How often do you rely on the weather? I mean, let's be honest, like we look at our local weather person and they provide the weather for us on the news. Or we look at our app on our phone and we look at the app and we say, "Oh, it's supposed to rain today at three o'clock or four o'clock." Or, "It's supposed to snow if you're in the place where I live in Ontario."
We rely on that, but it's not always right because it depends on models and models are not always right, but they have their level of accuracy and weather patterns change. We have to understand the weather. We have to understand how our weather patterns around the world affect all of us from just a regular person like myself who goes out and walks the dogs that doesn't want to walk the dog in the rain. Even the dogs always want to walk in the rain.
I have to know what the weather is going to be like. Or if a farmer knows what the weather is going to be like coming up over the next two weeks or a month or what those patterns are going to be like, they need to know what it's going to be like for their crops this year. A lot of people rely on weather. A lot of people rely on understanding the climate and the people who understand the climate, meteorologists and be able to communicate that towards us are really, really important.
And that's going to be our focus on today's episode of How to Protect the Ocean podcast. We have Dave Jones, who's joining us today to talk about the importance of data that feeds in to what we know about our climate, what we know about the weather and how our climate is changing and how that can protect not only citizens around the world, but especially citizens in the US. We're talking about cuts to the National
Weather Service. We're talking about cuts to know what we're talking about cuts to NASA and how that may or may not impact the world today as we see it for US citizens and the world. I can't wait for you to see the show. So let's start. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew
Lourin. This is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean and what you do to live for a better ocean by taking action. And we're going to learn all about science today. We're going to learn about the climate. We're going to learn about the atmosphere. We learn about the oceans. We're going to learn about the data that provides us with the understanding of knowing so much more about the oceans that we did in 1900s.
And we didn't have satellites. We didn't have buoy systems. We didn't have drifters all these different instrumentations that provide us with data to go to the people, the meteorologists, the oceanographers, the scientists who understand and interpret that information to provide it to us in a form that we can understand and that we can make better decisions around where we live, how we're going to live, where we're going to go that day, where we're going to go that hour.
And of course, there are some times when it's not right and the weather changes.
But for the most part, we get to understand, especially before we had all this data, we're talking about data in climate in the atmosphere because it's so important because there are cuts being made in the US where a lot of this data is funded and especially on an international level that could affect US citizen safety in terms of predicting hurricanes and other natural disasters and wind patterns that would affect them not only in money to clean up these natural disasters, but actual safety.
So we want to understand what's happening all around that. And Dave Jones is joining me today. He is the founder and the CEO of Storm Center Communications and Geolocate, which is also a company
that he owns. And he's on YouTube as Storm Center Inc. this is a one and I'll put the link to in the show notes that if you want to take a look and he goes on every once in a while to provide data for you with the public on YouTube and he's done it through natural disasters like hurricanes that we had in the fall of 2024. He'll do it again. This year, he'll talk about wind patterns to talk about weather patterns. Not only just in his area where he lives but also around the world.
all different types of oceans, all different types of geographies. It's amazing. And I can't wait for you to hear this interview with Dave Jones. Here's the interview talking about the National Weather Service, as well as the importance of data when predicting climate and the weather. Enjoy the interview and I'll talk to you after. Hey Dave, welcome back to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are you ready to talk about the weather? Oh, Andrew, I'm always ready to talk about the weather.
I eat, sleep, and drink weather. I love it. I love it. Look, I am so excited that you're on the podcast. Cause we have a lot of questions to ask and to get answered. Right? There is a lot of cuts that happened over the last month or so. People are worried about their weather. Are they going to get their weather data? Dave, you provide the weather on a pretty much daily basis to a lot of different organizations, a lot of different, the public, you know, you're on YouTube and so forth.
So I thought it would be good to have you on to help answer these questions, help put people's worries at bay or maybe just be like, no, there's a reason to be worried. Hopefully it's not the case, but we got to talk about it and I'm so excited to do so today. But before we do, Dave, why don't you just let, just remind people of who you are and what you do. Oh, sure, Andrew. Yeah, I'm Dave Jones. I'm the CEO and founder of Storm Center Communications. We've been around since 2001.
We've done a lot of different things over the years. But what we do now is focus on data sharing and collaboration. We invented a technology called GeoCollaborate, which actually can access trusted data sources from many different platforms and pull them together in a collaborative GIS environment.
So what all that means is that we can connect a bunch of people together in a web browser and we can then move their maps around and display trusted data on their maps, not screen sharing, but actually geospatial data sharing and delivering data right in front of people onto their systems so they can start to use it and understand how that data can be used to make their operations more efficient, to give them better situational awareness, understand impacts of changing climate or
increased sea levels because of sea level rise and things like that. So I do that. And also, like you said, the YouTube page, I update my YouTube channel for the All Hazards Consortium, which is a nonprofit organization that brings together government organizations like state emergency management professionals, private sector liaisons within those state emergency management agencies, federal emergency management.
And also, more importantly, the private sector owner and operators like from the communications, transportation, medical supply, logistics, energy sectors. So the utility trucks that have to respond to disasters, we provide them with weather briefings, especially when the weather gets exciting and impactful. So they can just when they're on their way to respond, they can be watching it on their phones or on their tablets.
And it kind of brings everybody together in a collaborative common operating picture, if you will. That's amazing. Such an important service that you provide. Can you talk a little bit more about some of the talk about specific clientele? But who would want this type of weather service? Because obviously, you know, when people look at the weather, they go to their apps and they say, OK, this is what the weather is going to be like.
And then they mistrust a little bit and they say, hey, no, that's actually not going to be the weather. You know, if you're on the coast, if you don't like the weather in five minutes, it'll change and this and that. But like you are providing like real time up to the minute data. And by the way, when you mention GIS, that's right down my alleyway. I'm a GIS analyst at heart. So this and looking at, you know, our GIS server and all that kind of stuff that we can geek out about that.
But, you know, like what what who like who wants this type of data, this this like real time type of data? So, you know, when we talk about the all hazards consortium, there's a bunch of different organizations involved. And typically, private sector companies don't like to share information, you know, because they feel like it might get out to competitors and things like that.
You know, for example, if a storm comes through and and, you know, 10 cell phone cell towers get knocked over, you know, companies are a little reticent to say, yeah, we just lost service in these in this 200 square mile area. Because then the other companies might say, hey, well, we're putting in temporary ones. We got service, you know, switch to us. So what we typically do is help to provide situational awareness for the general weather that's going on and the impacts that are happening.
So we've worked for several decades with NOAA and the weather service and NASA. And so we can identify data that might help them in their planning. For example, these highways are flooded currently. We can see it in satellite imagery. We can now look at the projected flood inundation levels and see when those roads might be open so those utility trucks can get into those neighborhoods, start to assess damage and start to restore power, restored quicker. There's a really interesting one.
One of the partners that we serve is a very large provider of prescription medications to around the country and around the world. So CVS, Walgreens, you know, all these pharmacies, they get their prescription drugs from this company. They're a logistics and transportation company specializing in medical supplies and drugs. They have warehouses all around the country where they where they keep these and then they can distribute them quickly.
But if a wildfire develops and the wildfire smoke gets into the warehouse through their air system and then they go to deliver these prescription medications, the receiving organization, whether it's a hospital or CVS or Walgreens or wherever, can refuse to take delivery of those medications if they smell smoke. Interesting. So that puts all those prescription drugs at risk for having to be thrown away, millions and billions of dollars worth of drugs.
So they really never had the ability to identify where wildfire smoke is, where it's heading and where it might impact some of their facilities. So, you know, it's things like that that really make a difference for these companies. Now, when you first started thinking about the service and putting it together with your colleagues, did you ever anticipate the amount of people that would benefit from having the service? Like you probably have some idea of certain people and certain companies that
would benefit. But that sounds like a very unique case. Like, but I'm sure that it comes up more often than not, but probably something you didn't know right off the bat. You might have known. I didn't know that. I feel that's that's something that's really that becomes really interesting when you talk about this type of stuff and how many businesses are impacted. But did you expect to help this many types of businesses and clients?
Well, what's really interesting, Andrew, is that when you start to talk and you can get people together, I'm on a telecom with these groups together every Friday. And so, you know, and I've been on them for nine years. And so you build up this level of trust where they've now all elected all these, you know, not elected, but the all-hazard consortium has asked me to chair a company. A committee called the Weather Impacts
Committee for all these industries. And so what that really does is it allows us to pull these groups together and and say, OK, guys, let's let's talk about hurricanes right now. What is what are the important indicators you need to know for you to make decisions? I mean, for utilities, for example, you know, if they have electric vehicles, you know, they're going to be able to get a lot of money.
Electric substations that are close to the beach or an ocean or a bay or rivers and they see forecasted heights of storm surge or flooding heights from rainfall. And they can get that as early as possible. They can move to mitigate potential damage to that substation. And I think that when when we first started this out, we knew that weather information could be a very valuable asset and that people probably weren't using it to the best of their ability. And the thing is, it's it's complex. You
know, it's it's complicated. It's it's it's not a weather app. It's a you know, you you look at your phone and you see these deterministic forecasts that are, you know, 10 days out and it's not possible. It's not possible. You mean, Dave, wait a minute. Hold on a second. This is breaking news. You telling me in like 10 days from now, it's not going to be minus 15 here in Canada because that's what it says. And I don't want to see that. I don't want to believe that.
I know. I got just a quick funny story when I I used to do the weather for NBC in Washington, D.C. and I see four there for 10 years through the 90s. And this is a January day. I got done with the weather and I had a call in the newsroom. He said, hey, Dave, you got a call online one. OK, pick up the call. And and the person says, Dave, we watch you all the time. You and your the whole weather team is the most accurate. I said, well, thanks very much.
I appreciate that. She says, can you tell me what weather you have scheduled in July for my daughter's wedding? Because we need to know if we need to get a canopy or not. I love how they like they think that you have this ability to be like, you know what? I think that day is going to be really nice for you. I'm going to make sure of it. Well, climatology kicked off in my mind and I said, hazy, hot and humid with the chance of an afternoon thunderstorm. Exactly. Exactly. You can pretty much
give those predictors and stuff. But yeah, I think it's you know, but I mean, it's so true, though, especially with local news. And I still think this happens to this day with with all the different apps that we have for and 24 hour news and stuff. But news, like weather people, like the weatherman, the weather woman and and and all folks that do the weather. They are a trusted source of feel like they have, you know, you yourself have a
great personality. You have this ability to communicate with people and all the weather people that we see, depending on where they are in the world, they have this ability to communicate people and gain trust. Now, some people lose that trust when the weather doesn't get right and they blame it on the weather person. But for the most part, like, you know, I remember when I was a kid, you know, when the weather person came on, my parents like, no, we need to know the weather.
Like, we need to know that forecast. And it's so interesting to see, like, you got like your your your your entire like field. You have to be really great science communicators to be able to do this. You're taking complex information just from a weather perspective for the general public, not what obviously you're doing in geo collaborate and Storm Center.
But you have to be able to take that complex information and put it into a form where it's like, you're going to like the weather today or you're not going to like the weather. There's always somebody. There's always somebody that's going to say, oh, we got a beautiful day in store. And then you get a call and they say, I'm a farmer. We need rain. It's not a beautiful day. You know, exactly. Exactly. Right. But how do you how do you develop that? Is
that happening during schooling? Or is that just like a talent that people are attracted to when they go in this field? Well, I mean, first of all, there's a couple of questions that you asked there and they're all really good. And they're they're they're ones that are important questions. First, you know, most meteorologists don't go into broadcasting. Right. So, you know, it's one percent or less of meteorologists that graduate are actually on TV communicating the weather to their audience.
But those that are on TV are the drivers for that newscast. And what I mean by that is research has showed this over and over again for decades that local weather is the number one reason why people watch local news. So they do build that relationship with the broadcast meteorologists, whether it's the morning shift or the afternoon or evening person or the weekend person.
I used to go to these events in Washington, D.C., where they'd have the NBC four tent set up and, you know, they'd have a couple of, you know, the sports guy and a meteorologist there and an anchor. And and, you know, people come up to me and say, Dave, I wake up with you every morning. Yeah, for sure. It's so weird. Right. You're like, it is. It is. Or you're a lot taller than I thought. It's like, yeah, once you get out of the
box of TV, you become a real person. But but the communication part is really important for scientists and and scientists tend to, you know, it's it's an intense field, any kind of science. It's very intricate. It's complex. Some sciences involve a lot of math and physics and things like that. So it's not something you're going to really talk about on TV. And other scientists might work at NASA. They might work at NOAA and doing research or EPA or doing air quality. And
they're all critical jobs. Yeah. But some of them need a little help in communicating a little bit more effectively. And, you know, we've talked about this and are really talking about it more right now. And that is that communication is so critical to talk about how important things are because, you know, many, many TV, this little kind of a pet peeve of mine is that most TV meteorologists and the stations themselves.
Yeah, they'll show satellite image on the local newscast and they'll call it, you know, you know, News six sky. I, you know, and, you know, the radar, you know, digital Doppler X.T. You know, like it's a car with a number of letters together. It just people are like, oh, this must be serious. This is good. This is accurate. I watch that. And but what they don't do is say this radar data is from the National Weather Service.
And and it's important to keep going because we can communicate to you where the storms are. This satellite image is taken from a NOAA satellite that orbits twenty two thousand three hundred miles up in space in a geosynchronous orbit. What's that? Well, you can tell them about that and then say we need these satellites because we won't see these hurricanes coming without them. And so that's being done maybe less than point five percent of the time around the
nation, probably in Canada as well. And and it's it's really important that that attribution happened because otherwise people, you know, this was said on the on the floor of Congress. Years ago, a certain congressman stood up and said, why do we need the National Weather Service when I can turn on the weather channel? You know, and and so, you know, my my comeback to that is, hey, gotcha. Why do we need cows when we can go to the store
and buy milk? Exactly. Right. I mean, the level of like naivete and just ignorance of where data comes from. And I guess it's like we're just we just end up taking it for granted. And I want to take the a good chunk of this episode to discuss this. But before I do, I have to ask that going back to the weather, the weather people, what short straw do you have to draw to be a weather person that goes out in a hurricane storm and bring it to the people?
Like we know it's bad. Like why do they subject these poor weather people, sometimes journalists to putting them out in the middle of a storm? It doesn't matter what type of storms. It could be like a hurricane. It could be like tornado areas. It could be like wildfire areas. Like, why do we do that? Like, what's the point of that? I don't know. I think stations might just like to bleep out bad words when they, you know, when the winds
come or something. And they really want to see you out in the elements. And it's like, really? Okay, so the next time a palm frond knocks my head off, make sure you describe to everybody, you know, how it felt because I won't be able to. I think, you know, I think there's a there's a there's a benefit for being out to talk to people about why they're not evacuating.
Why are you going to stay on your sailboat right this dock when a 15 foot storm surges, you know, and and you do get people's answers like it never hits here. Yeah, you know, it always veers or it always weakens. And then, you know, when you go back and all of their stuff is gone, you can't find the person to interview. Then all of a sudden people like, Oh my gosh, they know they should have left. Yeah, but you know, chasing storms is always going to be kind of a ratings
driver. It's it's dangerous. It's uncertain. Even the best of them get caught sometimes in precarious situations. And it drives ratings. Yeah. But the first thing they hear when they get done with the storm is a whole bunch of people leaving messages or, you know, social media posts like why the heck are you there? Why don't you leave and all that stuff? So that's an ongoing thing. And yeah, you know, even for storm chasing out in out in Oklahoma. Yeah.
I think there's there's legislation that's now being proposed or put together in Oklahoma to only allow licensed meteorologists to chase storms. Because it's getting kind of crazy out there with accidents and people taking chances and unqualified people taking people on tours and making money. Yeah. So, you know, we're starting to see some impacts.
For sure. Well, and and I think that's kind of goes back into, you know, knowing about the data being qualified to not only know about the data, but also to discuss the data in a way that can be interpreted. But let's let's talk about these sources of data that you mentioned earlier, you know, knowing where this data comes from, from NOAA, from NASA,
from the National Weather Service. These are all very important systems in the government that have allowed, not only the U.S. but for the rest of the world to benefit from this data and the partnerships that have come from it with other countries and bring it all together, being able to piece all this data together to get almost a global picture of what's happening, whether it be satellites from the U.S. satellites from Canada, satellites from
Europe and so forth. It's been a benefit to the world to have this type of data. Can you talk about, you know, obviously this is leading into government cuts, the recent government cuts, but let's talk about why this data is so important to to help protect citizens of the U.S. as well as abroad. Sure. Well, I mean, let's start with satellites, you know, first, there's two different types of satellites that are up there orbiting the Earth. One of the geostationary satellites. They're the
ones and Europe has them. Japan has them. India has them. And they're all orbiting over the same spot on the Earth as the Earth rotates, the satellite orbits at the same speed. And so orbital speed. And so they're looking at the same spot at the same time. You know, all the time that allows us to sequence the clouds, put them in a loop and watch what's moving towards us or
away from us. And so these satellites are always monitoring the entire disk, you know, all the hemispheres, you know, northern hemisphere, southern hemisphere, eastern hemisphere, western. And and we can see seedlings coming off of Africa that may turn into hurricanes or tropical cyclones and we can follow them across just by watching them and watching their dynamics, watching how they're developing and all that stuff without satellites.
We wouldn't know that those systems were out there developing and we didn't have satellites in 1900 and 1900 there was one of the biggest hurricanes to ever hit the United States, hit Galveston, Texas, killed some numbers or 6000 others or 8000 people. They didn't see it coming and the storm surge was monstrous, led to the building of the big sea. The big sea wall in Galveston to protect
part of the island. And so these are what we call observing systems and these observing systems from a geostationary standpoint give us a really big broad picture. There are other satellites called polar orbiting satellites that orbit maybe about 300 miles up so much lower. They orbit from pole to pole and the earth rotates underneath of them. And so they take strips of data. Those satellites are critical because they have different sensors on them that can look through the atmosphere, look at
the ocean, take temperature data. They can profile the atmosphere temperatures at different levels of the atmosphere and that data is critical for going into numerical weather prediction models. As a matter of fact, 95% of the data that goes into initializing a numerical weather prediction model comes from satellites. So if satellites went away, we'd be in big trouble. Yeah, because you know, where we don't have a lot of observations is over the ocean.
We call them data sparse areas. We have buoys that are out there in the ocean, not everywhere. We have floats called Argo floats. They they they're at the surface of the ocean and then they go down about 200 meters record data, they come back up and when they hit the surface, they transmit all those observations back. And that goes into numerical prediction models so we can have coupled ocean atmosphere models. There are gliders that go through the ocean that try to that
that not try. They measure salinity and they measure temperature and currents. All that stuff is they're going up and down. Drifters there are Lagrangian drifters from University of San Diego, California, San Diego. These drifters can be put anywhere and they just drift with the currents but they report back wave heights, temperatures, pressures, things like that.
So we use satellite data to estimate what the sea surface temperature is, but we can then use those drifting buoys to validate what those temperatures are to know that what the satellites are measuring is accurate. And so so that's that's satellites and some ocean observing systems. We also have land observing systems in the United States. They're called ASOS automated surface observing systems located a lot of airports, but also in other areas. States are putting in their own meso networks.
And they're taking constant weather observations every minute or less and sending that data into the National Weather Service and those states maintain those sensors. They quality control, make sure that they're you know, the data is accurate. The Weather Service quality controls the data. You know, if they say, Hey, you know, is temperature saying 80 degrees, but every all the other sensors around it are saying 62. Why don't you go out and take a look at it? And so these are all around
the world. It's not just an American waters like they are a number of them in the American waters, but this is all over the round because everything's connected, right? It's not just here's the 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone. We're just not going to know data outside of that. That doesn't help us.
In terms of detecting a swell that comes in that may or may not affect the coastal area or you know, looking at a system that comes in from Africa during you know the summer and might hit there in the fall and knowing whether that's going to be a hurricane or not. These are all over the world. There's two partnerships with other with other countries and and this
is extremely important data. You know, it's it's funny, I was I was watching a TV show and I know the same way we also watched it, but we're also going to practice it today. and I know this is fictional show, but it kind of demonstrated a point of how important data is. And it's a show called High Surf. It's like a rescue show. It's obviously very fictional. It's based in Hawaii. I'm about to go to Hawaii next week.
So I decided, actually by the time this is published, I'll be in Hawaii, but I wanted to get ready. I wanted to see what it was like and everything like that. So obviously I've got a very different illusion of what it really is. But there was an episode where they were expecting like a big swell, like a tsunami, a potential tsunami warning. And they were looking at three buoys is North Shore, Oahu.
And they were looking at three buoys that were very far apart from each other and like hours apart where the swell based on, but they knew the height of the swell after every time it hit the buoy, they knew the speed of the swell, how fast it was coming and they were be able to detect the change in time and the size and the power of it when it by the time it hit the next buoy, whether to go from a warning to this is a serious threat or to say, hey, you know what, this is not a warning anymore.
We're OK. But the hours in between that to try and get that data was very nerve wracking. They didn't know what to do. And obviously, you know, it's a show. So they go into all the emotional parts, but it kind of took you through what the different parts of each different part, federal state and even local governments were taking and actions they were taking. And they were relying on this data to come in.
Imagine if one, if we didn't have those buoys, imagine if we didn't have the drifters that were along that may have been in the water at the time that could tell even in between what that is or even verify that data or even satellite. You know, we have radar set that can tell wave height and whether there's something big coming or, you know, you can see a boat in the water or something like that. There's so many pieces of this data that becomes such an important role.
But it also is like there's so much data coming in that you need to interpret it properly. And that requires people with, you know, scientific degrees in various science fields, you know, not only biology, but physics and chemistry and, you know, atmosphere and so forth that make the National Weather Service, NOAA, NASA, so, so important.
Can you talk about some of the some of the roles that play into that and the number of people that have to play over that role and be able to take in all this data and what requires that specialties? Yeah. And let me just mention, too, since you were talking about tsunamis, I mean, there are tsunami buoys around the oceans. Right. There aren't enough. Right. And those tsunami buoys, some of them are far enough out that if an earthquake would happen between the buoy and the
coast, you wouldn't detect it. Right. And and so and some of those buoys need to be fixed because they're not working. And so that's why it takes a whole cadre of people to monitor the data. And when something is not reporting, you get out there to fix it. And in many cases already, for example, like within NOAA, they're already understaffed.
And so they'll say, well, we're going to have to take a look at that buoy, you know, in six months, because we're not going to have this ship that we need to take out. And and we'll do a couple of other buoys at the same time. So they're not just going out to look at one buoy and then coming back. That's too expensive for one buoy. So you really do need a whole bunch of people that are monitoring this. I mean, few people can monitor, but you need a whole bunch to
go out and fix. Yeah. And and some of these buoys just aren't breaking on their own. You know, illegal fishing, you know, they tie up to some of these buoys. And do these catches with their nets, which they shouldn't be doing. Right. Others, you know, sometimes they're a haven for seals or sea lions and they climb up on there and, you know, they're like, hey, why do we have a 15 foot wave out there in the middle of a high pressure system? It shouldn't be happening. Go out there
and see it. And it's like a mama seal that made a home there and half a ton seal that back and forth. Yeah. You know, all sorts of things can happen. But but, you know, you're right, Andrew. I mean, the let's just take a look for a second at at the weather service. Right. You know, the National Weather Service, they have. One hundred and twenty two forecast offices around the nation. So that's include Alaska, Hawaii, Guam and the the the Kona's continental United States.
They have six regional offices that help to coordinate those local offices. They have 13 river forecast centers that are focused on monitoring the rainfall and river levels and also doing outreach to people to make help them understand how fast rivers can rise. I mean, you know, there are campsites all over the place and people have no idea. Oh, yeah, let's camp by the river over there.
It's beautiful. But if there's a you know, three inch rainfall out just up river and they don't see any rain at all, they could be washed away in a matter of hours. So you need to have that kind of monitoring going on. They also have national centers, nine of them. So they have the the National Center for Environmental Prediction called NSEP. They do a lot of modeling and they're kind of the the parent center over all the other ones. They have the National
Hurricane Center. They have the Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. Hurricane Center is in Miami. That's probably the most popular national center that the Weather Service has. They have the Aviation Weather Center. They're constantly focused on aviation and predicting turbulence. Clear air turbulence is so tough, right? They have the Climate Prediction Center. They're looking out beyond seven days and they're going into seasonal predictions.
What does this spring look like? What does the summer look like? Helping to monitor and predict drought conditions, which are so critical for agriculture. They have the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma. They're focused on severe weather, tornado outbreaks, hail, hail damage, hail size, things like that. The Ocean Prediction Center. They focus on the ocean and getting products out to mariners so they know that big waves are headed their way or it's going to be treacherous.
Here are advisories that we issue for the oceans. They have the National Water Center, which is down in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It's a fairly new center, but they're working on the National Water Model, modeling every stream and tributary in the in the nation and even in, you know, in Puerto Rico and Alaska and Hawaii. So they can see, OK, this sensor just measured an inch of rain falling and so did these other sensors close to it.
Yeah, we're going to model what the downstream impacts are going to be so we can warn people that there's a danger if that's going to be any flooding. And then the last but not least, National Center is the Space Weather Prediction Center that's in Boulder, Colorado. They're monitoring the sun and the storms that come off the sun and what we call coronal mass ejections, right? We've had a lot of experience with those.
I mean, the one last May 10th boy, the Aurora Borealis was visible down in Alabama and Florida and part of the Bahamas for crying out loud. Yeah, that was that was pretty pretty awesome. So I mean, you know, people say, well, that's a lot of stuff. I tend to think sometimes, Andrew, that the people just watch too many movies and they think that. Things are operated by AI and shouldn't one or two people be able to do these jobs and it's just not possible. It's not
possible. You know, the impacts that weather and climate events have had just on the United States alone. Yeah. So since 1980, the nation has had the United States has had 403 disasters that each total one billion dollars or more. So since 1980, right, that those disasters have exceeded two point nine trillion dollars in damage. The investment could have been worse. It
could have been worse. These if they weren't able to get like access to data to understand where these storms are coming from, predicting the levels of the storms and so forth, right? Could have been worse. No doubt. No doubt. And and you know, when you think of the investment that's needed for the National Weather Service, yeah, and you boil it down because the Weather Service forecasts impact every person, right? All the planes that are coming in and bringing people in internationally,
domestically, transportation. If you boil it down, it's for the price of like a Big Mac or a Happy Meal, you know, per American. It's like 10 bucks, 12 bucks per person per year that funds the operations of NOAA. And so when you when you turn around and you look at cuts and you might do cuts, implement cuts randomly, you could cut out the people who are hired to warn you if a tornado is coming. That's going to cost lives. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's it's so important. It
like it. I don't understand the pushback on this type of data and the pushback that I'm talking about is over the last month since the Trump administration has taken over power and they've they're Donald Trump's now the president.
Doge has become a thing. Elon Musk is going into a number of different offices, say, either either closing down the entire department like he did with with USAID, but also going into other departments and, you know, just doing mass cuts, not only to the people of the public service that we just talked about in terms of what it requires and the people requires and even being understaffed. But they would cut just people randomly
and we're hearing stories by the day. You know, at this point, the last story I heard is, you know, Elon Musk sends a mass email to a number of people in the government saying, what have you done the last five or the last five things you did this week? If you do not email me back, consider yourself a resident, consider it a resignation. Not still not sure if that's true or not. Like, you know, there's been a lot of
stuff that's been going around. But, you know, talking to fellow colleagues in in in NOAA at EPA, a number of different departments, they've they're scared. They're worried. They're worried for their colleagues. They're worried for themselves. So obviously there's that portion of it. But there is this fundamental attack against getting information from the government.
They're worried about getting information from the environment about the environment to the point now where we've seen a lot of cuts that have happened on international programs. And when I this is where I really want to focus the rest of the episode. And we've been kind of building up to it is there have been cuts to any international programs for Noah, the national, which include the National Weather Service in gathering data beyond the borders of the US.
So I think that's a huge issue. And I don't even know if if all the information has been divulged in terms of what is what part of those programs are going to be cut. But can you give us just a little bit of enlightenment of what this means for weather predictions, what this means for climate predictions, all the different centers that you mentioned? What does this mean going forward for the US?
You know, Andrew, if if data flow was cut off between internationally, you know, between nations, it would seriously impact the ability to forecast accurately. I mean, you know, when I when I give talks, I talk about the five day forecast, or the seven day forecast. The seven day forecast today is as accurate as a three day forecast was 25 years ago. And so we're improving in our forecast accuracy. There's a couple reasons for
that. We're having more sophisticated physics based models that are processing more data. We're not using all the data that's being collected yet. There are there are still what's called data assimilation efforts to bring in different types of data, even data from the private sector, if they're launching, you know, satellites and are collecting data and information. But what it requires is a global data set that you're reading into that model in order to sufficiently initialize it.
Right. I mean, I don't know if you've heard the term garbage in garbage out. If you if you are putting in less data or non quality control data because you laid off people that are quality controlling. Yeah, that means more bad data will get into the model. And that means the output is going to be bad and get worse as time goes out. Right. So so that's a that's an issue.
I have heard of some meetings, you know, being delayed or canceled internationally, but I haven't heard of anything related to stopping the data flow and the data sharing when it when it comes to forecasting. Right. Because that would be really impactful. Yeah, not not only not only for the average citizen that wants to make a decision, but I mentioned all those centers from the weather service, the aviation prediction center, right? The Weather Center, Aviation Weather Center.
If you and there are meteorologists at all these FAA locations, which are trying to help, you know, planes navigate safely. There will be a there could be a lot of impact to aviation, maybe more flights canceled, more flights delayed, things like that. They just can't handle the capacity without knowing what weather is in front of them, how long things are
going to last. So it would have it would have a serious snowball effect on not only the impact of people, but impact to the entire population. And the impact to the entire economy around the globe. All the economies around the world would be impacted. Yeah. And, you know, from what I've heard as well as and I can I don't know if this is
true or not. There have been some jobs and programs cut and then they've been reinstated, you know, or they hire back to people because the government realizes that these are some of these programs are vital. Hopefully, hopefully. If it hasn't been cut and it doesn't get cut, people realize how important it is. I mean, we've just discussed how integrated knowing the data that comes in for predicting weather is good for aviation, is good for fishing fleets, is
good for cruise liners. It's good for just, you know, for farmers and anybody who requires any type of natural input to their products or services. It is going to need this data. Like I really don't see the need to cut any of these programs because of how vital it is. Now, one thing you've mentioned a number of times in this episode is the fact that, you know, these these models are so important. Modeling is such an important part of the
weather service. Now, I have been hearing a lot of people talk about how fraudulent these models are, how inaccurate these models are. That seems to be the driving narrative when it comes to whether it be climate models or weather models or anything like that. Obviously, they're not fraudulent. I'm joking here, but this is what we hear and
you've been hearing it too. Everybody's been talking about from government officials like new government officials all the way down to just the the person, the common person on the street, just being like these are frauds. Every time I mentioned, you know, climate change, I did an episode about the cuts to no one talking about the weather service and everybody's saying no one sold out and took money. And NASA did the same thing to continue the climate fraudulent sort of things and
all these fraudulent models. None of them are true. Of course, none of them provide evidence about how untrue they were or how fraudulent they were. But this seems to be the narrative of a lot of people. And I don't think it's shared just by one party or another. I think there's a lot of people who think that these models are fraudulent.
Dave, you've you've discussed this a number of times, not only on this program when you came on with the wonderful Alan Pragler about your book, Megalodons, Mermaids and Climate Change. There is a constant battle of misinformation when it comes to science, especially when it comes to weather, climate change, prediction models and everything like that. How do you combat this? How do you say, no, these aren't fraudulent? How do you prove that they're not?
Well, I think, you know, that's it's always an important conversation to have because, you know, weather and observing and, you know, predicting is very complex, right? It's a it's a high order magnitude of complexity and it's it's not for everybody.
Um, and so what people want to hear is it's going to be sunny in 74 four days out, you know, and the predictability of the atmosphere is is not that accurate when you have to go out 5, 10, 15 days and try to give somebody a what we call a deterministic forecast. And that's what they're saying. They're determining it's going to be 74 with a West wind at 3 miles an hour. And then they remember that. So, so what happens with a lot of folks who, you know, and I've had it too, you know, people say,
what do you do? I'm a meteorologist. I wish I could be right 50% of the time and still get paid. Right? So, you know, I think it's always pops up. Yeah. But by the way, major leaguers make it into the Hall of Fame with less than a 300 batting average. Hey, yeah, that's a good point. I like to make millions and meteorologists don't make millions. That's for sure. Exactly. But when you when you talk about forecasting
and people not believing. Um, if if if they're serious about wanting to understand how models work and, you know, I have the saying that every model works. And that every model is wrong. Right? It's just how much? Yeah. How wrong are they and models the way I grew up and studied and I used to work at a as a when I was a student at University of Maryland, I would work. I had a job at
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. I worked in the global modeling and simulation division where we I assisted scientists and satellite retrievals to see if satellite data could improve models. Right. And and so I think that some people just don't understand that we need those observing systems to go into a model and what models give us is guidance. They give the meteorologists
guidance. Yeah. Right. It's like, okay, it looks like this low is going to move along the south and come up and intensify and we might have, you know, a lot of people are going to be like, you know, six to ten inches of snow because of that and the winds are going to get really strong. The model and there are a lot of models out there. So many so now that they pull them together in what's called an ensemble. Right. An ensemble is a whole bunch of things
coming together, right? Just like a outfit, you know, you've got a whole ensemble together. In modeling, an ensemble might have 50 members which means different models, all with different physics, tweaks, things like that. Yeah. And then they average that out and bring out a new forecast. And so that is, it's hopeful that an ensemble forecast is more accurate than any
individual model. And so when it comes down to people, I think even over the years, thinking that weather forecasting has not gotten any more accurate, it has gotten worse. It's because let's say, for example, let's go back to that question. When the lady called me when I was at NBC in Washington in the 90s and said, you guys are so accurate. What weather she said, do you have scheduled? Yeah, six months from now. Well, first, we don't schedule. No, we can look at climatology and see what it
might be. But what they do is if like, for example, you're on the way to Hawaii and you look at the forecast last week. Yes, you say, oh, it's going to be look at that beautiful wind at two miles an hour coming off. It's going to be 81 degrees. That is awesome. And you don't look at the forecast again until you're coming in for a landing. Right? Right. So that might be seven, 10 days. And so what people tend to do, which you know, it's not a crime. It's right, but natural behavior is
you anchor to that forecast. It's called anchoring. Yeah. And if you have a special event, a wedding next Saturday, oh, you know what to plan. Well, I got a plan what to wear. What's Oh, it looks like 76 and sunny seven days ahead of time. And you don't look at the forecast again because you think that's what it's going to be. Then you get there and it's an easterly wind. It's 52 degrees. There's drizzle. You're like, what the heck? Those forecasters are
never right. My app stinks, you know, and so you have to keep updated on the weather when the forecast, um, you know, gets closer, right? When that special day gets closer, you need to monitor the forecast. Why do you have to do that? Because observations come in that detect certain things happening, maybe 5,000 miles away. Yeah. That might kick off the model and say, Oh, wait a minute,
something's up. This might develop into a low pressure system down, down wind and develop into something that could be significant or impact the forecast. So just one little, little mentioned, there was a professor called named Edward Lorentz, who was at MIT and he wrote a paper called, um, could the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil cause a tornado in Texas? And that paper was all about what's
called chaos theory. Yeah. Can one little disturbance grow and grow and kick off other things that then create something else that leads to a severe weather outbreak? And it's, you know, the basis of modeling really, you know, how can you predict chaos? That's why the forecast is very tough. You know, we're pretty good out to seven days, but these apps, they're all automated. They're using one model. Uh, they're giving numbers to make it
look like they're more accurate. Uh, I have a daughter that tells me, Dad, why is it snowing? My app said it was going to be sunny, you know, and I'd look at it, look at the radar and say, oh, it's just a little flurry moving through. But you know, I guess your app didn't say that, you know, exactly. We, we depend on it so much. Right. Exactly. Right. You're yeah, you're right. It comes to you because it's just so darn convenient to be able to look at something and get an answer.
But it doesn't mean that answer is correct. And so, uh, when you asked about how do you battle that misinformation, um, you just do it by engaging people where they are. We, you know, Ellen Prager and I, we love engaging people when they want to complain about the weather or the ocean atmosphere or whatever. And we say, well, what, you know, what's your beef? Yeah. You know, what's going on? And they say, well, it's just, you know, all this talk about climate change.
It's just not, you know, it doesn't mean anything. It's all made up. So scientists can make a lot of money and we don't make a lot of money. What? I got into is to make a lot of money. How come I'm not making a lot of money here, Dave? What's going on? I know. I know. Maybe, maybe if the currency was, you know, slaps on the back or something, you know, but so, you know, what, what, what we do is we say, well, what, what have you noticed over the years? What's, you know,
what do you do? Oh, I'm a farmer. I'm a lobsterman. I'm a fisherman. Well, have you noticed anything? It's like, yeah, there's no, the fish are all South, you know, or the fish are going further North, you know, and we have to go further and use more fuel to get them. Yeah. Oh, well, why do you think they might be going North? Are they being chased by mean fish, you know, or, um, maybe they're sensitive to temperature. Yeah. You know, and that temperature is
warming. Yeah. And there's a reason that temperature is warming. And so you, you know, you can take them down a path that they're, they're cool with. We're not showing any differential equations. We're not showing any, you know, integrals. We're just saying, look, animals aren't dumb. They're going to go where the food is. And if the temperature changes and their food goes North, they're going to go north. Right. And it's all because the temperature is rising. And it's a very
simple concept. If you break it debt, excuse me, break it down to that. Yeah. That, um, you know, we have, we have not had, um, any dismissive people that we've engaged in conversations with. Um, when we just talk to them about what they do and, and, and what have they done? What are they, what are they saying? And, you know, just, I mean, one, one last one, we were in Florida last week, we gave some talks about our book. Um, one was at the Harbor Branch oceanographic
Institute. Uh, and the other one was the Florida oceanographic society. Uh, they both said they were, they were both record attendance, which was awesome. That was great hearing.
Um, but we were sitting, you know, uh, at the, uh, hotel and there was a guy sitting there and you know, we were just talking to him and he was, he ended up these windsurfs and he windsurfs on those really cool new windsurf boards that raise up, you know, and they're like, look like they're hovering above the ground, but it's a little like, you know, wing underneath. Yeah. So it's very cool. And so, um, you know, he was just talking to us and he was telling us about all
these things. What he's, he's really there to build a house and he's building a house. And he's like, oh, I got all these permits, you know, I'm waiting on and all this stuff. And you're like, Oh, are you building it to withstand any storms or anything like that? And he's like, yeah, you know, I'm just, you know, we're putting in the standard stuff and you know, I'm going to sell it. And you know, I guess make a lot of money and all that stuff. And we didn't, we didn't tell him
a thing about, you know, who we were, what we were doing and all that stuff. We just had a great time. We understood that he wasn't really, um, very knowledgeable about weather or the oceans. And then he finally said, well, what do you guys do? And, um, so we said, well, you know, Ellen's a marine scientist and I'm a meteorologist. Really? You know, and, and so we ended up talking and we said, yeah, we're here to give talks about it. But we wrote a book.
On atmosphere and oceans and climate change and impacts and stuff like that. And, and, you know, after about 45 minutes, he's like, I got a lot of learning to do. You know, he said, I have a lot of learning to do. And he said, I got to tell you guys something. He said, you have all my respect. And I said, I got to tell you guys something. And he said, you have all my respect. He said, you heard me go on and on and on
and on. And you didn't interrupt me once and tell me, no, you're wrong because of this or you're wrong because of that. You just engaged in a conversation. And so he took a picture of the book. And he said, I'm going to get it. I'm going to read it. And, you know, I hope to learn stuff from it. And it's a great marketing plan. Great. It doesn't have to be an argument. You know, I think you're right. And I think that's the the fundamental problem that happens when we start having these
so-called discussions online. Yeah, there, you know, there's this this stereotype that scientists are elitists that scientists think they know more than everybody else. And they're just going to tell you how it is. And to be honest, there is some merit in that in the past, where, you know, scientists would come into a community or they would come into a talk and they would say, this is the way to do it. And I would say, this is how it is. If somebody came up and said, well, I don't
believe it. And then it was like an argument back and forth. And I really like your approach, where you just engage in conversations with people. They are people. And they want to enjoy a good life. We all want to have a good life. We all want to be safe. We want to survive. We want to live as long as possible. We don't want to see our houses flooded. We don't want to see our houses burnt down.
Nobody wants to see that. And I feel like, you know, all this stuff about climate and the climate change and, you know, sea level rise and so forth has become so politicized and the political divide has increased so much that it's become argumentative. And to agree, I've been doing that too. At times you get emotional when you hear a response. You take it personally. You're like, no, like
dummy. This is the way it is. And if you respond that way, you're going to get the same kind of response back in terms of it's going to be aggressive. But if you just kind of have a conversation of like, what do you do? You do for a living? Oh, I want to know how do you notice like anything changed? Just like this story with, you know, like the fishermen like, OK, so have you noticed your lobster being harder to catch or like, what have you found out there?
Because obviously the fishing community has been able to tell more than we've been able to do as scientists because they're out there all the time. The indigenous communities have been able to tell us more about what's been happening to their land over hundreds, if not thousands of years because they've been seeing it. And they are so in tune. With the environment. Yeah, we need as a scientific society, as you know, scientists, scientists to listen more and to engage in conversations instead of
just dictating what it needs to be. And I really like that approach. And then you offer a resource just like your book, the megalodons, mermaids and climate change. Like, offer that resource after and be like, hey, if you if you want to know more, yeah, there you go. It's right there. And if you want to know more, you can you can find out more. There's always resources available. And scientists are always willing to talk as long as it's in a in a in a comfortable situation, a calm situation
and nothing aggressive. Right. Well, and you know, it gets back to our conversation, too, at the beginning of this, where, you know, scientists are not the best communicators. Right. And I remember back in 1995, 96 timeframe when Dan Golden was the administrator of NASA at the time. And he was very big on scientists being able to communicate the work that they're doing so much. So he went to Goddard
Space Flight Center and gave a talk. And he said to the scientists, if you can't describe to me in three minutes what you're doing and why it's important, you're not going to get funded next year. Right. And so, you know, that really whoa, you know, we better learn how to describe what we're doing. A lot of people know it as the elevator speech. Yes. Yes. You've got to give that elevator speech. But it is it's very important. But what what I think is really even more critical for scientists
is to listen. Mm hmm. You know, scientists tend to want to get all of their knowledge and their PhD thesis out, you know, over a restaurant table and or over a drink. And they're not listening to what the person is saying. And they're not gauging, you know, the level of interest and or education of the person that they're talking to. And you should just really have a conversation like you're not that scientist, but just bring in pieces of that science when it's relevant, you
know, when it means something. And and that seems to be, you know, make a big impact. And I think it gets, you know, the conversation gets political. I think many times when you start talking about the causes of climate change, right? What's causing it. And that in itself is still a simple physics problem. You know, it's you know, you could have a closed container and you could put more CO2 into it. And it's going to heat up when the sun hits it. Right. And your little
experiment is going to happen. It's a physics problem. Yeah. So when you do it on the globe, you know, more CO2 in the atmosphere is causing the warmth. Yeah. So that that's that's not that's not a debatable piece of science itself. But then when you get all how do you stop it? How do you, you know, ease it? Can we ease out of it? You know, all the time. That kind of stuff is when, you know,
things start to diverge. Yeah. But we're really all about talking about impacts of a changing climate and how is climate change? Either energizing systems to become more extreme or stacking the dice. So those events happen more frequently. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. You know, flooding in Western North Carolina from Hurricane Helene. Never seen anything like that before in their history of recorded history. Yeah. And they weren't prepared for the damage either. Right. They
weren't prepared for it. And many people said, Oh, you know, we're 26 feet above the water. Look, it's just a stream down there. Why do we have to worry about that? And all of a sudden, the water comes up 30 feet. Yeah. So there's there's a lot of understanding that needs to happen between people who just normally have sunny weather and what extremes could happen. Yeah. And whether they want to accept that level of risk or not. And so really with extreme weather becoming more frequent.
People just have to look at where they live, their neighborhoods and things like that and say, OK, well, let's go through some scenarios of what what could happen. Yeah. I mean, you know, we live in an area where it's really never flooded major flood before. But we bought flood insurance. Yeah. You know, and it's it's cheap and it's going to it's going to cover a lot of property damage if it happens. And I like that idea is just, you know, you can move into an area. How much risk
are you willing to take? You know, are you willing to move into an area that has a potential to be, you know, exposed to wildfires or to flooding, you know, and may or may not have insurance available for it. Or it might be extremely expensive. Are you willing to risk that? If you are, that's your prerogative. You're allowed to do that. So you're right. You can go ahead and do that. Unfortunately, that there's some areas
have higher risk than others. And if you want to believe the models, you want to believe the data, that's up to you. And then you can avoid that. Nobody wants to see anybody get get impacted by this, by this stuff. But it's also, you know, there's there are there's data out there to kind of show where there's less risk. And and that will be through insurance agencies. That will be like in prices.
That'll be through NOAA and and local government actions of looking at floodplains and so forth and to look at what risk you're in. And it's just a matter of keeping it available. Now, one thing that you do, Dave, is you go on YouTube every so often on a regular on a fairly regular basis. And also during times where there are hurricanes or major storms or major wind patterns or major meteorological events. One of those was during the fall. I saw you a number of times, not only on
LinkedIn, but on YouTube. Like I think it was just being put up everywhere where you were discussing how these hurricanes one after one were coming one after the other coming in and what kind of impact it was going to do or what is the predicted where it's going to go, why it shifted and so forth. Providing that data to people who need it or who have it. Yeah. What was the response like to people who watched it or commented that kind of stuff? Yeah, no,
Andrew. That's a thanks for that question because we were we were probably just as surprised as as anybody else to see what the reactions were. And and we have been doing YouTube updates, but more on the private channel side. Right. Right. So just sharing the link and only on the website. Yeah. And that was for the all hazards consortium to help for the movement of fleet utility vehicles across the country to restore power and and things like
that. But then before hurricane Helene formed, we opened up those briefings to the public. And we were I mean, we're not out to get views. We're out to provide a service to the people who wanted those videos. And we had like five hundred and twenty subscribers at that point in time. But when Helene hit and we opened it up to the public, people started seeing those videos. And I don't know if it was the
algorithm or what. But YouTube was recommending the video to people who were searching for weather or the hurricane or things like that. And we went from five hundred and twenty subscribers to seventeen thousand subscribers. Yeah. That's that's unheard of. And it was just incredible. I mean, I'm not one that really dives into YouTube analytics and says, oh, yeah, OK. Well, you know, I
got seven hundred views or whatever. I mean, my daughter called me and said, dad, you know, I'm sitting here watching your subscriptions go from ten thousand to twelve to fifteen to sixteen. And, you know, we had millions of subscribers. And I think that's what we had to do. Because I think how on those hurricane updates. But what was most exciting to us about was that, and I still don't understand the ratio of likes or dislikes or whatever, but the likes are always between 97 and 100
percent. And the comments came in by the thousands. People saying thank you for helping us understand what's happening with the storm, why we need these observing systems like the buoys in the ocean, what the satellites do. People are commenting on the terminator line of the of the of the sun setting and you can see the shadow coming across the world. I've never seen that before. We could see the sunset signs lie like pretty much recorded in for you and you never know what to expect of what
you're going to cover. Yes, yes. And and so what we really did is we took that and we had so many thank yous from people watching in Japan or Australia and saying we have family on the West Coast of Florida. We're telling them to watch this, you know, and it was just was like, okay, that was a wake up moment for us thinking just okay, we're just doing these videos to help all hazards and then putting it out there for other people who
might be interested. Yeah. But but now I mean, you know, you get comments back like this is the best weather channel I've ever seen. Thank you. And we're not doing it every day. No, but we're doing it when you know, things happen. And, you know, we're, we're, you know, hoping to ramp it up to do it more frequently, but we do want to make sure that the video is educational at the same time.
It's useful for people to improve their situational awareness or, you know, to learn why, why am I even able to do these videos, right? We we have video recording technology. We're using some right now to do the podcast. But how in the world can I show you a global satellite image that's updating every 10 minutes? You know, how can I zoom in with geo collaborate and show you what the wave heights are, you know, 50 miles off of Tampa? Yeah, you know, how is that even
possible? And and this is why I think it's so important to explain. Yeah, the technology that's able to make that happen. And to make sure people don't understand that, okay, you might have just watched this sci fi video on Netflix, or this movie about spies and all the data that they seem to have and be able to process, which you can't do that fast right today.
It's all Hollywood. But we can bring this data together for you for a very little bit of investment from the American taxpayer, and help you keep informed of what's going on not only around the country, but around the world. And so, you know, I think with with all the talk of these cuts and, you know, major realignment of the US government.
As long as you do that, understanding what you're cutting, and not just on cutting people for the sake of cutting people, that will go a much further distance with the American people. And also with those people who are benefiting from these technologies. Because, you know, again, if if if we cut out a weather data and the data flow, or you just say no is going to collect the data and then give it to the private sector.
There are different jobs and roles that the government has versus what a private sector company has. The private sector has to make money. So they're going to charge for things. And the government agency is a public good. It's a service. So, you know, a lot of people say, you know, give it over, give it out, give it
out, you know, do all that stuff. But if they just took the time to understand the the significance and the billions of dollars that have gone into the satellite platforms that are operating, takes people sitting at those controls to make sure if something happens, they put it into safe mode, or they keep it operating. Yeah. So it doesn't fall out of the sky or do reentry.
And so I think it's important. Yeah. And that's important. And I think the biggest concern that's going to be the data is that all of this data is has been decades and decades of the weather enterprise working together, listening to each other, and really putting forth great products that both the private sector can make money on. And the government can stand behind. Yeah. And and you know, the biggest concern I have is if the forecast everything goes over to
the private sector. Yeah. All of these issues are going to be covered in water taxi, going across the harbor in Honolulu and a thunderstorm comes and a gust front tips over that water taxi and kills people. To live are you gonna sue me for giving you a forecast that didn't include that thunderstorm? Yeah. I think if if that ultimately is what happens, where the inner weather enterprise goes because of these changes, the public, the the private sector doesn't.
organizations will quickly go out of business because they will not be able to take on that liability and the government has always been protected. Yes. Yeah. And a hundred percent. And obviously they help more people than, than, than the people get harmed. This has been a phenomenal chat, Dave. You know, I knew this was an episode that you and I could talk for so long on because it's, it's such an interesting topic and it's such an important aspect.
And I really want to thank you for, for coming on the, on the show today to start talking about really understanding why this data is so important and why we really can't live without it and what the consequences could be. Uh, if this data starts getting cut, obviously I hope it doesn't, you know, I love what you're doing with storm center. Uh, I'm going to put links, uh, to all the, like, you know, the website, the YouTube channel so people can take a look and
really learn. You're such a good teacher, uh, on, on these, on these episodes. I know I learned stuff all the time when I watch it, I have it on in the background when I'm working and I'm watching, uh, it's, it's really interesting. So, you know, I really
appreciate what you're doing. Um, obviously you and Ellen with the book, uh, and, and I'll put the link so that people can get access to the book as well to learn more about the ocean and the weather and climate and just, you know, more about our planet, such an important role and why we need this type of data. So Dave, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Love to have you back to talk more about weather and climate and, uh, until next time. Thank you so much.
Oh, that'd be great. I mean, I look, my biggest fear is we go back to 1900 with no satellites and we have a land falling hurricane that kills 15 or 20,000 people. Yeah. We don't want to go back there and Andrew, I'd love to come on and talk to you about weather all the time. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Okay. Take care. Thank you, Dave, for joining us on today's episode of the how to
project the ocean podcast. Like I said before, folks, you learn so much when you hear from Dave, he has such a great approach to talking about the ocean. It's magnificent. That's what that's how I'm going to describe. It's magnificent. He and his cohort and partner, Ellen Progger, who have a book called Megalodon's mermaids and climate change. The book is out now answers to your ocean and
atmosphere questions. It's basically tackling misinformation and just general questions that people have on the ocean and the atmosphere. If you want to learn more about those things, you buy this book. I'm going to put a link to the show notes. I highly recommend it. It's just a great book. Non-politicized, just about the science. You get to have fun learning about our planet, learning about its environment, and learning how we can predict the weather and the climate as well as ocean
patterns. It's always fun to be there. And Dave is such an interesting science communicator. He's so engaging. He's got such a, you know, an emotional tie to his voice. It's always positive and uplifting. I really enjoy it. And if you want to check them out on YouTube, I'll put the links in the show notes. But if you have any questions or comments about the episode, you can get a hold of me by DMING me on Instagram at how to protect the ocean. That's at how
to protect the ocean. Don't forget to subscribe to this YouTube channel as well as hit that notification bell. So you get information about the ocean, marine biology, animals, Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays every week. I can't wait to provide that for you. But that's it for today's episode. Really appreciate Dave coming on the podcast. We'll definitely have him back to you soon. Talk more about the weather and more
about data and how important it is. But I want to thank you for joining us on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew from the true North strong and free. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.