Climate scientists offered guide on how to avoid harassment after Donald Trump's election win

It comes as climate change sceptic Scott Pruitt is named head of Environment Protection Agency

The pamphlet announcement follows Scott Pruitt's nomination to be head of the EPA (Getty)

A group dedicated to protecting climate scientists from legal attack has created a new pamphlet to help researchers deal with harassment following Donald Trump's election as US president.

The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF) started writing the guide the day after the election, and will make it available for the thousands of experts who will descend on the upcoming annual conference of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

Its co-founder, Joshua Wolfe, told the New Yorker: "There is a lot of fear among scientists that they will become targets of people who are interested in science as politics, rather than progress."

The guide will be called 'Handling Political Harassment and Legal Intimidation: A Pocket Guide for Scientists'.

It comes after Mr Trump named climate-change sceptic Scott Pruitt as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Mr Pruitt, a close ally of the oil and gas industry, has been one of the EPA's fiercest critics during Barack Obama's administration, describing it as "unlawful and overreaching".

The CSLDF was founded in 2011 and states on its website: "In recent years, many of our brightest scientific minds have been taken away from their research to spend time defending frivolous lawsuits.

"Climate scientists who present their findings in the media have been faced by an onslaught of abuse by a small group of unprincipled individuals and organizations. "

The group called Mr Pruitt's nomination "disastrous".