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, 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.