Hurricane Joaquin Forecast: Why U.S. Weather Model Has Fallen Behind
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Hence why private interests won't work.
P.S. I think SpaceX has a difficult task to appeal to the public. When they can do that, on a regular basis, I'll change my position. Or if some weather company is trying to be disruptive with technology and innovation, then I'll modify my view. (But most of us know innovation in the private sector doesn't always reach the public)
There are lots of small commercial weather forecasting firms who sell to people like securities traders. A single high-temperature day can reduce corn yield by 1%.
Here's a startup that had a $1 billion exit to Monsanto: http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/10/4823004/monsanto-bets-the... Their business is a combination of weather and climate.
In short, there's a big market for this stuff.
At least they can continue to work together for severe forecasts.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies 2. http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Spin-off_tec...
Such an event is coming sooner or later, from one source or another; probably not in our lifetimes but we're so far off from good solutions that "we have plenty of time" is not a good excuse to not be investing in space.
As an "average (tax paying)" person there is a list a mile long of shit we spend tax dollars on that I'd rather cut over space exploration, with the military (over $500 billion a year) being an obvious start.
How much has war cost our country and left us with little benefit. we spend almost the entire historical budget for NASA in one year at war.
Maybe NASA is not as useful anymore? I don't know. Maybe the money would be better spent making our country less dependent on oil? Well, actually, one of the spinoff technologies was the solar cell so it seems to be helping to that aim. Who knows what the next thing NASA does that improves humanity as a whole will be?
Disclaimer, of course, is that my experiences only apply to the specific NASA site I was at (that's why my profile says "reformed sounding rocket engineer"). I think I've posted extensively about that job before.
My point was simply this: NASA is now a large hierarchical organization whose primary goal (as must be the goal of every hierarchy) is to perpetuate itself. The parent made it sound like all that's needed to solve some of these complex problems is to open the fiscal floodgates to NASA. It's going to take more than money. It's going to take a culture change.
I occasionally hear statements wondering why weather modeling can't simply be distributed to desktop or cloud and can't, for some strange reason, get people to understand that connectivity is almost as important as computation itself for this.
Or maybe it will prompt the usual suspects to "privatize" the whole thing i.e. cut funding under the assumption that private enterprise, or churches, or whatever the hell else, will pick up the slack.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/03/11/gop_s_continuin...
What a storm might be approach the executive branch of the local government goes into emergency mode. Emergency funds are spent on preparations. Some government workers are sent home. Schools might be closed. Evacuation orders may be issued. Town mayors and, importantly, state governors all go on TV to talk about these preparations. The local executives get to do their lord-and-master thing. If the storm hits, they looks like heroes. If it doesn't, they still look like dutiful public servants concerned for the safety of their public. Some people enjoy a good disaster rehearsal, especially if they get to be the one in charge.
Imho the private sector, specifically the insurance, travel and tourism industries are the ones who want accurate models. That isn't to say that prediction should be privatized. The government is probably in the better place to handle forecasting. But the demand on politicians for better models/funding arises from industry, not any noble desire to avoid widespread emergency declarations.