After Ten Days Of Panicky Hype The Weather Balloon Nonsense Is Finally Buried

Author : Moon of Alabama | Editor : Anty | February 22, 2023 at 10:25 AM

Since February 4 I have dismissed the 'Chinese weather balloon' panic:

The paranoid style applies to internal U.S. politics as well as to foreign policies against this or that favorite enemy of that time.

It makes the story below, which otherwise is just laughable, somewhat dangerous.

Furor Over Chinese Spy Balloon Leads to a Diplomatic Crisis
The Pentagon called the object, which has flown from Montana to Kansas, an “intelligence gathering” balloon. Beijing said it was used mainly for weather research and had strayed off course.

As some 80+% of all Pentagon intelligence comes from open sources the 'intelligence gathering' statement may well include a weather research system. Weather research and weather prediction are important for all kinds of military operations. But they are also important for many civil operations from agriculture, food availability prediction to drainage planning in cities.

I pointed out that this was by far not the first Chinese weather balloon that drifted in unexpected directions. That is normal. The winds at the level where such balloons fly are very strong. There is no real way to control their flight path.

It soon became obvious that the balloon which was drifting over Alaska only crossed into the lower United States because a strong low pressure area over west Canada pushed it southward. Still, the media kept hyping the issue until the air force took the balloon down. Things got even worse when the air force in the aftermath started to shot down harmless small research balloons.

Only now is the whole hype dying down helped by sudden explanations of the obvious.

U.S. tracked China spy balloon from launch on Hainan Island along unusual path - Washington Post

By the time a Chinese spy balloon crossed into American airspace late last month, U.S. military and intelligence agencies had been tracking it for nearly a week, watching as it lifted off from its home base on Hainan Island near China’s south coast.
...
The balloon floated over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands thousands of miles away from Guam, then drifted over Canada, where it encountered strong winds that appear to have pushed the balloon south into the continental United States, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive intelligence. A U.S. fighter jet shot the balloon down off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4, a week after it crossed over Alaska.

Yes, that is exactly, as I pointed out, what the low pressure area over west Canada did.

Meanwhile, the White House on Tuesday said that three other objects shot down over North America in the last week may have posed no national security threat, striking perhaps the clearest distinction yet between those flying anomalies and the suspected spy balloon. John Kirby, the National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications, told reporters that the U.S. intelligence community “will not dismiss as a possibility” that the three craft instead belonged to a commercial organization or research entity and were therefore “benign.”

Oh well, you don't say so ...

The Chinese had explained that their big weather balloon drifted towards North America only after unexpected strong 'westerlies' had pushed it off the expected course. The U.S. is now admitted that they were right.

Around Jan. 24, when the balloon would have been roughly about 1,000 miles south of Japan, model simulations show it began to gain speed and rapidly veer north. This would have been in response to a strong cold front that had unleashed exceptionally frigid air over northern China, the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

Ordinarily, atmospheric steering motions would have kept the balloon on much more of a west to east course, historical weather data shows. However, the intense cold front forced the jet stream and high altitude steering currents to dip south and may have scooped the balloon northward.

Two cold fronts, one over north China and one over west Canada determined the course of the big balloon.

This also dismisses the laughable Pentagon claims that the balloon had propellers and a rudder and was thereby steerable. There is nothing that solar driven propellers can do when a huge object like a 200 feet high ballon is drifting in 200 mph jetstream winds. The whole idea was obviously bonkers. The only way to somewhat steer a balloon is by raising or lowering its altitude until one finds an air current that blows it in the wished for direction. While this will work at an altitude of a few hundred feet there is no real chance to do that in the upper atmosphere.

The three smaller weather or research balloons were only found drifting along after the air force turned down the filters of its radars. But those filters are there for good reasons. A lot of clutter, like a flock of birds, would otherwise come up as alarm.

The U.S. National Weather Service says that it alone launches 75,000 balloons per year. It would be a ridiculous waste to send up fighter planes whenever such a balloon goes up.

The larger Chinese weather balloon was also likely a legit one. Such bigger balloons are build to cross oceans and to measure the upper atmospheric conditions over long distances. That it was blown off course, twice, by unusual weather is a reasonable explanation.

Worse than the Pentagon's lies and panic inducing claims over these issues are the writers and 'journalists' who fall for such hype.

That the U.S. used this 'accidental conflict' with China to call off the planned Blinken visit to Beijing only shows that it its efforts to engage China are not serious.