With all the money we’ve spent on technology, it’s still the human eye that’s needed for our ships to navigate polar waters.
When it comes to predicting fluctuations in Arctic weather, the United States is “operating in the blind,” the U.S. Navy’s chief meteorologist said Monday.
The northern polar region is heating up about twice as fast as the rest of the globe, creating wildly variable weather and conditions that don’t happen anywhere else. As climate change makes the Arctic more accessible, the Navy’s ships, subs, and aircraft need better weather models to help them operate in the region’s chaotic seas, Rear Adm. John Okon told an audience at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space conference on Monday.
Okon said relatively small atmospheric events in the Arctic, sometimes called polar lows, can be as dangerous as hurricanes at lower latitudes. They “develop quick and move really fast,” he said.
And the Soviets are expanding their bases along their northern borders. They already have a huge advantage as they’ve been in those waters throughout their entire history.
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