The quality of U.S. weather forecasts could be improved by artificial intelligence and better use of data collected by private companies, NOAA’s former acting administrator told a House Science, Space and Technology panel Wednesday.
“I think there’s a tremendous opportunity for AI all across numerical weather prediction, even down to potentially replicating the entire modeling system,” said Neil Jacobs, who led the agency for two years under former President Donald Trump.
Testifying before the Subcommittee on Environment, Jacobs also called the U.S. commercial weather data industry “hugely beneficial.”
“It’s really, really valuable,” said Jacobs, who left NOAA in 2021. “There’s more out there that can be acquired — a lot of these companies are producing data at a rate faster than NOAA can acquire it.”
