US weather agency funding cuts threaten Kenya's climate forecasting
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
A leading United States agency that monitors and shares weather and climate change data is the latest victim of budget cuts from the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Weather Service data are shared globally. Many forecasters, emergency planners and governments worldwide, including Kenya, rely on it.
It was started in 1970 by the US 37th President Richard Nixon, backed by a bipartisan act of Congress.
Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD) uses NOAA’s satellite to fetch information on weather and climate, including updates on El Nino and La Nina.
A source at KMD told Nation that they use Global Forecasting System (GFS) data at their department to run their weather research and forecasting model.
“This move will affect operations of the GFS data from the NOAA satellite system which is used to initialise the ocean and atmospheric models that are widely used in forecasting,” said the KMD source.
Apart from weather forecasting, Kenya also benefits from NOAA by using their data to visualise the ocean's coral reefs, which informs the interventions applied to protect them.
This information is usually shared in an open online tool called the Coral Reef Watch where heat levels in the ocean are monitored to check whether it results in the bleaching of coral reefs.
Meteorologists now worry that should NOAA decide to keep doing their work without government support, one approach to stay afloat could be selling their data to users.
The budget cuts have resulted in a loss of about 800 jobs which will have an impact on the quality of vital forecasts.
Lives as well as livelihoods depend on these forecasts.
"NOAA has a mission of protecting the American public — a mission which is now at risk — but the dangers extend far beyond the US borders. NOAA's long history of international collaboration of sharing climate, early warning systems, fisheries management and scientific research will be damaged.” said Tom Di Liberto, former public affairs specialist and climate scientist at NOAA in a statement.
“As climate change-driven disasters increase, we need scientific collaboration and data sharing more than ever,” he added.
In the European Union, potential loss of NOAA data would lead to a degraded ability to track 'weather systems' around the globe which may lead to a decrease in forecast accuracy in Europe.
More than 2,500 Nonpartisan scientific organisations recently sent a letter to congress, coordinated by the Union of Concerned Scientists, calling for the protection of NOAA’s data and research.
“Without a strong NOAA, a cornerstone of the US scientific research enterprise, the world will be flying blind into the growing perils of global climate change. It is unequivocal that human-induced climate change, primarily driven by burning fossil fuels, is the leading cause of the rapid heating of the oceans, the land surface, and the lower atmosphere,” reads part of the letter.
“The harmful impacts of human-induced increases in heat-trapping emissions are readily apparent in accelerating sea level rise, worsening heat waves and flooding, longer and more intense wildfire seasons, altered rainfall patterns, the retreat of Arctic Sea ice, ocean acidification, and many other aspects of the climate system that are currently monitored by NOAA,” the scientists add.
Around the world, NOAA has been forced to seek case-by-case approval for any international engagement or communication.
