The surprising connection between the meteorological balloons and the “cuts” imposed by the Trump administration

In recent weeks, the number of launches of the weather balloons in the US has decreased, after the Trump administration has made available to many state agencies. The consequences are related to the fact that forecasts become less accurate even in areas where extreme weather phenomena occur, writes NBC News.

For several decades, the National Weather Service in the US has been launching meteorological balloons in over 100 places in the US and the Caribbean (plus the Pacific region).

Twice a day, at 8.00 and 20.00, meteorologists simultaneously launch these balloons with tools called radiosonde, which measure temperature, humidity and wind speed. They rise about 4.5 meters per second for two hours, crossing the layers of the atmosphere and sending data through radio waves. When the air becomes too rare, the balloons break and fall back on the ground with small parachutes, the mission being thus completed.

In recent months, at least 10 stations have suspended or limited the launches of weather balloons, as a result of the personnel reductions imposed by the Trump administration at the National Meteorological Service (NWS). The problem is that, with fewer balloons in the air, the weather service has, in total, less data, and the forecasts have a higher degree of inaccuracy in some areas.

Meteorologists say that these changes will lead not only to decrease the quality of forecasts, but also to increased risks during extreme weather phenomena.

The data obtained with the help of these balloons “feed” the meteorological models underlying the US forecasts, whether we are talking about the Internet, news journals or weather applications on your smartphone. Estimates indicate that the daily number of launches would have decreased by 15%.

Availability at the National Weather Service are part of a larger plan of the Trump administration to reduce federal agencies staff. At the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which also includes NWS, over 600 employees were dismissed, then temporarily re -employed, following a judicial decision. At several science -related agencies there were personnel, budgets and even projects.

One problem is that the balloons are now missing exactly from the areas where severe weather phenomena occur in the spring and summer months, an example being the storms affecting the region of the great lakes and the eastern US. The storms usually follow a trajectory from west to east to the US, so the balloons provide indications about what follows in the following hours (short and medium -term forecasts).

These balloons provide the most detailed data on the different layers of the atmosphere, information that cannot be easily collected by satellites or other tools. Without them, meteorologists risk, for example, to make inaccurate estimates about the type of rainfall will fall.

Without weather balloons, the precision of the present forecasts would be about 15% lower, according to NASA data.

Russia at one time tried to reduce the launches of radiosonde at half, between January and April 2015, and European meteorologists observed a decrease in the quality of forecasts.

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