The Trump administration has tapped Neil Jacobs, a scientist cited for misconduct related to the “Sharpiegate” hurricane forecasting controversy, to lead the agency that oversees US government weather predictions and climate research.
Jacobs’ nomination as head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was formally submitted to Congress on Monday. As acting administrator of NOAA in 2019, he reprimanded employees for contradicting President Donald Trump’s inaccurate claim that a hurricane would strike Alabama. The agency later said Jacobs’ actions violated its code of ethics.
Trump’s return to the White House has sparked concern about NOAA’s fate, with some conservatives calling for the agency to be broken up and partially privatized. But Howard Lutnick, the longtime financial services executive nominated to lead NOAA’s parent office, said last week he had no interest in splitting up the agency or transferring it to the Department of Interior.
Since 2022, Jacobs has been working on a NOAA-funded initiative to develop open-source weather forecasting models.
Jacobs was first nominated to lead NOAA in 2019, after Trump’s initial pick — the chief executive of commercial forecaster AccuWeather — withdrew from consideration. Jacobs was serving in the role in an acting capacity when Hurricane Dorian took aim at the Bahamas in September 2019.
Trump posted on Twitter that Alabama, among other Southern states, would likely see impacts from the storm, contradicting forecasts from the National Hurricane Center. Alabama-based National Weather Service meteorologists responded with a post clarifying that Dorian would not affect their state.
Trump repeated his claim days later during a press briefing, showing reporters an image of Dorian’s projected path that had been doctored to make it look like the storm was on track to hit Alabama. The incident was later dubbed Sharpiegate.
NOAA issued a rare statement backing up Trump’s assertions and accusing its own forecasters of speaking “in absolute terms that were inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.” The Sharpiegate incident prompted at least two investigations, including one spearheaded by NOAA. The agency found that Jacobs had violated its scientific integrity policy by allowing the public statement to go forward.
In an Inspector General report issued in 2020, Jacobs told investigators that he “definitely felt like our jobs were on the line” as Trump appointees — including then-White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney — scrambled behind the scenes to respond the Alabama forecasters’ post.