The US Air Force (USAF) has maintained a series of defense weather satellites with microwave imaging technology since the 1960’s. This microwave imaging has multiple uses for seeing water and ice that would otherwise be hidden under canopies of clouds. Images, such as the one above of hurricane Irma taken from the F-18 satellite show the structure of the core of hurricanes and tropical storms that is hidden in the visible spectrum by clouds. These images are very useful to hurricane forecasters because they reveal developing eyes and other structures that may help them forecast the intensity of storms. Unfortunately, most of the existing F series satellites have exceeded their design lifetime and no replacements are in sight because Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, forced the Air Force to destroy the F-20 satellite which had already been built and was scheduled for launch. Multiple satellite units had been built at the same time to save money on building them but storing the F-20 cost millions. He eliminated funding for launch and for storage giving the Air Force no option but to destroy the satellite.
The media has already covered the potential impact of the destruction of the F-20 satellite on the measurement of sea ice extent, but I have seen no reports on the impact on hurricane forecasting. The premature failure of the F-19 satellite has created a potential situation where there will be a dangerous gap in microwave satellite imaging capabilities because Mike Rogers destroyed the F-20.
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Yet in an unfortunate twist, researchers could lose their eyes in the sky that allow them to watch over the region. In addition to announcing the record low February sea ice extent, NSIDC sounded the alarm about a looming satellite gap that could create a blind spot for scientists at the top of the world.
Scientists are essentially working on borrowed satellite time. There are currently four satellites with sensors that can monitor Arctic sea ice.
Three of the four, jointly operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Defense, are two to eight years past their expected lifespans. Last year, one of those satellites malfunctioned. While the redundancy of the other satellites helped stave off a blackout, there’s no guarantee they’ll continue to provide support into the future.
Mike Rogers asserted that the technology was obsolete but it provided a continuous record with the same kind of sensor of the long decline of sea ice extent in the Arctic.
“It's a real loss to have had the F20 dismantled, but Congress would not give the Air Force the funds to launch that sensor even though the instrument had already been built,” Julienne Stroeve, a remote sensing expert at NSIDC, said.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency operates the fourth Arctic-monitoring satellite. That’s also approaching the end of its forecast five-year lifespan. Stroeve said NSIDC is working to integrate data from the Japanese satellite into their operations, “but even so there may still be a gap for a couple years.”
The European Space Agency is expected to launch an new satellite to monitor the region, but the launch isn’t on the docket until 2021.
Rogers seemed angry that the Air Force’s F satellite series was collecting key data that proved that dangerous warming was taking place in the Arctic. He accused the Air Force of incompetence.
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During a House Armed Services Committee hearing on acquisition reform, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said Congress had lost confidence in the Air Force’s ability to run its legacy weather satellite program. Rogers chairs the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, which provides oversight of military satellites. …
“We could have saved the Air Force and the Congress a lot of aggravation if we put a half of a billion dollars in a parking lot and just burned it,” he said. …
In the massive omnibus spending bill for fiscal year 2016, lawmakers provided no funding for DMSP and the bill denied $120 million of funding to launch DMSP-20 around 2018. The combination effectively ended the program. The Air Force had spent $518 million on the satellite, Rogers said.
Instead, he said, the money set aside for DMSP could have been spent on other national security priorities, but now the satellite is “going in the trash. I presume it’s going to be made into razor blades.”
Meanwhile 3 hurricanes are active in the Atlantic and Hurricane Irma is the strongest hurricane ever observed in the open Atlantic ocean. The heat content of the north Atlantic is continuing to rise because of the effects of increasing levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases released by human activities. The Atlantic ocean has heated up while the lower stratosphere above the tops of hurricanes has cooled, increasing the thermodynamic potential, making the strongest hurricanes stronger. And we may soon lose a key tool for monitoring hurricanes thanks to Mr. Roger’s spite.
Here’s a map that shows why Irma is so strong. The ocean heat content is at record high levels along Irma’s track. Unfortunately, the heat content south of Miami, on Irma’s forecast track, is extraordinarily high. The NHC is not forecasting it, but the American GFS model is predicting that Irma will intensify over this hot Gulf Stream water that stays hot to hundreds of feet depth.