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4 weeks ago
Climate|In a Reversal, Key Hurricane-Monitoring Data Will Stay Online
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/climate/hurricane-monitoring-data-defense-department.html
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The Department of Defense said it no longer planned to shut down a program that makes satellite data publicly available to researchers and forecasters.
July 30, 2025, 12:04 p.m. ET
The Department of Defense has said it will cancel plans to discontinue a program that makes public satellite data that is crucial for hurricane forecasting and sea ice monitoring.
The decision, confirmed by the department on Tuesday in an email to The New York Times, is the latest about-face in the agency’s plans for the data.
The National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, which hosts the data, shocked scientists by announcing in June that it would stop providing the information at the end of that month, citing “significant cybersecurity risk.” A week later, the agency offered a temporary extension, saying that the data would remain available until July 31, which is just before the usual peak of hurricane season.
Now, two days before the latest end-of-month deadline, the agency has decided to keep the program running indefinitely. According to a Navy spokesperson who declined to be identified, it will remain available until the sensors stop working or until the program formally ends in September 2026.
“The center had planned to phase out the data as part of a Defense Department modernization effort,” the spokesperson said. “But after feedback from government partners, officials found a way to meet modernization goals while keeping the data flowing.”
The Navy declined to specify which government partners had provided feedback, or what concerns they had expressed. NOAA did not respond to a request for comment.
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