Cliff Mass Weather Blog: COSMIC: Filling the Weather Satellite Gap

(Source: Cliff Mass Weather Blog)

The media has been full of headlines and stories about a looming gap in weather satellite coverage (see NY Times story here) and the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) has identified the weather satellite gap as a high-risk threat to the nation (GAO info here).   The U.S. weather satellite network has been an essential driver of improvement in numerical weather prediction during the past several decades, but mismanagement of the nation's weather satellite program by NOAA (documented by a number of independent groups such as this) has cost the nation billions and threatens  a serious gap in weather satellite coverage.  The biggest problem have delays and cost overruns for the polar-orbiter satellite program, with the costs of replacing the current satellites in the many billions of dollars (weather satellites are not cheap).

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Cliff Mass Weather Blog: COSMIC: Filling the Weather Satellite Gap