UD faculty member, climate change skeptic joins parent of National Weather Service

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Legates University of Delaware photo.
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A University of Delaware faculty member, climate change skeptic, and former state climatologist  landed a position at the parent agency for the National Weather Service.

Legates University of Delaware photo.

David Legates confirmed to NPR  that he has taken the position of deputy assistant secretary of commerce for observation and prediction  at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the Department of Commerce.

Legates had been a leading figure among climate change skeptics while in his post as state climatologist. 

He later resigned from the state post and became affiliated with the Heartland Institute, a  think tank that has questioned findings by NOAA and other agencies regarding climate change. Legates  is also  the former Director of the Center for Climatic Research at UD and helped develop the DEOS system that monitors rain and snowfall around the state.

He was last in the news in 2015 when a Congressman  took him to task for not disclosing sources of funding for his research. 

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Legates had kept a low profile in Delaware since that time, after earlier, questioning such things as sea-level rise in Sussex County, DelawareOnline reported.

The Heartland Institute has been influential in the Trump Administration’s stance toward climate change that included being one of the nations to pull out of the Paris Accords.

 

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