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Layoffs last week at NOAAs Office of Aircraft Operations, home of the NOAA Hurricane Hunters, threaten to reduce the quality of data critical for hurricane monitoring, prediction, and warning. On February 28, NOAA terminated two flight directors and one electronic engineer. Hurricane Hunters fly into active storms to collect data used for weather forecasts. One might think that the firing of just three crew members in an organization that employs nearly 100 of them wouldn’t be a big deal. But it so happened that two of the probationary employees who had been on the job for less than two years were flight directors, the job I held from 1986 to 1990. This is particularly problematic since every Hurricane Hunter mission is required to carry a flight directora meteorologist who’s charged with ensuring the safety of the mission from a meteorological perspective. Ride through the eyewall of Hurricane #Helene aboard @NOAA WP-3D Orion #NOAA42 "Kermit" during our evening mission on Sept. 26, 2024. This mission gathered crucial data of a large hurricane intensifying before landfall. Find NOAA resources on continuing impacts and post storm pic.twitter.com/qv0QxLzjp2— NOAA Aircraft Operations Center (@NOAA_HurrHunter) September 27, 2024 In order to keep all three NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft operating 24/7 during a significant hurricane, NOAA has in the past had eight crews, and thus eight flight directors. With the loss of two flight directors, NOAA is down to just six of these key crew members. This will barely be enough to keep the planes in the air for the twice-daily flights that occur during a significant hurricane threat. And as explained in an interview with NBC by Kerri Englert, one of the fired flight directors, NOAA had aimed to have 10 flight director positions filled. But after she and another flight director were terminated, that left just six. Now, she said, if one flight director is sick, there will be fewer Hurricane Hunter flights. And we shouldnt be surprised if further staff depletions occur before hurricane season. I know that if I still had my old job as a flight director for NOAAs Hurricane Hunters, worries about my job security would have me looking hard for new employment. Indiscriminately firing skilled workers is bad in private business. Add the threat to public safety caused by haphazard and indiscriminate layoffs, and the government actions are impossible to justify by any rational, performance-based standard, hurricane expert Bryan Norcross wrote this week. MY OPINION: There was a plan to dismember and partially privatize NOAA and the National Weather Service in 1995. It was a bad idea then, and weakening those critical public-safety agencies is a worse idea now. More at bit.ly/4ioxHqu— Bryan Norcross (@bnorcross.bsky.social) 2025-03-03T14:22:43.775Z The value of the NOAA Hurricane Hunters The Air Force, which maintains a fleet of 10 Hurricane Hunter aircraft, has not been affected by budget cuts. Thus, the loss of a NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft because of short staffing will not greatly reduce the overall quantity of flights undertaken. However, it will significantly reduce the quality of the data collected, potentially negatively impacting hurricane forecasts. The NOAA aircraft include two heavy-duty P-3 Orions that penetrate into the eye of a hurricane and one high-altitude Gulfstream IV jet that collects data around the periphery. All of the Hurricane Hunter aircraftboth Air Force and NOAAfeed data into the computer models used to forecast hurricanes. This includes data from instruments mounted on the aircraft as well as dropsonde data from probes launched from the aircraft that fall on parachutes through the storm. But only NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft carry Doppler radars, which capture a detailed 3D picture of the entire storm every few seconds. Figure 1. Summary of operations by the NOAA Hurricane Hunters and NOAA Hurricane Research Division in 2024 (Image credit: NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory ) Data from these Doppler radars are fed into three of our top hurricane models: the newer HAFS-A and HAFS-B and the older HWRF. The two newer models made the best intensity forecasts of any of the models for two of the most damaging hurricanes of 2024, Milton and Beryl, and also did very well for Helene. In many cases, the HAFS-A and HAFS-B forecasts were far superior to the official intensity forecasts from the National Hurricane Center. Without data from the NOAA Hurricane Hunters, it is dubious that these models would have performed as welland the National Hurricane Center official forecasts would likely have been less accurate. A 2024 study found that assimilation of the data from the NOAA Hurricane Hunters from 2007 to 2022 into one of the top hurricane intensity models, the HWRF, helped reduce its intensity forecast errors by 45%50%. Bumpy ride into Hurricane #Milton on @NOAA WP-3D Orion #NOAA43 "Miss Piggy" to collect data to help improve the forecast and support hurricane research.Visit https://t.co/3phpgKNx0q for the latest forecasts and advisoriesVisit https://t.co/UoRa967zK0 for information that you pic.twitter.com/ezmXu2Zqta— NOAA Aircraft Operations Center (@NOAA_HurrHunter) October 8, 2024 National Hurricane Center losing two staff members According to conversations Ive had with knowledgeable people, the National Hurricane Center, or NHC, did not have any probationary employees fired in last weeks purge. However, NHC is losing one tropical analysis and forecasting branch forecaster and one technology and science branch IT person to the fork in the road offer. With a staff of just 76, staffing will be a bit tight at NHC for the immediate future, I was told. It appears that NHC will have a full complement of the hurricane specialists that write the hurricane advisories this year (though NOAA is being threatened with further mass layoffssee end of article). Excellent NEW analysis from my colleague Noah Fritzhand on the national security benefits of NOAA:councilonstrategicrisks.org/2025/03/05/n…— Erin Sikorsky (@erinsikorsky.bsky.social) 2025-03-05T16:06:28.110Z NOAA Hurricane Hunters are key to advancements in hurricane research The three NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft are world-class flying laboratories that carry research scientists from NOAAs Hurricane Research Division into storms. Research performed by these aircraft has been critical in the huge advancements that have been credited with astonishing increases in forecasting that have generated billions in savings in recent years. The National Hurricane Center set an all-time record for forecast accuracy in 2024. A 2024 study by the nonprofit, nonpartisan National Bureau of Economic Research, The Social Value of Hurricane Forecasts, found that recent advancements in hurricane forecasting for 18 continental U.S. landfalling hurricanes from 2005 to 2020 (including all 9 major landfalls and 9 of the 20 additional Cat 1 and Cat 2 landfalls) led to a 19% reduction in total hurricane-related costsan average cost reduction of $5 billion per hurricane. The benefits came either by decreasing deaths and damages or by inspiring confidence in decisions not to spend money on pre-storm adaptation measures. The average benefit of $5 billion per major hurricane is on par with the entire 2024 NOAA budget of $6.8 billion and far in excess of the cumulative $250 million spent over the period of 2009 to 2019 on hurricane research. And these benefits were likely considerably underestimated, the researchers said, since they only looked at the value of improved wind speed forecasts and did not study improved rainfall and storm surge forecasts. Banger of a quote from Chris Bretherton…"… No amount of clever technology can cover the gap that is forming. Artificial intelligence, he says, cannot compensate for a lack of human intelligence.…"www.science.org/content/arti…— Tim Andrews (@tim-andrews.bsky.social) 2025-03-05T09:39:45.432Z Significant cuts to hurricane research Significant cuts to NOAAs hurricane research efforts have also occurred, though the full scope is unclear. NPR reports that six hurricane researchers were fired at NOAAs hurricane research lab in Miami, including Andy Hazelton, one of the key developers of NOAAs top hurricane forecasting models. In an interview with local10.com, which has a copy of his termination letter, Hazelton said, I got a performance review recently that said I was doing a good job. I won NOAA awards for team member of the year. Our big mission is to protect lives and property. All the weather data that you use, whether it is an app on your phone or what you see on TV, a lot of that comes from the National Weather Service and NOAA the satellites, the radars, the modeling. When you see the spaghetti lines on TV, that is what I do. I am the brains behind the computer that makes that spaghetti line. In an interview with The Washington Post, Rick Spinrad, a former administrator of NOAA, said that NOAAs Environmental Modeling Center had suffered a 25% staff cut. This group is responsible for the computer forecast models that form the bedrock of U.S. weather forecasting, including hurricane prediction. In an interview with NPR, James Franklin, a retired head of NHCs Hurricane Forecast Unit, said staffing cuts have gutted the modeling center to the point where he wonders if work there to improve the hurricane models will come to a halt. The National Weather Service has a higher favorability rating than Taylor Swift.The NWS as a whoe lost about 10% of its staff last week, but those cuts werent made with regard to geography or the population each office serves.My latest for @fastcompany.com:www.fastcompany.com/91291167/ins…— Eric Holthaus (@ericholthaus.com) 2025-03-05T19:28:20.510Z NOAA threatened with further cuts NOAA has already laid off between 5% and 10% of its staff and has plans to lay off around 50% of its total staff and lose 30% of its funding, according to Andrew Rosenberg, a former deputy director at NOAA and co-editor of the SciLight newsletter. Should they materialize, such cuts would significantly increase the current and future risks from hurricanes. That could prove dangerous in an era of accelerating climate change impacts from stronger hurricanes with higher winds, more destructive storm surges from sea level rise, and heavier rains from a warmer ocean and atmosphere. The administrations Project 2025 plan calls for NOAA to be broken up, most of its climate change research ended, and the National Weather Service to be commercialized. What people are doing Contacting elected officials. This website makes it easy to learn who your representatives are and how to contact them. Attending Stand up for science protests being held nationwide. SPEAKER LINEUP FOR STAND UP FOR SCIENCE Here's our list of current speakersand it's still growing! Come tomorrow to hear some amazing speakers talk about science, their experiences, and the future. #standupforscience2025— Stand Up for Science 2025 – DC and Nationwide! (@standupforscience.bsky.social) 2025-03-06T13:07:17.078Z As surely as if bombs are being dropped on our cities, we are trashing our economy by trashing science: "Estimates of the value of weather and climate information to the U.S. economy exceed $100 billion annually, roughly 10x the investment made by U.S. taxpayers." www.ametsoc.org/ams/about-am…— Dr. Jeff Masters (@drjeffmasters.bsky.social) 2025-03-03T16:33:53.953Z By Jeff Masters Bob Henson contributed to this post. This article first appeared on Yale Climate Connections and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Green tears were flowing when Lencia Kebede made history this week on Broadway, becoming the first Black actor to assume the role of Elphaba full time in the Broadway company of Wicked. Its hard to even pinpoint a single emotion because I feel that it changes like every five minutes, she told The Associated Press, still buzzing a day after her debut. I woke up and I still sort of felt in the world of Oz. Kebede, a first-generation Ethiopian American from Los Angeles, spent five years touring with Hamilton, most recently in the role of Angelica Schuyler. Stepping into Wicked on Tuesday marked her Broadway debut. Defying Gravity Kebede had already gone through an emotional wringer by the time the curtain finally came down. She sings the Act 1 showstopper Defying Gravity, shooting into the air and the power of the moment ripped through her. When the lights went off at the end of the song, I started sobbing. Not like just a gentle tear. Viscerally, I had to release, she says. “I really felt like I was flying, is the simplest way to put it. I felt like Im doing it myself, though my own power my vocal power, my emotional power, the power of all of my African ancestors.” If Im flying solo/At least Im flying free/To those who ground me, take a message back from me/Tell them how I am defying gravity, she sang. Everyone deserves a chance to fly, says Kebede. I’m projecting this message that no matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, you deserve liberation and you deserve empowerment in the way that the character feels in that moment. It just feels like Im taking the entire audience in my arms. Thank goodness it was intermission. I needed to regroup, she says, laughing. “My makeup artist was like, Just let it out, just cry, and then we can clean it up. Who was watching Kebede’s “Wicked” debut? In the audience were some 60 family and friends mom and her aunts and uncles, her many cousins, her boyfriend, pals from other shows, her agent and casting directors, even her college choir director. My whole family was in the audience just everyone who Ive ever loved, with everyone who has loved me and supported me through my life is just like under me, lifting me and holding me, she says. It was just so important to me to have people there that I could share this moment with, so I could say to their faces, I couldnt be here without a piece of your heart that you gave me.’ A sisterhood of Elphabas The popularity of the Cynthia Erivo-led movie hasn’t dampened the appetite for the Broadway version, which opened in 2003 with songs by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Winnie Holzman. Over Christmas, it took in a staggering $5 million over nine performances, marking the highest weekly gross in history for any Broadway show. Kebede joins a sisterhood of green-clad Black women who have played Elphaba, a list that includes Saycon Sengbloh and Lilli Cooper, both Broadway standbys; Brandi Chavonne Massey, a Broadway understudy; and Alexia Khadime, a full-time West End Elphaba. Others who have played the role over the years include Shoshana Bean, Stephanie J. Block, Jessica Vosk, Eden Espinosa, Ana Gasteyer and, of course, Idina Menzel, who won a Tony Award in the role in 2004. A career takes a turn Kebede graduated from Occidental College in 2016 with a double major of diplomacy & world affairs and politics, intending on a career in law or public policy. By her senior year, she had an itch she needed to scratch. I just had this creative craving in terms of storytelling in the theatrical way that I was missing, she says. So I sat my mother down and I was like, Look, I think I need just a couple years to explore this creative endeavor. Her first professional job was a production of Memphis at Musical Theatre West and then a stint at Tokyo Disney and touring in Rent. In addition to years on the road with Hamilton, Kebede also sang backup for Beyoncé during her Coachella rehearsals. The rigorous nature of touring, I think, prepared me immensely for this, she says. I do feel very equipped physically, vocally, emotionally. I feel like I know how to take care of my body and my mind, how I need to cool down emotionally after such an intense experience for three hours. A magical night On debut night, Kebede tried to keep a set of mental screenshots, a reel of faces and feelings. As she turned to get backstage, she was feeling the love. My grandmother and my father passed when I was in high school and I just took a moment to connect with my angels, she says. It was, oh God, it was electric. Family came backstage after the show for photos and a tour, she was toasted at a nearby bar by friends, she finally ate something and then got home to try to sleep. My battery was dead. I mean, I couldnt even move. I couldnt move my face. I was just drinking my tea, playing calming jazz. I had to just turn it off, she says. And then she had to do it all over again the next night. Mark Kennedy, AP entertainment writer
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President Donald Trumps declaration of a national energy emergency on his first day in officeand which he reiterated during his address to Congress on March 4, 2025might have seemed to echo other national emergencies, like those presidents declared in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. But there has never before been a national energy emergency. During the energy crises of the 1970s, President Jimmy Carter declared local or regional energy emergencies in a handful of states. These actions suspended some environmental regulations, such as air-pollution limits for coal-fired power plants, for very short periods to make sure those states residents had enough electricity. When a president declares a national emergency, he claims significant powers under the National Emergencies Act, which allow him to take steps to solve the emergency. In this situation, Trump might seek to override environmental regulations, order utility companies to buy power from particular power plants, or invoke the Defense Production Act to secure materials needed for power plant construction. Six weeks into his presidency, Trump had not taken any action to address this emergency, though during his speech to Congress he said he wants to increase drilling and build a new natural gas pipeline in Alaska. And Trumps discussion of energy policy has not directly referred to the consumer price hikes expected as a result of the 10% tariffs he imposed on Canadian oil, gas and electricity starting on March 4, 2025. Critics of the presidents declaration have described it as a giveaway to the fossil fuel industry in the form of looser regulations and measures to make it easier to drill for oil on government-owned land. In fact, the executive orders definition of energy excludes energy generated from wind and solar, as well as efforts to conserve energyall of which were major parts of the Biden administrations energy strategy. As someone who has studied energy markets for decades, I have seen several events that might qualify as energy-related emergencies, such as meltdowns at nuclear power plants around the world, shortages of electricity and natural gas, and massive power blackouts. But over the past 15 years, the United States has become a global energy superpower even without any emergency declarations. The advent of hydraulic fracturing unleashed a wave of oil and gas production, even as U.S. energy demand barely budged. In a time of such energy abundance, there is no clear emergency on the scale of the energy crises of the 1970s. But there are some causes for concern. Big increases in domestic production One goal Trumps declaration sets out is to increase what the executive order calls the nations energy security. Usually that phrase refers to an ability to operate using energy produced within the U.S. rather than overseasparticularly from countries that have long-standing conflicts or disagreements with the U.S. Based on raw numbers, however, the U.S. is already quite energy secure. In 2023, the nation produced nearly 13 million barrels of oil per day, which is more than any country has ever produced in the history of the oil business. Since 2015, when a federal ban on oil exports was lifted, the U.S. has been increasing the amount of oil it exports every year. And for the past several years, the U.S. has been the worlds leading exporter of gasoline, sending 10% of its total annual production to other countries. Since the start of the shale-fracking boom in the mid-2000s, U.S. production of natural gas has also been increasing. The countrys natural gas exports have also risen over the past 10 years, though they have been limited by the number of ports that can handle liquefied natural gas cargo. Still a net importer of oil The U.S. produces plenty of oil to meet its demands, but not the kinds of oil that American refineries are designed to process into useful fuels. Therefore, despite the increases in domestic production, the U.S. is still a net importer of crude oil. In 2023, the U.S. imported almost twice as much oil as it exported. And U.S. refineries output of gasoline and heating oil depends on imported oil. Most oil refineries in the U.S. are quite old and were engineered to process heavy crude oil produced in countries such as Canada, which is historically the U.S.s biggest source of imported oil. Most of the recent increase in U.S. oil production comes from hydraulic fracturing of shale andis so-called light crude oil. Refining light crude would require new refineries or a major reengineering of existing refineries, with new equipment, expanded capacity, or both. Making those changes would be very expensive. So refinery owners are hesitant to make these kinds of investments because there is a risk that the investments wont pay off. Because U.S. refineries produce so much gasoline and have limited capacity, the U.S. also continues to import some refined petroleum fuels such as jet fuel. A fragile power grid Concern over the nations aging electric power grid is another focus of Trumps energy emergency declaration. Experts have been issuing warnings for years. A 2024 study on the national transmission grid commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy has concluded the U.S. needs to double the size of the grid in the next couple of decades. For the first time in nearly half a century, the U.S. is facing the prospect of rapidly increasing electricity demand. The demand for power has always gone up and down a bit with population and the health of the economy, but this time is different. Growth in electricity demand is now driven by the construction of massive data centers and by electrification of cars and heating and cooling systems. The DOE reports that data center electricity use in particular has tripled in the past 10 years and could easily double in the next few years. At that rate, data centers could account for more than 10% of all electricity demand in the country before 2030. The U.S. supply of power generation in many regions is not ready for this surge in demand. Many power plantsparticularly the older ones and those that burn coalhave shut down in the past several years, driven by a combination of economic pressures and environmental regulations. Building new power plants in many parts of the U.S. has become bogged down in regulatory red tape, public opposition, and economic uncertainty. The North American Electric Reliability Corp., which develops standards for grid reliability, has placed over half of U.S. states at some level of risk for not having enough power generation to meet anticipated future demand. Will declaring an emergency help? Under Trumps energy emergency declaration, the administration seems likely to take actions that will make it easier to drill for more oil and gas. And the federal government may also make it easier to build power plants that run on coal, natural gas, and possibly nuclear fuel. But expanded fracking, in and of itself, will probably not address any energy security issues in the U.S., unless there are major investments in refineries to handle the increased oil production. Reducing the barriers to building power plants addresses a much more pressing problem, but the country would still need to expand the transmission grid itself, which does not get as much attention in the presidents declaration. Time will tell whether the energy emergency declaration will be used to solve real problems in the nations energy supplies, or whether it will be used to further bolster oil and gas producers that have already made the U.S. a global energy powerhouse. Seth Blumsack is a professor of energy and environmental economics and international affairs at Penn State. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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