problems with their sensor network. And it has shown that its readers are more perspicacious than NWS’s own analysis and public statements.
I agree with Dr. Maue. And I would take the idea a step further, if nobody objects to my stating the obvious.
Organizations like CEI and Cato perform a valuable public service whenever they point out waste, fraud, and abuse on the part of governments at all levels. This is especially true in the case of the CAGW scare. However the unwarranted attack on the NWS underscores a larger issue.
The CEI is rightfully skeptical about the CAGW myth, and about the intrusions on the part of Big Government that that multifaceted belief system implies. As the NWS controversy has demonstrated, the skepticism does not stem from superior analytical abilities. By and large, the CEI people are Smithian fundamentalists. By virtue of that fact, they’re more receptive to logical and not-so-logical arguments that emphasize the laissez-faire approach.
[snip – over the top, clean it up, -Anthony]
Joshua Science says:
August 28, 2011 at 1:16 pm
If there is any part of government conservatives should use hurricanes to highlight getting rid of, it should be the incompetent 30-year-old FEMA, not an old relatively cheap service that has been around since long before our government got into financial trouble.
HA HA HA – dude – your argument is not worth a continental. (google that expression, eh)
this gov’t has NEVER been out of trouble.
“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.”
While I cannot speak for the others, this statement, as it pertains to AccuWeather is false. Our forecasts are NOT “reprints” of the National Weather Service’s.
Here are my comments on the subject: http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2011/08/should-national-weather-service-be.html
Most of the arguments in favor of a NWS are rather threadbare. And just because the NWS
currently does things that no one else does is no evidence that someone else couldn’t do it and do it better and at less costs. And even if there are some operations that some claim can only be done by the govt (such as hurricane fly thrus), that is no reason for supporting an entire NWS . Certainly the private websites out there providing NWS information are far superior to the primitive web technology available from the hurricane service, which publishes 8 1/2 by 11 page formats in an unsophisticated and clumsy interface.
TO Kent Beuchert: ” Certainly the private websites out there providing NWS information are far superior to the primitive web technology available from the hurricane service, which publishes 8 1/2 by 11 page formats in an unsophisticated and clumsy interface.”
Either you are ignorant or just stupid. You obviously have no clue regarding the science and technology of meteorology, and how those services delivered by the private sector, and the public (including the military). Weather Underground is a pretender. AccuWeather and the Weather Channel would not exist because they do not have the capability or capacity to do what the NWS does. Even Joel Meyers will finally admit after all these years that he makes money because of the heavy lift the NWS does. Ask the Weather Channel. They are upfront about the fact that they exist and make money because of the NWS.
As for the clumsy interface…write a letter to your Congressman, Kent. It’s the inane, and arcane rules that CONGRESS enacts that keep the NWS from moving as rapidly as those inside the NWS want to move.
It’s pretty obvious you have never visited a NWS office, and don’t know a NWS employee, and are certainly clueless about operational meteorology. Sheesh.
one question here, and if you’re an attorney out there please clear something up for me. if the NWS were to be no more, would that mean that most clauses that came with it in terms of shielding forecasters from lawsuits go away? and if so, how much would malpractice/liability insurance run for a weather forecaster? i figure somewhere near say, the same as a doctor in a high-risk specialty? or more? and could salaries for forecasting meteorologists ever really get to those levels to pay for such insurance, given the current salary structure?
Anthony-
it was over.the.top.
i apologize and will improve my rhetoric.
Wow. There are tough feelings on both sides. I would like to observe that most of the negative comments about the NWS appear to out of ignorance on how things really work. Saying that the private companies could do this all without the NWS is like saying, “Why do we need guns? Just let the bullets do the work!” What are you gonna do? Throw the bullets at the target? The gun and the bullets work together well. When the bullets start bitching about the gun not being able to keep up, it’s perhaps the bullets that have an inferiority complex. Similarly, a gun without bullets is a club and not much else.
Can’t we all just get along?
Please don’t let the contempt for those who aid and abet climate change propaganda confuse you about the NWS. Weather guys are the least likely to support the hysteria. They’ve seen it all before. I read the discussions almost daily and never ever have any hint of a whiff that anything going on with the weather is due to global warming.
“ew_3 says:
August 28, 2011 at 10:07 am
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.”
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Are you serious? TWC predictions for my area are too broad and often way off the mark. The local NWS guys get it more right because they KNOW the area. These guys don’t just sit in D.C. and gaze at their navels. NWS offices exist all around the country and analyze the data with input from their own knowledge and experience of the specific geographical area they work in.
If you’re lucky, and many areas are not, you have local weather people working for local TV affiliates with even more fine-tuned weather experience in the local area. But they’re still dependent on data collected by the NWS.
Weather Underground is no better at forecasting my area than TWC.
Pascvaks says:
August 28, 2011 at 10:01 am
Ref – Jerry Bowles says:
August 28, 2011 at 9:25 am
Yhea! Me and about 13.3million other guys & gals invented, perfected, and c
————
You must be confused. The legistlative framework for the Internet was sponsored by Al Gore when he was a young senator. You really should take political propaganda with a pinch of salt.
The Internet in turn was an extension of aarpanet so it’s technical underpinnings are even older.
————
As a Senator, Gore began to craft the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991 (commonly referred to as “The Gore Bill”) after hearing the 1988 report Toward a National Research Network submitted to Congress by a group chaired by UCLA professor of computer science, Leonard Kleinrock, one of the central creators of the ARPANET (the ARPANET, first deployed by Kleinrock and others in 1969, is the predecessor of the Internet).[53][54][55] The bill was passed on December 9, 1991 and led to the National Information Infrastructure (NII) which Gore referred to as the “information superhighway.”[56]