Two recent Trump administration appointments to national weather and climate agencies are consistent with the president's climate change denial, but not necessarily consistent with the science.
Earlier this month, Trump appointed David Legates, for the top position at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA.
The administration also appointed Ryan Maue as chief scientist at NOAA. Maue understands that climate change is real but often criticizes people he calls "alarmist," who are concerned about climate change.
According to NPR, Legates is now deputy assistant secretary of commerce for observation and prediction. He reports directly to Neil Jacobs, the acting head of NOAA.
While Legates will not be the head honcho of NOAA, he'll certainly have a lot of influence. That influence includes a long legacy in which Legates doubts climate change and that humans are causing it.
Some of Legates' history, includes this, according to NPR:
"Legates also appeared in a video pushing discredited theory that the cause of global warming. In testimony before the U.S. Senate in 2014, Legates argued that a climate science report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change erroneously stated that humans are causing global warming."
Critics are slamming the Legates appointment. As NPR reports:
"'He's not just in left field - he's not even near the ballpark,' says Jane Lubchenco, a professor of marine biology at Oregon State University and head of NOAA under President Barack Obama."
Lubchenco went on to say contrarians are welcome in the science community, but the claims must be scientifically defensible.
Maue, the new chief scientist at NOAA, is the more nuanced than Legates. He's definitely respected in the meteorology field, but can be combative with people over aspects of climate change science, though as noted, Maue acknowledges climate change is real.
Here's some of what Science magazine has to say about Maue:
"He routinely challenges scientists who connect global warming to real-world consequences, such as more intense hurricanes. This area of study - known as attribution science - is a relatively new but growing field.
'If you question the efficacy of attribution science, then you risk being smeared and censored, he wrote on Twitter earlier this year.
According to Science, Maue has said he agrees with the concept of "lukewarming" which rejects the more dire projections of global warming. Reports Science:
"'Lukewarming is not climate denial....Most of us on this side of the issue believe in lower climate sensitivity. We don't believe there is going to be 5 degrees of warming; we figure it's at the lower end of 1.5 degrees."
Maue occasionally delves into politics. He baselessly accused reporters of giving Democratic presidential nominee Joe Bide questions ahead of a recent press conference.
'He has the questions ahead of time and is using his notes to answer,' Maue tweeted."
On the other hand, Maue is not exactly afraid to ding the Trump administration, either. As Science and a lot of other media have reported, during the "Sharpiegate" scandal last year, Trump displayed a hurricane tracking map that was altered with a marker to show Hurricane Dorian hitting Alabama. Senior NOAA officials provided cover for the president, ignoring the accurate forecasts from a National Weather Service in Alabama that said Dorian would miss that state.
Maue tweeted: "Whoa! Nothing like throwing your Alabama NWS office under the bus."
It is of course unclear whether Trump will stay in office, seize control through undemocratic means, or will Joe Biden win? Like everything these days the future of NOAA and climate science is in the great unknown,
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