Communications of the ACM
5G Networks Could Throw Weather Forecasting Into Chaos
U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials are concerned that 5G wireless phones could interfere with weather forecasts.
Credit: NOAA/Lockheed Martin
U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) officials are concerned that 5G wireless phones could interfere with weather forecasts, reducing their accuracy as much as 30%.
The American Meteorological Society's Jordan Gerth said water vapor discharges a faint atmospheric signal at 23.8 gigahertz (GHz), which is very close to the 24-GHz frequency band that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been auctioning to 5G carriers.
Satellites including NOAA's GOES-R monitor this frequency, gathering data fed to prediction simulations for incipient storms and weather systems.
Gerth suggested wireless carriers could reduce 5G cellphone transmitters' power emissions so they will not mask the satellite's sensors.
NOAA's Neil Jacobs warned a House committee that future 5G frequency-band auctions proposed by the FCC would cause a 77% loss of data from the NOAA satellite's passive microwave sounders.
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