UD climate skeptic to be honored in DC

David Legates, a professor at the University of Delaware, is one of five climate skeptics who will be honored later this week at the Tenth International Conference on Climate Change in Washington, DC.

Legates, the former Delaware Climatologist, will received the Courage in Defense of Science Award at the conference. The award is sponsored by the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

The conference, which starts June 11, is sponsored by several conservative organizations including the Heritage Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the John Locke Foundation among others. This year’s theme: The New Science and Economics of Climate Change.

The conference begins amid a growing body of scientific evidence pointing to a warming global climate.

Just last week in the journal Science, the director of the National Centers for Environmental Information in Asheville, NC found that the findings of an apparent pause in global warming, called the climate “hiatus,” may have been incorrect. Instead, the team found that global average temperatures have continued to increase in the first part of this century.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had earlier reported that the rate of warming over the last 15 years was less than it had been in the previous 30 to 60 years.

“That is no longer valid,” said Tom Karl, the study’s lead author and director of the national centers.

Climate skeptics previously described the hiatus as a flat line in global temperatures and used it to challenge climate models that project implications from a warming earth out to 2100.

For Delaware, those implications include increases in sea level rise in addition to rising temperatures.

Meanwhile, skeptics like Legates have faced their own challenges.

Earlier this year, Legates, a tenured professor in the geography department at the University of Delaware and a former state climatologist , was included in a congressman’s request for details on grants and support provided to those who have testified in Congress on the issue.

Legates wasn’t immediately available for comment Tuesday afternoon.

But he is no stranger to controversy over climate change research or academic freedom for scientists who differ with more mainstream climate scientists.

In June 2014, Legates testified at the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee about droughts and agriculture.

“My overall conclusion is that droughts in the United States are more frequent and more intense during colder periods. Thus, the historical record does not warrant a claim that global warming is likely to negatively impact agricultural activities,” he testified.

He went on to tell the committee about efforts to silence climate change dissenters.

This is not the first time Legates has been questioned about research funding. In 2009, the environmental group Greenpeace requested his financial and conflict-of-interest disclosures. Legates told the senators he was instructed by university legal counsel to comply with the request.

Just prior to this, Legates was directed by Gov. Ruth Ann Minner in 2007 to stop using his state climatologist title in statements challenging climate change science after he co-wrote a legal brief opposing federal regulation of greenhouse gases after Delaware joined in a multistate lawsuit pressing for federal action.

“Your views, as I understand them, are not aligned with those of my administration,” Minner said.

He stepped down as state climatologist in 2011.

Besides being honored for his work to improve the science used to measure precipitation events, Legates will also be part of a panel of scientists who will discuss the latest in climate science.

Legates will be addressing the question of whether extreme precipitation events are increasing in the United States, according to the online schedule provided for the event.

Also receiving awards at the conference:

•Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Ok, who will receive the Political Leadership on Climate Change Award, sponsored by The Heritage Foundation, at the breakfast keynote at 8 a.m. Thursday, June 11.

•William Happer, Ph.D., winner of the 2015 Frederick Seitz Memorial Award, sponsored by the Science & Environmental Policy Project

•Anthony Watts, winner of the Excellence in Climate Science Communication Award, sponsored by the International Climate Science Coalition

•Robert M. Carter, Ph.D., winner of the Lifetime Achievement in Climate Science Award, sponsored by The Heartland Institute.

Reach Molly Murray at 463-3334 or mmurray@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @MollyMurraytnj.