Last Friday, I hosted a sobering @earthinstitute panel with @ColumbiaClimate & @ClimSciDefense on threats to federal scientific integrity under Trump. The actions of @NOAA chief of staff Erik Noble in this story are extra jarring given his early days, including at @NASAGISS! 1/ https://twitter.com/JaneLubchenco/status/1321189518947438593

We'll get to Erik Noble's journey from cub climate scientist (yes) to @teamtrump rapid-response quant in a second. The NOAA chief scientist Nobel demoted, Craig McLean, was also involved in #sharpiegate, which we discussed Friday: https://www.pscp.tv/Revkin/1BRJjYPeagZGw?t=2m59s 2/

Here's a flashback to the Sharpie adjustment to a hurricane forecast and the fine @LFFriedman @jswatz et al story exposing what happened. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/01/climate/noaa-trump-hurricane-dorian.html 3/

So here's the action by Erik Noble against Craig McLean (for doing his job as chief scientist) that @cflav and @LFFriedman @nytclimate just revealed. So where did this young political operative come from? 4/

Through the '00s, Noble was pursuing a career in climate and meteorological science, with degrees from Penn State and @CUBoulder and a heap of papers with top-notch coauthors many will recognize: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=8rEtj2oAAAAJ&hl=en 5/

Erik Noble even gave a 2012 @NASAGISS lecture on his work on West African climate patterns: 6/

Erik Noble's climate research was being published in the scientific literature through 2016, as with this valuable assessment of weaknesses in a weather model over West Africa.

But that's when he changed course toward politics. https://journals.ametsoc.org/mwr/article/145/1/215/72618/The-Sensitivity-of-WRF-Daily-Summertime 7/

Erik Noble's Facebook page picks up the story as, in August, 2016, he moves from climate modeling to campaign modeling as part of @teamtrump's rapid-response data-sifting unit: 8/

By the way, I learned much of this when we intersected briefly while I was at @ProPublica reporting during the Trump transition, including on Jim Mattis's view that climate change was a growing threat to US interests. But Noble was not a story. Yet. https://www.propublica.org/article/trumps-defense-secretary-cites-climate-change-national-security-challenge 9/

From summer til election in 2016, Erik Noble was part of the data-crunching team trying to maximize the impact of every campaign dollar and minute of candidate Trump's days. This Forbes story on Kushner's machine gets at the dynamic: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2016/11/22/exclusive-interview-how-jared-kushner-won-trump-the-white-house/#769ebc973af6 And it worked! 10/

Back to Erik Noble's Facebook journey. November 10, 2016, link to Bloomberg story: Trump’s Data Team Saw a Different America—and They Were Right https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-10/trump-s-data-team-saw-a-different-america-and-they-were-right And a weird but celebratory cake.11/

Some celebrating of course, for Erik Noble and the other rapid-response number crunchers. 12/

Then came the standard job transition for campaign heroes to good administration positions. (This is as true for Dems and Republicans of course.) Farewell campaign, December 2016. Hello @Nasa, January 2017. 13/

Erik Noble began getting noticed by the press, but really only for the quirk of being a @GOP appointee with a climate PhD. And, as this @Wired sub-hed reflected, he hadn't done much yet: "Is this good news or bad? Unclear." https://www.wired.com/2017/01/trump-names-former-climate-scientist-erik-noble-nasa-advisory-role/?fbclid=IwAR2lAHZxoP6exedxRGTmuYwXY9-x9I3z6DXEu5GnI7r4AEb3sLa6450ue8I 14/

Then came the move to @NOAA as chief of staff, in September - here celebrated on Facebook. 15/

Now Erik Noble is a headline. In one off-record phone call we had early in 2017, I was impressed with his life track & motivations. We all make career choices for a host of reasons. We all have great and tough moments. I wish him well. And I wish @NOAA's Craig McLean well. 16/

Although Noble reached a much more powerful level, he reminds me of George Deutsch, a young GW Bush political appointee in @NASA Public Affairs who, in 2006, tried to keep @DrJamesEHansen off the radio. That didn't work. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/science/earth/climate-expert-says-nasa-tried-to-silence-him.html 17/

One moral of this tale? #VOTE so the margin is sufficiently wide that no rapid-response modeling will matter. 18/18 ~