5G Wireless Could Interfere with Weather Forecasts

Federal agencies are competing with one another over radio waves used to help predict changes in the climate as the sky is increasingly cluttered with noise from billions of smartphones.

On one side are NOAA and NASA. They have developed space satellites that passively capture and decode the faint energy signals given off by changes in water vapor, temperatures, rain and wind that determine future weather patterns.

They are supported by weather and earth scientists who say the signals are threatened by 5G, the emerging “fifth generation” of wireless communication devices that could create enough electronic noise on radio spectrums to reduce forecasting skills and distort computer models needed to predict the progress of climate change.

On the other side are wireless communication companies, smartphone manufacturers and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates the use of the radio frequency spectrum. The FCC has begun a series of moves to allow companies to “share” spectrums used by federal science-related agencies to accommodate the rapid growth of 5G.

The FCC has been supporting 5G since 2016 when its former chairman, Tom Wheeler, initiated a policy he called “Spectrum Frontiers” to push the growth of 5G. “In a 5G world, the internet of everything will be fully realized,” he asserted. “Everything that can be connected will be connected.”

Creating more room for billions of smartphones and other 5G devices is “damn important,” he told reporters, “because it means U.S. companies will be first out of the gate.“

In 2019, the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology raised questions about two studies prepared by NOAA and NASA that predicted the FCC’s rush to auction off space within radio frequencies would disrupt weather data needed for forecasts. Ajit Pai, the chairman of the FCC at the time, responded that there was no evidence of potential interference and proceeded with an auction.