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posted by janrinok on Friday September 06 2019, @06:38PM   Printer-friendly
from the Ajit-Strikes-Again dept.

In May 2019, Neil Jacobs, the acting head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), testified before Capitol Hill that 5G wireless signals could decrease forecasting accuracy by 30 percent.

"This would degrade the forecast skill by up to 30%. If you look back in time to see when our forecast skill was roughly 30% less than it was today, it's somewhere around 1980," Jacobs said in May. "This would result in the reduction of hurricane track[ing] forecasts' lead time by roughly two to three days." A delay of two to three days could have a catastrophic effect on human life.

Still, these warnings haven't swayed regulators nor the cell phone industry. In August, Sprint announced more cities would be added to its 5G rollout plan. AT&T already has 5G available to corporate customers in various cities. Verizon already offers 5G to customers and has plans to expand, too.

"Right now the uncertainty is to what extent there will be an interference," he added. "In some sense the cause for education is to make sure that the existing weather sensing bands are protected and that 5G is in areas that are far enough away from where present weather sensors exist."

This does not mean 5G can't exist in states like Florida, but that the power might have to be turned down.

"If the power is turned down, there is a lesser likelihood that water satellites (that will sense the atmosphere) will sense the 5G network" instead, Gerth said.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has been dismissive of these concerns, which are only one of several in regards to 5G. As several experts told Salon last year, the effects of widespread use of mobile 5G need to be better-studied before it goes mainstream.

Why study when you can profit instead?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 08 2019, @04:54AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 08 2019, @04:54AM (#891188)

    Just to be clear, we're talking about tropical storm force winds here, as in 34 knots or 39 mph. If you get 39 mph winds, it's a windy day, but it's not going to cause much damage. The potential for damage from 39 mph winds is quite low. We're talking about a low probability multiplied by low damage.

    NHC also produces maps for 50 knot (58 mph) winds, and here's the archive of those graphics [noaa.gov] for Dorian. Advisory #25 has about half a county within the 5-10% range. Advisory #26 has several counties within the 5-10% range, but nothing higher. To be clear, 58 mph is also the minimum threshold for the National Weather Service to issue a severe thunderstorm warning based on damaging straight line winds. At 58 mph, the winds can cause minor damage, but a low end severe thunderstorm warning is not going to do widespread damage.

    We also refer to 65+ knot (75 mph) winds as a threshold for significant severe weather, meaning that there's the potential for higher end damage when the winds reach this strength. That's also essentially the threshold for hurricane force winds (64 knots, 74 mph, but we're splitting hairs here). When severe thunderstorm warnings list the expected hazards, the wind hazard is given in 10 mph increments, so 60, 70, 80, 90, and in rare cases 100 or 110 mph. Typically you'll start to see enhanced wording in the warnings like "THESE ARE VERY DANGEROUS STORMS" once the winds get to 80 mph. In other words, higher end damage is most likely when the winds reach hurricane force. NHC also has graphics for hurricane force wind probabilities [noaa.gov] and the 5% contour never entered Alabama.

    Back on August 27 and 28, some models did forecast Dorian to cross Florida and then make landfall along the Gulf Coast. Forecast uncertainty was much larger at that time, but there were plausible scenarios where there would have been a substantial risk of damage in Alabama. After that, models converged on a solution in which Dorian would recurve without crossing the Florida peninsula. There was still a legitimate possibility for landfall in eastern Florida, but by September 1, only a couple of outlier solutions in any of the ensembles would have resulted in any significant threat to Alabama. The ECMWF ensemble [ecmwf.int] didn't suggest any significant threat to Alabama by September 1. Neither did the GFS ensemble or the Canadian model, as you can see from the 00Z September 1 [ucar.edu] graphic. Only a couple of outlier solutions from the NAVGEM ensemble suggested any significant risk to Alabama.

    Before you say, what about the NAVGEM ensemble, it's not that great of a model. Although this slideshow [wmo.int] is three years old, it has a lot of great information that isn't particularly outdated. The NAVGEM model configuration is inferior to most of the other models that are used in forecasting tropical cyclones. The NAVGEM also didn't perform well in the verification of track forecasts. If the only model solutions with any significant impact to Alabama are a couple of outlier solutions from the ensemble of a model that is known to be inferior, you can pretty much rule out that scenario.

    There are really only two things that Trump has said about Dorian and Alabama that are in any way defensible:

    in fact, under certain original scenarios, it was in fact correct that Alabama could have received some ‘hurt.’ Always good to be prepared!

    This was on September 2, and it's true that some of the older ensembles from around August 27 and 28 did suggest a plausible risk to Alabama.

    Later, Trump tweeted a South Florida Water Management District map dated from Aug. 28 that showed that some projections showed that the hurricane could reach Alabama. The graphic notes that advisories from the National Hurricane Center should “supersede” the map.

    This quote is from an article in Time [time.com] and attributes that to a tweet on September 4. While the map from August 28 is correct, it was also a full week out of date by that time. Again, there was a plausible threat to Alabama back on August 27 and 28.

    Trump was correct that some early scenarios back on August 27 and 28 did indicate a legitimate risk to Alabama. No problem. The map he tweeted on September 4 contains accurate information, but was a full week out of date by then. The rest of what Trump said is indefensible. When he tweeted on September 1 that the risk to Alabama was much greater than previously forecast, that's outright false. In fact, the risk to Alabama had become negligible by that point as models had trended eastward with Dorian's track.

    If I was rating this for Politifact, I'd rate one of Trump's statements as true, one as half true (because it's misleading, with out of date information), and the remainder as false or pants on fire. I'd rate your statement about the risk to Alabama as false, for the reasons I just outlined.