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Swamp attacks Trump over hurricane forecasts

Last week, as Hurricane Dorian approached the Florida coast, President Trump held a press briefing where he showed a graph with extra markings that suggested that Alabama might be impacted by the hurricane.

Unfortunately for Trump, this path for Dorian — though initially considered a possibility in the National Weather Service models — was also considered very unlikely, and had been quickly dismissed from those models, making Trump’s graph out-of-date when he showed it.

Since then the Democratic mainstream media has put out hundreds of stories claiming some sort of corruption on Trump’s part for adding those extra markings. Trump has himself responded aggressively, defending his action and saying it was justified. The New York Times even reported — based on anonymous sources — that Commerce secretary Wilbur Ross had threatened to fire three people at the National Weather Service if they didn’t issue a statement defending Trump.

Now, three former Democratic NOAA heads, D. James Baker (appointed by Bill Clinton), Jane Lubchenco (appointed by Barack Obama), and Kathryn D. Sullivan (appointed by Barack Obama), have issued a statement condemning Trump, claiming his actions are threatening the scientific integrity of these agencies.

The National Weather Service (NWS) has always been a model of scientific integrity, ensuring that weather science is not politically driven, regardless of the administration. But the recent misleading statements by President Donald Trump about a NWS hurricane forecast and cover-up actions by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), its parent agency, have violated those norms.

Forgive me if I don’t take very seriously this smug, self-righteous posturing by these former NOAA officials, all partisan Democratic Party political appointees. Scientific integrity suddenly means a lot to them when they can use it to attack Trump. However, when NOAA repeatedly tampered with its climate data for the past dozen years, and has provided no good explanation for that tampering, I don’t remember these high and mighty officials, all in charge of NOAA at the time, commenting then about the importance of scientific integrity.

Trump is no saint here. He as a politician wanted to cover all bets, so he added Alabama in discussing Dorian’s threat, even though his weather scientists considered that threat slim if nonexistent. He should have relied more on those scientists and not improvised.

For him however to be attacked relentless for this minor addition is absurd, since it is perfectly reasonable for weather scientists to get their predictions wrong, and as president Trump has a responsibility to try to prepare for all eventualities.

These NOAA critics are far less credible however. There are questionable things going on at NOAA in connection with its global climate dataset that requires either an explanation or a correction. This is a far more serious issue than whether a politician expanded the threat of a hurricane in one press briefing in order to cover his ass. The tampering threatens to discredit the entire NOAA climate dataset, making all research based on it untrustworthy. If these former NOAA officials really cared about scientific integrity, they would have taken action at NOAA to deal with this tampering, when they ran those agencies. They would have either gotten it stopped, or provided the public and the rest of the scientific community a reasonable explanation for it.

They did neither, proving that their sanctimonious statement today is nothing more than partisan politics. They don’t care about scientific integrity. What they care about is defeating Trump, helping the Democratic Party, and enhancing the power of the Washington swamp.

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On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
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12 comments

  • Chris Lopes

    Here’s the problem. Even if you dislike Trump (and there are legitimate reasons to), this “story” comes off as petty and stupid. The people pushing it are not doing themselves or their cause (apparently TDS) any favors. The normals in fly over country have pretty much tuned out the 24/7 Orange Man Bad by now, so they aren’t convincing anyone.

  • mike shupp

    Shrug. This would have been a very minor issue, forgotten by everyone in existence, if Trump had let it go as a minor issue. “The original briefings I got suggested the storm might reach as far as Alabama, which is why I showed it on a map. It was something to worry about then, but as we know now Hurricane Dorian stayed to the east. For which we are all grateful. Next question?”

    He could have said that, and we all would have moved on. But he didn’t, and that unwillingness to admit error is what has stirred people up.

  • Edward

    I am no fan of Trump, but it is a sorry state of affairs that NOAA and the weather service are taking political sides. It is hardly surprising, considering that they have seen the IRS, FBI, (In)Justice Department, and the intelligence agencies get away with their own partisan politics. Add to that Trump’s “denial” that the existential threat of global warming will kill us all in a dozen years — well, less now — and we can see why the weather and climate people are so willing to take sides.

    It looks to me like everyone is crying wolf, in this matter. Trump warned of a low likelihood occurrence, and the climate people are yet again telling us that we have a deadline before it is too late and we all will die. The first that I recall was back in 1989, when we had until the new millennium to save ourselves. Eighteen years after that first drop dead date passed, we were still being told that we have only a dozen years to live. I have lost count of how many times we were given similar deadlines in between.

    Robert wrote: “The tampering threatens to discredit the entire NOAA climate dataset, making all research based on it untrustworthy.

    I see this slightly differently. At this point, all the research is untrustworthy until we find out what datasets are to be believed — if any.

    If the old, unmodified datasets are incorrect and the new ones are correct, then the decades of research that was based upon the old datasets are incorrect. This means that everything that we know now about climate is untrustworthy, including the models whose designs were based upon the old datasets. How ironic, since the new datasets eliminate the pause and make the untrustworthy models look more correct.

    If the old, unmodified datasets are correct and the new ones are not, then the all new research that are and will be based upon the new datasets will be incorrect. This means that everything that we are now concluding through our current research is incorrect and will be for the foreseeable future. Our current climate models remain untrustworthy, because the “pause” that they failed to predict would be real, in this case.

    Either way, our policy makers cannot trust the conclusions of any climate research until there is a resolution to the discrepancies. Undoubtedly they will trust them, however. Our politicians just aren’t smart enough to understand the tremendous problem caused by NOAA’s modifications.

  • Cotour

    Hurricane tracks, sharpies, firings etc, its all really irrelevant.

    What is relevant?

    https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/sep/11/senate-confirms-150th-trump-judicial-nominee/

    Things like thise, the appointment of judges are what are relevant. Trump either by accident or with intent keeps the media and others all mixed up and talking about one thing, TRUMP.

    This is the best and most productive time in modern political history we are witnessing. Turning the ship of state is a long and arduous task and really anyone but Trump would have withered and folded long ago.

  • wayne

    This would have been a minor issue if the Fake News wasn’t actively conspiring with the DNC to hate-America, 24/7/365.
    Somebody call me a Dr….

    Dr. Trump
    Louder with Crowder
    https://youtu.be/aQgMQCjfkKA
    3:13

  • MDN

    I have a slightly different take on this. I think Trump is simply punking the MSM with these tweets and they go for it EVERY time. As Cotour notes it is judicial appointments and such that really counts and while the Senate is approving nominations at a record rate, Trump now has authority to spend money and build wall with DOD funds, etc., etc., etc. the press wastes their precious public consciousness ergs on these meaningless factoid wars. It’s actually political genius imho as he is racking up accomplishment after accomplishment while distracting his MSM critics with tweets that are like a laser pointer to a cat.

    WRT NOAA and weather record manipulations, ironically NOAA has developed and released actual data that undermines all of their manipulation efforts these last 10 years or so. This article appeared at RealClearEnergy last week noting that their “Pristine” non-rural land based weather station array first established in 2005 shows NO STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT WARMING for the last 14 years. The irony is that this station collection was specifically created to JUSTIFY their manipulations but now the data isn’t doing what they thought it would. Absolutely hilarious.

    https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2019/08/23/climate_alarmists_foiled_no_us_warming_since_2005.html

    This link is to an essay on the WattsUpWithThat website that first documented this trend in 2017 and provides some excellent background on the composition of the pristine weather stations.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/11/08/the-uscrn-revisited/

    Finally some REAL data to work with that cannot be swept under the rug as it is from THE U.S. authority on weather, is based upon World Class instrumentation, that instrumentation is continuously calibrated and maintained in a rigorous manner, and all of the raw data is un-polluted by adjustments. It seems very hard to argue that the Urban Heat Island phenomena is not real and significant, and lead many to draw very inaccurate conclusions from very suspect data.

  • MDN: Note that I posted about the results from those “pristine” weather stations, showing no warming since 2005, on August 26, 2019: No warming in U.S. since 2005

  • Chris Lopes

    “He could have said that, and we all would have moved on.”

    We already have. The MSM hasn’t and wouldn’t have no matter what Orange the Clown did. In being this infantile, they are undermining their credibility and making it easy for Trump call them fake news. I really can’t believe how stupid they are and how easily they can be played.

  • Cotour

    Talking to a Liberal friend about the “Wall”.

    Liberal: “There has been no new wall built, Trump is lying about the wall”.

    Me: “What about starting with replacing 14 miles of wall in San Diego at twice the height of the old one and the Trump adminiostration securing 5 billion to continue with new wall where it is determined it is needed? I call that progress, you must start at the beginning”

    https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/14-miles-of-border-wall-replaced-along-mexico-san-diego-border/509-6e32aacb-b534-4374-b0db-eb6836eafc54

    Liberal: “Trump lies about everything”.

    Me: “Who will you vote for if Biden, Sanders or Warren are the candidates for the Democrats?”

    Liberal: “I won’t vote for any of them”.

    Trump wins again. You Liberals now Leftist supporting former Americans believe and think what you like, we plow ahead despite what you think.

  • wayne

    Cotour–

    Fisher Border Wall El Paso, TX
    Extended Cut, June 2019
    https://youtu.be/aaihuiT24Vg
    4:56

  • Cotour

    Ah, sanity. What a concept.

    These guys at Fisher Industries are obviously signaling that they have thought long and hard about this illegal entry into OUR country problem and they have designed the engineering / infrastructure / patrol / detection soultions to solve it. A complete package. And they are the obvious contractor to lead the way on accomplishing this project that is essential to our country and its security. Well done, Fisher Industries!

    This was a real world performance piece and proof of concept for the company, money well spent. And I am certain that their employees making it all happen were all well paid to boot.

    Great system, I love how they have the “Wall” compmonents pre assembled and they just hang them on a fixture held by their machines and placed. Very efficient. Let them loose and within 2 years they would have built all of the necessary miles needed.

    And what is stopping Fisher Industries from accomplishing this very worthwhile project? Simply: Political correctness in the pursuit of flooding the country with illegals in order to support one particular political party and their aspirations to perpetual political power. Like I said, simple.

    Who opposes this worthwhile project? Not me.

  • wayne

    Cotour–
    This particular section of the border wall was erected on private-property and paid for by We Build The Wall. (roughly $25 million cost) For a more on-the-ground, day-by-day view, just search “Foreman Mike updates on the Wall” at youtube. Great stuff!
    –Fisher has a number of other wall-designs and I believe they have bid upon sections for the Feds in the past few years.

    In any event, they make great videos!

    Fisher Industries
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF1JsCCRfH5PFxl3yAHl2wg

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