The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) cannot reveal weather forecasts from a particularly accurate hurricane prediction model to the public that pays for the American government agency – because of a deal with a private insurance risk firm.
The model at issue is called the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program (HFIP) Corrected Consensus Approach (HCCA). In 2023, it was deemed in a National Hurricane Center (NHC) report [PDF] to be one of the two “best performers,” the other being a model called IVCN (Intensity Variable Consensus).
2020 contract between NOAA and RenaissanceRe Risk Sciences, disclosed in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by The Washington Post, requires NOAA to keep HCCA forecasts – which incorporate a proprietary technique from RenaissanceRe – secret for five years.
This doesn’t sound so bad from the government’s perspective…
RenaissanceRe developed a piece of technology that the government wanted to use (for free) in their own hurricane model. The only way RenaissanceRe would allow this is if the government kept the models private for 5 years.
The government’s use of this data would help it to respond and prepare local governments for hurricanes. Keeping the data private for 5 years is the only way of getting it, so this is better than not having the data.
Maybe it’s a little shitty on RenaissanceRe‘s part, but it’s no different than healthcare companies keeping patents for a number of years knowing that their medicines could save lives if it were cheaper and more available.
Edit: Washington Post source
From the original Washington post story
The agreement signed in 2020 by NOAA and the company enabled the agency to collaborate with the firm but does not allow the government to provide compensation. It states HCCA forecasts are “trade secrets and confidential information” that “shall not be publicly disclosed or disseminated” for a period of five years from the effective date of the agreement. The terms of the agreement were released to The Washington Post in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
Well I can’t say how it works with software since my experience is only with hardware, but that’s not the way the government usually receives a product.
Usually the government puts out a Request for Proposal (RFP). Companies will respond with a proposal and the government chooses one. The product is developed and ultimately delivered to the government for it to use as it sees fit. If new technology is created during the development, the company providing the product can usually patent that technology.
It’s possible other models for this exist, but I’m not aware of any product the defense contractor I worked for ever telling the government how or where to use a product. On the other hand, I’m not aware of the government ever wanting to expose that knowledge either. Usually it’s the other way around. So it would be a non-issue.
But to me it makes no sense that the RESULTS of the model can’t be shared. The real important stuff is HOW the model works. I admit I did not read the article, only the piece at the bottom. Please disregard if this is based on false information.
In what you’re describing, the government pays for the software, then uses the software as they see fit. Probably includes service contracts that last for a year or so past dev completion.
Well, according to the Washington Post article, the government did not provide compensation for this. It seemed to me like this company developed this on its own and is allowing the government to use it to help people, but just wants 5 years of profiting off this before it goes public and is used by other private for profit weather companies.
Again, I’m not saying this is great, but the amount of rage in the comment section does not match what is actually happening.
All I said was that it was not the normal way. I’m not paying judgement either way.
Sure John is shooting people to death but it’s no different than Jack stabbing people to death. Makes you think 🤔
Can we please stop with the privitization? It’s absolutely not been working out very well for the people.
But it makes so much money for corporations! Tax payer money is used for research and everything else that costs money, then we get a private company to just ‘commercialise’ it! Tax payers take on all the risk and investment, profits go straight to shareholders.
This is actually the opposite of privatization. The government is using private technology that they will be able to make public in 5 years.
they will be able to make public in 5 years.
That’s a bit late for a weather forecast.
Well they are taking something owned by a foreign company - i.e. owned by people who are not Americans - and creating a system that will help Americans.
I wish NOAA or NASA invented it, then we would have it now. But, in this case, private investment happened to be fastest.
Wishing is not much of a plan.
The actual alternative available to the US Government that would have prevented this angry response would have been to not even try to adapt this private technology.
Would that have been better?
A deal penned under the Trump administration because of course it was. Government sold to the highest bidder.
This may well cost people their lives
They can’t reveal the model itself for 5 years but can obviously give the resulting forecast from it, so I don’t really see the big deal here. It’d be nice if it was freely available, but it’s not like the average person can use it without lots of knowledge and scientific equipment of their own and 5 years isn’t very long.
The US is effectively a corporation. We The People have lost control. The question is what we do about it.
We’re in direct control of the people with the most money. The government has lost all control. If it were a corporation, it would have control.
