Delaware Climatologist On Thin Ice

Yes, Delaware does have a state climatologist. And he's the center of a battle over the human influence on global warming.

Professor David Legates teaches at the University of Delaware, and he drew more attention than most previous state climatologists have when his name appeared upon this amici curiae brief (pdf) filed with the US Supreme Court.

The brief questions global warming, and that view may conflict with an effort by the State of Delaware to get funding from the Federal government to use to reduce emissions, in an effort to "fight" global warming.

Those issues are described in a Wilmington News Journal article, Del. scientist's view on climate change criticized: Ties to big oil, industry-funded lobbies draw fire

Some of the charges agains Dr. Legates come from the Union of Concerned Scientists, in their report: Scientists' Report Documents ExxonMobil’s Tobacco-like Disinformation Campaign on Global Warming Science.

Here's one of Dr. Legates' reports:

Climate Science: Climate Change and Its Impacts

I ran across a critique of that report, which I thought was interesting:

Comment on "Climate Science: Climate Change and Its Impacts" (pdf)

One of Dr. Legate's former students defends him as being brave enough to tell us that the emperor has no clothes, in:

The tyranny of 'global warming'

Is the earth getting warmer? Is global warming a problem caused by humans? There are a lot of media reports stating that permafrost is melting in Alaska and Siberia, and weather patterns are unusual. We've experienced record breaking warm years recently. There seems to be a lot of agreement that the earth is getting warmer, and a report released last Friday from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts significant rising sea levels for the Mid-Atlantic region, causing the loss of a significant amount of Delaware's coastline.

Our State Poet was in the news last month, too. I hope that she gets involved in the discussion over global warming. It seems to have the makings of an epic struggle.