WASHINGTON _ The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has a message for the boss: Snowstorms don't disprove global warming.
The agency's message followed a tweet by President Donald Trump questioning the record-breaking cold poised to hit the Midwest.
"What the hell is going on with Global Waming? (sic)" Trump, a climate skeptic who once called it a Chinese hoax, tweeted Monday night. "Please come back fast, we need you!"
The climate division of NOAA, a branch of the Commerce Department that provides "authoritative information about climate," corrected the science with its own tweet Tuesday.
The message included a link to a NOAA explainer from 2015 that noted "Not only are severe snowstorms possible in a warming climate, they may even be more likely."
A NOAA spokesman didn't immediately respond to questions about the timing and intent of the tweet.
NOAA was closed during the partial government shutdown, when Trump issued a similar message: "Large parts of the Country are suffering from tremendous amounts of snow and near record setting cold," Trump tweeted Jan. 20. "Wouldn't be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now!"
