Posting a private advertisement on the Japan Meteorological Agency website Severe financial situation in the background 4:20 on July 15

The Japan Meteorological Agency has decided to post a private advertisement for the first time on its website. Experts point out, "In the future, we must rely on private funds in the face of disasters, and the problem itself is that the government should firmly secure its financial base."

The Meteorological Agency has decided to place an advertisement on its website from this September, and is currently recruiting business operators responsible for selecting advertisements. Costly advertising is unusual for national ministries, and the background is the severe financial situation of the Meteorological Agency.

In the midst of a series of large-scale disasters, the Japan Meteorological Agency is not only disseminating information on its homepage and strengthening observations with meteorological satellites, but the “maintenance cost” of the system for observing ordinary weather and earthquakes is about It has increased to 17 billion yen.

On the other hand, the overall budget has not increased significantly, and the Japan Meteorological Agency has secured "maintenance costs" by reducing the maintenance costs for updating observation equipment such as AMeDAS. In addition, in fiscal it is tight, but we are progressing ocean weather ship also aging to explore factors such as abnormal weather global warming, is that the prospect of update is not standing. In this situation, the JMA will continue to seek funding for this time.

Rei Kimura, a professor at the University of Hyogo who is familiar with disaster prevention information, said, "Disaster prevention information handled by the Japan Meteorological Agency is public information that protects lives from disasters, and should be examined so that reliability is not impaired under specific profits. While various disasters are expected in the future, the situation that the Japan Meteorological Agency, which deals with disaster prevention information, has no choice but to rely on private funds is a big problem, and the country should firmly secure its financial base." ..