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Weather Monitoring Frequencies Subject to Pollution
jd writes "In a case of technology vs. technology, the ICU (the body governing the use of radio frequencies around the globe) has been asked to secure radio frequences used for weather monitoring. In-car radar, mobile phones and other commercial and military applications are now using these same frequencies. However, weather satellites can't simply be re-tuned. There is only one very narrow band that detects water vapor but not liquid water, for example. This frequency has been sold to developers of car radar systems. The more this happens, the less useful weather radar and weather satellites will be. The noise will simply swamp the data, making what is collected useless. The article doesn't give a 'doomsday' timeframe, when we'll have no better ability to forecast the weather than they did in the 1800s, but that is what they are talking about."
Isn't the current weather prediction pretty much like the 1800's anyways? I get a better predictability just by watching the barometer on my patio that by looking at the official forecasts.
11*43+456^2
It would be nice if we _could_ build radiometers cheaply. What could I imagine being utilized on every vehicle in the country? Data collecting GPS enabled radiometer that could easily tell the drive local temp/humidity (as they do now :) and "phone home" with the data.
What could you do with data collected from even 1 in 20 vehicles in the country? I could also see where this type of device could be dual-utilized as a collision warning detection type system...