Op-Ed: Thinking of privatizing NOAA? Think again

Credit: NOAA

By Dr. Roberta Weisbrod, Executive Director of the Worldwide Ferry Safety Association

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), encompassing the National Weather Service, the National Ocean Service, fisheries, and weather satellites, provides critically important information to shipping businesses, the military, and ordinary citizens. NOAA is the world leader in weather information; its strength depends on its network with weather agencies across the world, who share data freely, and then analyzing that data to produce information on upcoming extreme events, as well as day to day weather.

All commercial weather information companies rely on the basic information that NOAA provides. They add their own sources and then perform targeted analyses for their customers.

Could/should NOAA be privatized?  In my estimate, it would take about three years to purchase equipment and a lot more than five years to train personnel for a private sector national weather business. But this would be far less effective and useful, because the new staff wouldn’t have acquired the expertise and experience of NOAA professionals and the trusted relationships NOAA has developed over decades.  No private business would be able to interact with government meteorological services from other nations, obtain and share data and approaches in order to continuously improve the weather understanding enterprise. 

The criticality of having a robust public agency is related to time and space. Weather systems have not only become more severe in the last two decades, but these systems, all exhibiting new patterns of activity, are moving far more rapidly than in the past. Since weather doesn’t confine itself to our continent and our nation’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone, being able to freely exchange information with other nations is crucial to making useful valid predictions.

It is clear that to replicate a similar organization by a private sector company would be expensive and take a lot of time and attention to detail; the result would be a private sector enterprise that would have to pay other nations for their data (if they could buy it) and would have to charge the public and all private sector customers for their services.

Could we blithely “artificial intelligence” (AI) our way out of having actual people in NOAA? No. As someone who has employed AI to somewhat positive effect, it is clear to me that using the AI tool effectively depends on having good quality information to work on, constantly vetted, guided and directed by value-based humans.

Another danger of privatizing is the risk of off-shore ownership. A related danger is the fact that weather information is important to national security and success in warfare. Wars at sea are often won or lost because of sudden hazardous weather, not just the Spanish Armada. According to a recent Bloomberg news article, China clearly recognizes the importance of accurate weather data and expert interpretation as critical to national security and success in warfare. And of course, the US military understands this. At last month’s Naval Institute West 2025 conference, US Navy officials spoke of how weather information is critical to mission success in warfare, with their innovative research building on the solid foundation of NOAA data.

From the maritime industry standpoint: “Certainly, operations and departments can be improved, but by eliminating NOAA we are throwing the baby out with the bathwater to the detriment of our nation,” stated Carleen Lyden Walker, Chief Evolution Officer of SHIPPINGInsight. “Mother Nature knows no borders, and we have to keep our government agencies’ systems of communicating with other nations to be effective.”

So, if we value our strength in business and the military, maintain a robust public sector NOAA.

Dr.Roberta Weisbrod is the Executive Director of the Worldwide Ferry Safety Association (WFSA). As such she convened the Maritime Safety and Weather Technology conference in Surabaya. WFSA neither receives nor has received financial support from U.S. government agencies. Prior to working with WFSA, Weisbrod was a consultant on port and maritime transport issues and before that she worked with the NYC Economic Development Corporation.