Even though these clean cut dudes (by today’s standards) may be favorite sons of 60’s alarmism, at least they can add years correctly. Their signature song telling tales of doom in future years is pretty close to this issue, so it seemed appropriate.
John Nielsen-Gammon who is the state climatologist for Texas has found a serious error in the IPCC AR4.
Roger Pielke Sr. reports that “he has published an effective summary and further detailed analysis of the error Madhav Khandkkar reported on in a guest weblog Global Warming And Glacier Melt-Down Debate: A Tempest In A Teapot?” – A Guest Weblog By Madhav L Khandekar.”
The story from Nielsen-Gammon is on the Houston Chronicle website, and is titled By the way, there will still be glaciers in the Himalayas in 2035
It seems IPCC made a serious error in judgement, and violated their own rules. The mistake was relying on a flawed report from WWF for a key piece of information. This turns out to be a World Wildlife Fund project report (PDF) An Overview of Glaciers, Glacier Retreat, and Subsequent Impacts in Nepal, India and China that was not peer-reviewed.
This is a problem; the IPCC is supposed to rely only on the peer-reviewed literature. Gee, where have we heard that before?
The key error is in this sentence on page 29 of the WWF report:
“glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the livelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 is very high”.
Remember that year, 2035, as you read on.
Excerpts:
“Lost amid the news coverage of Copenhagen and Climategate was the assertion that one of the more attention-grabbing statements of the IPCC AR4 was flat-out wrong: [the IPCC text is]
Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world (see Table 10.9) and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate. Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 km2 by the year 2035 (WWF, 2005).”(IPCC AR4 WG2 Ch10, p. 493).”
“To recap, the available evidence indicates that the IPCC authors of this section relied upon a secondhand, unreferreed source which turned out to be unreliable, and failed to identify this source. As a result, the IPCC has predicted the likely loss of most or all of Himalaya’s glaciers by 2035 with apparently no peer-reviewed scientific studies to justify such a prediction and at least one scientific study (Kotlyakov) saying that such a disappearance is too fast by a factor of ten!”
To see how that year of 2035 figures in, read the complete report here: By the way, there will still be glaciers in the Himalayas in 2035
I saw a commercial on TV today from the WWF that stated that the polar bears would all be dead by the time my kids were grown up. The claimed that the baby polar bears are starving to death and drowning from lack of strength to swim.
I have not seen such pure falsehood in a commercial in a very long time. It was worse than wrong, it was harmful. My kids see those commercials and when they see something from a charity like WWF that uses the same buzzwords they are learning at school (“global warming”, etc) it becomes very believable to them. And for me to have to explain to them that even people like the WWF are not above lying to people in order to collect money, it is heartbreaking. It peels away another layer of innocence from a child.
Those people are sick.
I used to make an annual contribution to the WWF.
My heartfelt apologies for it; I thought they were about wildlife conservation.
This story reminds me of the game of ‘rumor’ we all played as children. Malintent? Possibly, given what we know of some advocacy groups. Possibly not. Either way, utterly irresponsible.
2035 instead of 2350…Reminds me of the guys at NASA or JPL working on the Mars Climate Orbiter who had the metric/imperial mix up.
It is funny that people didn’t think ‘hold on, no glaciers in just 25 years…does that seem right?’ People seem to have lost their common-sense reference point when it comes to climate.
Cheers
Michael
New math?
Glaciers have been retreating since the LIA. Is there any evidence at all that man’s CO2 has increased the rate of retreat since 1945, when fossil fuel burning skyrocketed by a factor of 12 ?
I notice that even Inhofe believes that man’s CO2 is causing global warming. Is there any evidence whatsoever this is true ?
We all know the theory that doubling CO2 produces an increase in temps of 0.5 degrees, (or 2 degrees if you believe the IPCC). However, it appears that there is no hard evidence that recent increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations are caused by man, rather than by natural changes in ocean temperatures, ocean circulation, or some other effect. Similarly there appears to be no hard evidence that this increase is directly responsible for any of the warming since 1945, rather than it being a natural continuation of the warming since the LIA.
Is AGW still just a theory or is there anything at all to support it ?
In the year twenty three fifty or,
Give or take 300 odd years….
Gawd I loved that song when I was a kid-very apt choice-thanks for the giggle.
And so.. another “mistake” slides by friendly reviewers and editors. Or did they just not bother to read it?
That’s amazing. So, the year is wrong by a huge margin, and 500,000 to 100,000 km^2 refers to something that apparently wasn’t fact checked, but I guess that’s for magazines and not UN documents.
2,500 scientists worked on AR4 and didn’t catch this? I guess that’s not enough, or the IPCC counts scientists funny. In addition to going back the the original B-91 sheets for weather data, we have to make a line-by-line review of AR4 too? Sigh.
Excuse me while I go off and be incredulous for a while.
Only 315 years off.
Missed it by ‘that much’, Agent 99.
Himalayan glaciers gone by 2035? In just 25 years?
Dear God, why aren’t all the green groups over there helping the evacuations? We must get those people out of the way of the imminent devastating floods!
Oh the humanity!
Oh silly skeptics, this man’s opinion doesn’t matter… he’s not a climatol…. oh wait.
I’m in a helpful mood tonight. I just provided this advice to a poster at realclimate:
——
“First, I’m looking for ammunition to squelch denialist rumors, but to some extent that requires knowing your enemy, and knowing the kinds of arguments that will work against them.”
James, I think you should always present fact-based arguments. A good place to start would be to point out that the Himalayan glaciers will disappear by 2035. It’s very difficult for the denialists to dispute facts.
Tell the IPCC to stop using wikipedia
crosspatch (19:37:21) : “I saw a commercial on TV today from the WWF that stated that the polar bears would all be dead by the time my kids were grown up.”
“The very last pygmy rhino is going extinct? Unless it gets my credit card number?” — Leela, in “Bender’s Big Score” (Futurama)
It was just a matter of time…
As another winter snow storm prepares to pound the midwest after one greeted Obama after his trip home from Dopenhagen.
Make sure Cap and Trade does not pass so Gore, Goldman Sachs and co. don’t cash in on the carbon trade. This scam is about money not protecting the world.
Cap and Trade does not stop any pollution it just allows for a large wealth transfer-from us to them.
Don’t worry! The paper that this paper relies upon will be published shortly.
“To recap, the available evidence indicates that the IPCC authors of this section relied upon a secondhand, unreferreed source which turned out to be unreliable, and failed to identify this source.”
No kidding, and what about all the referreed papers that have since turned out to be unreliable post climategate.
Sloppy, sloppy work.
And the WWF, just another NGO peddling fear to fill their coffers…
Isn’t the main definition of a terrorist someone who uses fear as a tool to extract obedience/control from other human beings.
The comparisons are obvious.
You just can’t make this up.
Build-a-Bear workshop using Santa Clause to peddle the AGW scare to kids.
http://biggovernment.com/2009/12/22/build-a-climate-scare-why-you-should-boycott-build-a-bear/
I mean child friendly companies trying to say to kids to stop emitting CO2 immediately if they want to have a Christmas. O.o
Okay, a simple observation. Given that glaciers are notoriously devoid of wildlife and their disappearance leaves in their wake glacial valleys like Yosemite, shouldn’t an organization that has “World Wildlife” in the name be jumping up and down on Romper Room bouncy balls at the thought of glaciers disappearing?
But I suppose they think the story resonates with all the people who don’t realize that polar bear populations have exploded since the 1960’s, with approximately three times more now than then. Won’t someone think of the Japanese tourists?
*sobs*
It reminds me of the spoof “Glacial paradise turns into tropical wasteland” with a side-by-side comparison of a glacier and Gilligan’s Island.
We all need to remember the origins of the World Wildlife Fund. This is a favorite pet project of the British and the royals who advocate an oligarchy vs. the peasants worldview. The WWF consistently supports anti-human development positions, is opposed to the development of natural resources for the benefit of human society. Prince Philip of England has stated his desire to be reincarnated as a virus so he could come back and dramatically reduce the world’s population. The triumph of China and India and Copenhagen, defeating the no-growth global warmists from Europe and the Obama administration, was a great victory for those who believe in the importance of physical development projects — high speed rail, nuclear power, water desalination, etc. — for the improvement of mankind’s condition. This is antithetical to the position of the World Wildlife Fund and their oligarchy backers.
IPCC must have had the same fact checkers as Al Gore when he claim the earth’s temperature under the ground was in the millions.
mpaul,
That is sooo wrong. You are evil. Here, have a cookie.
Yet this doesn’t impact AR4, since it would be a simple matter for someone in 2035 to hire David Copperfield and fly him to the Himalayas. This possibility possibly appears in magicians’ peer-reviewed literature, which they keep close to their chests lest the secrets get out.
Another obvious error here: it is “extra-polar” glaciers, i.e., those outside the polar regions, that cover approximately 500,000 square kilometers, not the Himalayan glaciers. All the central Asian glaciers, including those in the Himalayas, cover only about 100,000 km2. If they “retreat” to 100,000km2 that would be no loss at all. It’s clear that this whole presentation is hopelessly garbled and that these people know nothing about glaciers, or geography either for that matter.