Louisiana's state climatologist, a familiar weather expert, sidelined by LSU leaders

Louisiana State Climatologist Barry Keim, familiar statewide for his explanations of hurricanes, tornadoes and other weather events during his 19 years in the position, has been removed from the post by LSU officials, possibly due to a dispute over whether last summer's intense drought conditions were being accurately portrayed.

The university refused to say why it was replacing Keim. But in a letter emailed to other members of the American Association of State Climatologists, Keim said it likely was the result of criticism by farming interests related to the classification of drought conditions in August. Keim and others say he was mistakenly criticized over the issue.

In November, economists with the LSU AgCenter estimated 2023 agriculture and forestry losses resulting from drought conditions totaled $1.69 billion, and U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, R-Stark, has been peppering U.S. Department of Agriculture officials with demands to speed up emergency disaster payments to agricultural interests in the state. 

The university said in a statement released by Todd Woodward, vice president for marketing and communications, that it planned “to align the position of state climatologist more closely with the LSU AgCenter as a means of serving every parish in the state through research, extension, and outreach.”

The statement said Keim was “a valuable member of LSU’s faculty and a leading researcher in his area.” A tenured professor in the university’s Department of Geography and Anthropology, Keim said Wednesday that he plans to continue to teach and conduct climate research.

No replacement has been identified.

In his emailed letter, Keim said the decision “stems from a ‘dust-up’ in August 2023 when Louisiana went into a flash drought, and the U.S. Drought Monitor, according to some farmers and cattle ranchers, was not depicting the reality of drought on the ground.”

“I encountered angry farmers and ranchers applying pressure on me to make the USDM match their perceived notions of the level of drought across the state,” Keim wrote. “The Farm Bureau summoned me because the front page of the USDM states, ‘For local details and impacts, please contact your State Climatologist or Regional Climate Center,’ as if this is a product (at least partly) of the State Climatologists.”

But Mark Svoboda, a climatology professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and director of the National Drought Mitigation Center, which helps oversee the drought monitor work, said that while state climatologists provide data to the staff that produces the weekly maps outlining drought conditions, the staffers base the maps on that and other information collected by his center, NOAA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Especially troubling, he said, is that the drought monitor maps this summer “responded quite rapidly to this drought,” which resulted in nearly 75% of Louisiana parishes being listed in the two worst categories of D3-Extreme and D4-Exceptional by the end of August, with 90% mapped as extreme or exceptional by Sept. 19.

The result, he said, was that the U.S. Department of Agriculture declared livestock producers eligible for as much as five months of emergency payments as a result of the 2023 drought.

“What happened to Barry is a tragedy, especially given the fact that he was doing his job and was a vital link to getting input from the ground level in the state of Louisiana into our national weekly USDM product, which ultimately served the producers of Louisiana well,” Svoboda said.

John Nielsen-Gammon, Texas State Climatologist and director of the Southern Regional Climate Center, and current president of the national state climatologists group, agreed with Svoboda’s conclusion that state climatologists serve as a resource for the drought maps, but that they are ultimately the product of NOAA and UN-L.

“It’s produced weekly on Thursdays and reflects conditions as of Tuesday morning, so the ‘current’ U.S. Drought Monitor shows conditions 2-9 days earlier, depending on when you’re looking at it,” he said. “It does not attempt to predict drought impacts, only those impacts that have already occurred, and only in a general sense.”

The Louisiana Farm Bureau, meanwhile, said it “was not involved in any change to Dr. Keim’s duties,” in a statement released by Communications Director Avery Davidson.

“We thought the meeting at the La. Farm Bureau went well and have seen improvements to the accuracy of the U.S. Drought Monitor since those meetings, with the help of volunteer reporting and other agencies,” the statement said.

There’s no indication that Gov-elect Jeff Landry’s incoming administration was involved in Keim’s ouster, despite Landry’s past statements that climate change is a hoax. Keim has described Louisiana as the state most vulnerable to climate change. Landry's communications team said it had no knowledge of Keim's situation.

Asked whether the greater emphasis on LSU AgCenter issues by the new state climatologist might interfere with their efforts involving climate change impacts on urban areas resulting from more intense hurricanes, more intense rainfall events, or repeats of last year’s saltwater intrusion impacts, Woodward said: “We do not see a change in the job position, just great collaboration with the Ag Center."

NOAA officials involved with the drought monitor did not respond to requests for comment.