Working Together For Better Forecasts

摘要

The GeoOptics Inc. team greatly appreciates the interest of Dr. Cliff Mass in the status and future of GeoOptics Inc. as indicated in his recent SpaceNews op-ed ["Private-sector Provision of Radio Occultation Data," Commentary, Dec. 1, 2014, page 19]. However, clarifications are needed to ensure an accurate picture. Very importantly, GeoOptics has never lobbied against COSMIC-2; indeed, we celebrate the world stature of COSMIC and COSMIC-2 to establish beyond a doubt the criticality of radio occultation in precision weather forecasting. Our oft-stated objective is to augment near-term declines in available radio occultation data from the end-of-life of COSMIC-1 and enhance COSMIC-2 with the additional tens of thousands of daily profiles to reach the "at least 50,000 radio occultation observations globally" that our community eagerly seeks.