EXCERPT: . . . Though late, [Kevin] Droegemeier’s nomination comes as a rare spot of welcome news for the scientific community. Many of Trump’s choices to lead or advise scientific agencies have been criticized either for lacking relevant qualifications, or for being diametrically opposed to the organization they were tapped to run.
By contrast, Droegemeier has impeccable scientific credentials. “I’m pleasantly surprised,” says J. Marshall Shepherd, a meteorologist at the University of Georgia. “Up to this point, many of the appointments on the science side have been odd, but Kelvin is solid on all grounds. He is very well respected in our field and has spent a career teaching the fundamentals of climate science.”
Having been at the University of Oklahoma for 33 years, Droegemeier co-founded the Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms, or CAPS, in 1989, at a time when few scientists believed that storm-scale weather could be accurately forecasted. CAPS showed otherwise. Its prediction system was the first to calculate the location and structure of storms several hours in advance. It’s now used around the world.
Droegemeier’s expertise will be useful, since the United States has just faced its costliest year of extreme-weather events, with wildfires, hurricanes, and other disasters building up a price tag of $306 million. “His atmospheric-science background is key to understanding and estimating growing costs of weather and climate events,” says Rosina Bierbaum, a former OSTP member who now holds appointments at the University of Maryland and the University of Michigan. She notes that a report that Droegemeier chaired, in which the words weather and climate are frequently used together, “is indicative of how Kelvin thinks—weather and climate are a continuum.”
Moreover, his scientific clout is paired with deep political experience....
MORE: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...er/566543/