GENEVA — The United Nations is calling on governments and regulators to shield the radio frequencies that underpin weather forecasting, early warning systems, and climate monitoring from the growing threat of interference posed by new technologies. The appeal came at an expert seminar in Geneva this week, co-hosted by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
These frequency bands are used by a range of systems, including weather radars, lightning detectors, and satellites that observe the atmosphere, oceans, and land. They also carry the data that feed life-saving early warnings and long-term climate records. The UN warns that as wireless and satellite services expand, the risk of harmful interference to these bands is rising, which could degrade data quality and undermine the reliability of forecasts and alerts.
“As we speak, satellites are measuring changes in our oceans and our atmosphere,” said Doreen Bogdan-Martin, the ITU’s Secretary-General, at Monday’s event. “Radars are tracking storms as they develop,” she added, pointing to the powerful Nor’easter that battered the US Northeast over the weekend, cutting power for thousands and killing at least one person.
Why these frequencies matter
Meteorological sensors are designed to detect very weak natural signals at specific frequencies. That makes them particularly vulnerable to interference from other radio services. “Interference-free spectrum keeps weather forecasts accurate, emergency alerts and warnings timely and climate data reliable so communities can prepare, respond and build resilience,” Bogdan-Martin stressed. “Preventing harmful radio interference is a matter of public safety and can save lives.”
Celeste Saulo, the WMO’s Secretary-General, explained the physical basis of these measurements. “A storm reveals itself in the faint natural signals it emits and in the echoes returned by the signals we send to prove it,” she said. “Essentially, all of this happens because there is a physical relation between the size of a droplet and the size of ice crystals in the clouds and the frequency spectrum.”
These frequencies, she said, “enable observations that no other frequencies can provide. These bands must be protected.”
The warning comes as European institutions and national meteorological services increasingly rely on satellite data for everything from flood alerts in the Balkans to heatwave warnings in southern Spain. The recent solar activity that could trigger geomagnetic storms also highlights how vulnerable space-based infrastructure can be.
Beyond weather, the same spectrum supports hydrological monitoring, which is critical for managing water resources across the continent, from the Alps to the Danube basin. The UN’s call is aimed at ensuring that future spectrum allocations do not compromise these essential services.
The ITU and WMO are urging national regulators to consider the long-term public value of meteorological spectrum when making decisions about licensing and frequency allocation. As Bogdan-Martin put it, “Protecting these bands is not just a technical matter — it is a commitment to public safety and to the resilience of our societies.”
