Sharpiegate Comes Back, Like The Monster That Won't Die

"Sharpiegate" started six years ago over Donald
Trump's failed attempt at forecasting Hurricane
Dorian. It's still going on today with the firing
of two NOAA officials, in part because
 Trump. Just. Can't. Let. It. Go.

 Sharpiegate is back in the news, in a typically depressing way. 

Back in late July, two NOAA scientists who defied Trump in the name of accuracy and science in his first administration are being sacked.  It looks like because Trump has a long memory, at least in terms of loyalty.  

"Two top National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials who played a role in the high profile "Sharpiegate" investigation at the agency were placed on administration leave this week. 

Stephen Volz, the assistant administrator at NOAA's Satellite and Information Service, and Jeff Dillon, a deputy general counsel at NOAA, were placed on leave..."   Volz told NBC News."

You might remember Sharpiegate. Back in 2019 Trump incorrectly said Hurricane Dorian was threatening Alabama, but National Weather Service meteorologists in Alabama contradicted him, accurately saying the storm was no threat to Alabama. 

A normal president who might have been misinformed like that would say, "Oops, we have updated info that says Alabama doesn't have to worry, so we'll move on."

But this is Trump of course, who can never be wrong about the slightest thing. He  later produced a forecast map that had been amateurishly altered by a Sharpie to suggest Alabama had been threatened by the storm.   To make everything worse, top NOAA officials, appointed by Trump in his first administration, rebuked those professional and accurate Alabama meteorologists.  

Which of course looks like political pressure and not science to me and pretty much everybody else 

 Here's why we think Volz and Dillon are in trouble now.  Neil Jacobs was nominated by Trump as his pick to head NOAA. Jacobs got in trouble with Sharpiegate. Per NBC: 

"NOAA hired the National Academy of Public Administration to perform an independent assessment into allegations of scientific misconduct during the incident. The investigation found that Jacobs violated NOAA's ethics policies. 

Volz wrote the final decision about the report for NOAA, which agreed with NAPA's findings. He said Dillen worked on that document also. Volz said he did not know whether notices that they'd both been put on leave on the same day and their connection to the 'Sharpiegate' report were a coincidence."

CNN talked to former NOAA officials who smell a rat. One said: "It's an interesting coincidence that less than a week before Neil Jacobs sent committee vote, the two dedicated career civil servants who investigated him for scientific integrity violations around Sharpiegate were dismissed from service."

 NOAA confirmed the pair had been placed on leave, but are tightlipped on why. Dillen is out due to unspecified "performance issues." Volz is out for an "unrelated matter."

 They're not even telling Volz why he's out. 

 It's all for plausible deniability. It looks bad to admit they're getting rid of Volz and Dillon to soothe Trump's narcissistic ego. So they're denying it has anything to do with Sharpiegate. 

NOAA's communications director, Kim Foster, had this to say: "Neither action is related in any way to each other or the Sharpiegate investigation."

Sure, Jan. 

As for Jacobs, the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on July 30 advanced his nomination, but we don't know yet when the full Senate will vote on the nomination. 

 

Man Involved In Famous Hurricane "Sharpiegate" Kerfuffle Is Nominated To Lead NOAA

Neil Jacobs, who was unfortunately
involved in the 2019 "Sharpiegate"
scandal has been nominated to lead NOAA

 When somebody takes a leadership role at a science-based organization, you kinda want them to have some scientific integrity. 

But of course, the Trump administration seems to do everything opposed to integrity. Which, of course, is the reason President Donald Trump has hired Neil Jacobs to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA.

By the way, there's more really bad Trump-related NOAA news I'll have posts on in the near future, Stuff is coming fast and furiously under this administration. 

Any, back to Jacobs. He is probably best known for his role in the Great "Sharpiegate" Scandal of 2019.

Jacobs was acting director of NOAA during Trump's first term when Category 5 Hurricane Dorian threatened Florida. 

At the time, Trump said the storm also threatened the Florida Panhandle and Alabama, which actually wasn't true. 

In at attempt to avoid public panic in Alabama, meteorologists at the National Weather Service office in Birmingham, Alabama dared to contradict Trump, accurately saying Hurricane Dorian was not headed toward that state and everybody there was safe from that dangerous storm. 

We know how much Trump has to be always right, or something like that, so Trump was steamed at those accurate scientists at NWS Birmingham. 

So to "prove" those wascally meteorologists wrong, Trump used a "cone of uncertainty" map that was crudely altered with a Sharpie to include Alabama as a threatened spot.

The cone of uncertainty maps show a range of locations in which a hurricane threatens. Alabama was outside the National Hurricane Center's cone of uncertainty, meaning residents there faced no threat. But the addition of the Sharpie image - viola! - made Alabama "threatened" to Trump's satisfaction. 

As the Washington Post reports:

"The confusion prompted an unusual and unsigned NOAA statement in support of Trump's warnings to Alabama. An investigation found undue political influence in the process of crafting that statement, in violation of NOAA's standards for scientific integrity, but Jacobs defended the statement and admonished the Birmingham meteorologists."

NOAA's scientific integrity policy prohibits political interference with the conduct and communication of the agency's scientific findings.  Jacobs' contradiction of science-based hurricane forecasting violated that policy. 

The famous Sharpitegate photo. Click on image to make
it bigger and easier to see. Trump administration added
a Sharpie line to falsely make it look like Alabama
was threatened by Hurricane Dorian. It wasn't. 

Of course with Trump in office, ethics is out the window, so NOAA's scientific integrity policy is now probably a worthless piece of paper. 

In the new Trump administration, we've already seen his pressure to contradict science on weather and climate change and that will only increase. Which puts us all in danger. 

If Trump decides a storm or other weather danger is inconvenient to his agenda, then he and probably Jacobs will minimize or even lie about the threat. 

It appears "Sharpiegate" was not Jacob's idea. In fact, the Washington Post reported at the time Jacobs initially tried to discourage issuing the false statement that Trump was correct about the hurricane and the meteorologists in Birmingham were wrong. 

In the end, Jacobs caved to pressure from Trump and then-Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who was Jacob's boss.

Given his apparent loyalty to Trump, Jacobs would follow any whim from the president, up to including rooting any climate science from NOAA's mission. That would gut the agency since climate change is such an important issue regarding anything weather related. 

Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for the Trump administration, called for breaking up NOAA, eliminating references to climate change and privatizing the National Weather Service. I imagine Jacobs might go along with that, too. 

I suppose if you did enough, there are some good things to say about Jacobs. As the Washington Post notes, he did emphasize the importance of improving United States weather forecasting models, which have lagged behind forecasting models in other nations. 

Jacobs will need Senate confirmation, but since the Senate is approving people who actually might be national security risks to head important agencies, somebody like Jacobs, who is a serious scientist but one who kowtows to Trump's whims, should have no trouble being approved.