[Satellite TODAY 05-31-13] Jon Kirchner, president and chief operating officer of GeoOptics, a satellite-based environmental data services company, addressed the U.S. Congress on how to change the way the government acquires essential data for severe and day-to-day weather forecasting.

 

     In his testimony delivered May 23 before the Subcommittee on Environment of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, Kirchner suggested ways of improving weather forecasting by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other U.S. agencies, and commented on a draft bill entitled The Weather Forecasting Improvement Act of 2013. 

 

     The proposed legislation would direct NOAA to prioritize and redirect its resources to a focused program of investing in near-term, affordable, and attainable advances in observational data, computing, and modeling capabilities. The program would deliver substantial improvement in the prediction of high-impact, severe weather events.