Chris Landsea

Christopher Landsea is the Science and Operations Officer at the National Hurricane Center, which is a part of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) within the U.S. Department of Commerce. He is a member of the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society. In January 2005, Landsea withdrew from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, claiming that the group had become politicized and ignored his concerns. His resignation letter was released on Prometheus, a blog run by Roger Pielke Jr.

Later that year, Landsea published a study which argued that rising greenhouse gas levels will not influence the intensity of hurricanes in the Atlantic basin. His two coauthors were climate skeptics Patrick Michaels and Chip Knappenberger.

After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Republican political appointees preferred Landsea over other scientists in NOAA to speak to the media about the link between hurricanes and climate change. Some of the documents were released by the Government Oversight Committee. Later documents released by the Government Accountability Project also showed that Republican political appointees favored Landsea's views and sought to have him interviewed by the media.

Contact Details
Hurricane Research Division Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory NOAA 4301 Rickenbacker Causeway Miami, Florida 33149 Phone: (305) 361-4357 Fax:(305)361-4402 Website: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/old_bio.html Publications: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/landsea_bio.html

Other SourceWatch Resources

 * Climate change sceptics