NOAA

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is accepting bids to build out its planned Earth Prediction Innovation Center, which aims to revolutionize how the agency develops forecast models.

The president’s latest budget request for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration largely repeats past cuts, including a near halving of the agency’s main research office, while again prioritizing weather research over climate and ocean programs.

A Senate hearing this month explored ways to support “missions of national need” that underpin preparedness efforts for asteroid impacts, space weather, and orbital debris.

Though the overall budget for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is decreasing slightly this year, funding for its Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research will rise 4% to $590 million.

Although the emission limits for 5G telecommunications are stricter than those proposed by the FCC, they may not be sufficient to prevent interference with weather-observing systems.

The House and Senate have advanced spending bills that would reject the administration’s proposed cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s weather and climate research programs for fiscal year 2020, while ramping down funding for satellite acquisition.

Multiple investigations are being opened into a NOAA statement criticizing a National Weather Service social media message that contradicted one from President Trump about the track of Hurricane Dorian. The White House reportedly pressured the agency via the Commerce Department to repudiate its forecasters' messaging.

In a bid to regain global leadership in weather forecasting, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is establishing an Earth Prediction Innovation Center to address longstanding challenges in translating research advances into operational forecasts.

Organizations representing astronomers and Earth scientists are raising concerns that new telecommunications technologies could interfere with scientific use of previously quiet parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.

According to a recent analysis by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA, U.S. weather forecasting capabilities would be set back decades if the Federal Communications Commission proceeds with its current plans for opening a 24 gigahertz spectrum band to next-generation telecommunications providers.