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By Jonathan Leake and Chris Hastings
17 Jan 2010 - "A warning that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it," says this article on TimesOnLine. Were these really "blunders"? Or were they deliberate fraud? Two years ago the IPCC claimed that "glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035." The scientists behind the warning now admit that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, which was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist. Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was "speculation" and "not supported by any formal research." (Italics added.) "If confirmed it would be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research," the article continues. Professor Murari Lal, who oversaw the chapter on glaciers in the IPCC report, said he would recommend that the claim about glaciers be dropped.
Merely dropped? No accountability? Still, the IPCC used the New Scientist article (non-peer reviewed) as backup for its claim that the likelihood of the glaciers melting was "very high," with a probability of greater than 90%. "Glaciologists find such figures inherently ludicrous, pointing out that most Himalayan glaciers are hundreds of feet thick and could not melt fast enough to vanish by 2035 unless there was a huge global temperature rise. The maximum rate of decline in thickness seen in glaciers at the moment is 2-3 feet a year and most are far lower. (Italics added.) Lal himself admits that he knows little about glaciers. "I am not an expert on glaciers and I have not visited the region so I have to rely on credible published research," he said. The IPCC has yet to explain "how someone who admits to little expertise on glaciers was overseeing such a report." "Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, has previously dismissed criticism of the Himalayas claim as "voodoo science".
See all of this great article, entitled "World misled over Himalayan
glacier meltdown":
"The west Himalayan range includes 15,000 glaciers," says the
article.
I'm aware of at least 230 Himalayan glaciers -
including Mount Everest,
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