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Key satellite data for Hurricane intensification forecasts and sea ice extent terminated by Trump [1]

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Date: 2025-06-29

The worst natural disaster to the U.S. Navy happened in 1944 when Typhoon Cobra, aka Halsey’s typhoon, sunk 3 destroyers, killed 790 sailors, and damaged many other ships and aircraft. Following this catastrophe to the Pacific fleet an inquest was held and the Joint Typhoon Warning center was founded to make better hurricane forecasts so that the navy would get their ships to safety in future storms. The need for global weather data collection was recognized after this catastrophe as an essential mission for the U.S. Navy and the U.S. military, critical to naval and military operations. That is why, many years later after the satellite era began that microwave sounder satellites were developed for the military to view under the cloud tops to reveal the internal structures of tropical storms. This satellite program was managed by the U.S. Air Force while the imagery was analyzed in Monterey California by the U.S. Navy’s research lab. These satellite images showed when rapid intensification of hurricanes was happening, alerting forecasters to the need to upgrade intensity forecasts and to move ships and evacuate people as needed to protect them. Both military and civilian forecasters gained essential information from these satellites.

The Trump administration is abruptly turning off access to data from these satellites tomorrow. For forecasters along the Gulf coast, where rapid intensification of hurricanes is a severe threat to life and ships in port and at sea, the loss of this information on strengthening storms will set forecasting back decades endangering many thousands of lives. I wrote about the GOP demanding destruction of the final satellite in this series back in 2017. GOP politicians have forgotten the naval catastrophe that led to the deployment of these military satellites with important civilian uses such as hurricane intensity forecasts and Arctic sea ice monitoring. They are taking hurricane forecasting for granted. It is bitterly ironic that a politician from Alabama has led the way to this loss of critical forecasting data. He has put the lives of many of the people he represents in harm’s way.

The official story from the Trump administration’s political appointees is that this will not affect hurricane forecasting, but that is quite simply a lie. There’s an excellent piece by meteorologist and journalist Eric Holthaus, in the Guardian, that explains how critical these satellites are to hurricane forecasting and sea ice monitoring.

“We’re a bit blind now,” said Allison Wing, a hurricane researcher at Florida State University. Wing said the DMSP satellites are the only ones that let scientists see inside the clouds of developing hurricanes, giving them a critical edge in forecasting that now may be jeopardized. “Before these types of satellites were present, there would often be situations where you’d wake up in the morning and have a big surprise about what the hurricane looked like,” said Wing. “Given increases in hurricane intensity and increasing prevalence towards rapid intensification in recent years, it’s not a good time to have less information.” The satellites also formed a unique source of data for tracking changes to the Arctic and Antarctic, and had been tracking changes to polar sea ice continuously for more than 40 years.

In the Arctic sea ice extent has plunged to a record low for the date after a record low winter maximum in 2025. I suspect that the GOP’s efforts to blind us to the impacts of climate change are behind this sudden elimination of satellite data. However, Japan has satellites monitoring the poles so we will still have good data on sea ice decline. Where this will hurt us the most is in hurricane forecasting and evacuation. South Florida, the Gulf Coast and Puerto Rico and the U.S.V.I. will be the places most at risk because of this reckless decision by the Trump regime.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/6/29/2330792/-Key-satellite-data-for-Hurricane-intensification-forecasts-and-sea-ice-extent-terminated-by-Trump?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

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