Neil Jacobs is a scientist with "Sharpiegate" ties

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Neil Jacobs’s Nomination for the NOAA Administrator in the First and Second Trump Trump Administrationssses: Implications for NOAA Science and Environment

Neil Jacobs was nominated by Donald Trump as the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. During the first Trump administration, Jacobs was the agency’s acting leader, where he emphasized the focus on weather forecasting.

The previous Trump administration also took aim at climate and weather science at the agency. Craig McLean, who served as acting chief scientist for the agency during the first Trump administration, recalls the pressure on Jacobs and other scientists exerted during “Sharpiegate” to confirm the presidents’ unfounded predictions.

“He was found to have compromised the scientific integrity of NOAA,” says Andrew Rosenberg, a former NOAA deputy director who is now a fellow of public policy at the University of New Hampshire. “I find it very unfortunate that he would be renominated because that means there’s no consequence for just ignoring the science.”

It also suggested the entire organization should be broken up, moving or dismantling many of its current offices and privatizing others, like the National Weather Service. In nomination hearings last week, the Commerce department nominee Howard Lutnick said he did not intend to move or disband the agency.

Trump and many of his supporters have specifically criticized NOAA’s climate research efforts. Project 2025, a conservative agenda created by the Heritage Foundation, described the agency’s climate research wing as “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry,” suggesting the wing should be “disbanded.”

The ocean’s protected area was expanded and invested in by the Biden administration. Biden allocated billions toward the agency’s efforts to improve weather forecasting capabilities, and to boost climate resilience in coastal cities.

“If you care about the weather, if you care about the ocean, if you care about the climate,” Rosenberg says, “then you are dependent to a significant degree on the work that NOAA does. Whether you know it or not.

Rosenberg says a vast cross section of Americans benefit from the science that the agency provides – from weather forecasts to charts that recreational boaters use.

Under the second Trump administration, the agency’s priorities are expected to change, de-emphasizing climate research and potentially rolling back environmental protections for oceans and fisheries, areas that had been prioritized during the Biden Administration.

NOAA, DOEGE, and WIRED: Nominating Rajpal for a Working Email Address with the DOE DOE Task Force and the Department of Government Efficient

Government records show Rajpal now has working email addresses with both the NOAA and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficient (DOGE) task force. WIRED has also learned that Rajpal is listed as an “expert” on a roster at the Office of Personnel Management, the government’s human resources department, where DOGE operatives have installed a server gathering information on federal employees that has been used to repeatedly communicate the administration’s deferred resignation program.

WIRED reported Wednesday that NOAA officials had been ordered to grant Nikhil Rajpal, a former Twitter employee who appears to have no expertise in ocean and atmospheric science, the power to edit documents concerning the agency’s work hosted by Google Sites. The orders came from the acting commerce secretary, sources said.

According to NESDIS’s website, it works closely with the European Space Agency, which provides access to data via a collection of Sentinel satellites maintained by EUMETSAT, an international weather-monitoring agency composed of more than 30 member states.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order on his first day in office designed to paralyze growth in wind energy. In a postinaugural speech, he told rally-goers: “We’re not going to do the wind thing.”

The agency had been anticipating that they would be hosting international fellows and interns this summer associated with the offshore wind development working group founded by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea.

The Department of Justice has ordered the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to temporarily cease communicating with foreign nationals in order to predict changes in climate and weather.

The Commerce Department and the NOAA did not respond to requests for comment. The motive behind the inCOMmunicado orders is unknown, and it is not clear how long they will last.

The email instructs employees to submit information on any work they are involved in with international partners for vetting by higher ups, including the US Department of Commerce.