From the : 
India ‘arrogant’ to deny global warming link to melting glaciers
IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri accuses Indian environment ministry of ‘arrogance’ for its report claiming there is no evidence that climate change has shrunk Himalayan glaciers
A leading climate scientist today accused the Indian environment ministry of “arrogance” after the release of a government report claiming that there is no evidence climate change has caused “abnormal” shrinking of Himalayan glaciers.
Jairam Ramesh, India’s environment minister, released the controversial report in Delhi, saying it would “challenge the conventional wisdom” about melting ice in the mountains.
Two years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN agency which evaluates the risk from global warming, warned the glaciers were receding faster than in any other part of the world and could “disappear altogether by 2035 if not sooner”.
Today Ramesh denied any such risk existed: “There is no conclusive scientific evidence to link global warming with what is happening in the Himalayan glaciers.” The minister added although some glaciers are receding they were doing so at a rate that was not “historically alarming”.
However, Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the IPCC, told the Guardian: “We have a very clear idea of what is happening. I don’t know why the minister is supporting this unsubstantiated research. It is an extremely arrogant statement.”
read the entire article at the Guardian here
Arrogant…..but did he say wrong?
Listen to the Science! Unless the science does not agree with us then do not listen to it.
“We have a very clear idea of what is happening. I don’t know why the minister is supporting this unsubstantiated research. It is an extremely arrogant statement.”
Is that not in itself an arrogant statement?
Now that’s rich! Pachauri calling Ramesh “arrogant.”
Pachauri is characterized in the article as “a leading climate scientist.” He’s an economist who studied railroad management in college — no climate science there.
The pot calling the kettle black!
IPCC is the very height of arrogance.
Not since King Canute have we seen such preposterous pretentions
I am leaping to the conclusion that when they write “leading climate scientist” they mean Rajendra K. Pachauri. But he is an engineer with a Ph.D. in economics an administrator.
The article describes Mr. Pachauri as a ‘leading climate scientist’. He is in fact an industrial engineer and an economist.
Sorry for posting. I now see others have caught this.
What about mentioning the Himalayan Glaciers that did not study the IPCC reports and thus, in their ignorance, have been growing the last few years? It is my understanding that nearly half the Glaciers are growing over there, can anyone shed more light on confirming or denying this? If it helps narrow the search for this information, could it be the western Himalayas vs. the eastern?
It doesn’t matter where the ice is but watching ice melt is more ‘exciting’ than watching water freeze.
Not only is Pachauri not a “climate scientist” but an engineer who worked in managing transport issues. And not only is he the Chairman of the IPCC circus, but as of a couple of weeks ago he has a day time job as well as climate “advisor” to the Chinese government no less! Conflict of interest anyone? The arrogance is beyond belief.
Interesting comment, “…faster than in any other part of the world ”
Why is it when a glacier melts, or there is some dramatic change (imagined or real) that the grant-hungry researchers (or ecogroup) claim that THIS specific spot on earth is WAY worse than anywhere else?
I’ve seen it here in Canada. “Banff has warmed 2° more than anywhere else.” (Or whatever … I forget the exact reference.)
Golly, if the world has warmed an average (say) 0.7C° in 100+ years and alarmist research locations have all warmed by (say) 2C°, then it follows that a lot of other places are much colder. It is all nonsense. I unable to believe climate alarmist “research” and statements.
The world is changing. Adapt and move forward.
Anthony and crew … keep up the great work.
Clive
When your doing a story about Rajendra Pachauri could you please not put his picture in the article.
It scares the children.
The ignorance of the Guardian is sublime. Just like the sublimation of the ice at many places where the temperature is below freezing but the ice is going away. Morons. Ice does not have to melt to go away. All that has to happen is that the partial pressure of the water vapor in the air has to be low enough. I wonder if this hack ever heard of the triple point of water?
Please, people, if we are going to make comments about King Canute, can we get the legend right?
Canute was demonstrating he was NOT all powerful/godlike, as believed by his courtiers, by commanding the tide to retreat.
I believe the Himalayans are suffering from deforestation which is causing a lack of moisture in the air which is causing some loss of ice. But the temp. have remained pretty much the same, ask Ann Curry of Today Show, she nearly froze to death trying to film the “warming” up there.
I see that comment by Jeremy (07:51:48), but I just have to say this – when I saw that photo and the headline above, that line immediately popped into my head – talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
Presumptive arrogance is the IPCC’s stock in trade.
Karakorum glaciers have been nearly stationary in the 20th Century and many of them advanced in the 1990’s.
See:
The Karakoram Anomaly? Glacier Expansion and the ‘Elevation Effect,’ Karakoram Himalaya. Mountain Research and Development 25(4):332-340. 2005.
Available online: http://tinyurl.com/yjmnvg4
Can anyone provide a link to an impartial study of the retreat/advance of Himalayan glaciers?
Send my best regards to the outstanding climate scientist in India! We all know that India has a strong tradition for excellence in science in general and in physics and mathematics in particular – we all remember the brilliant mathematician Ramanujan.
The last couple of weeks I have had the please to read the book “Chaotic Climate Dynamics” by Dr. Selvam from Indian Institute of Tropical Metrology, and it’s quite obvious from this book that our climate is a highly non-trivial subject that cannot at all be understood by someone that is not educated in one of the classical science subjects like physics, mathematics or metrology.
I wonder if Rajendra Pachauri with a Ph.D. in economics is at all familiar with the terminology in the above mentioned book, like for example the inverse power law scale invariance in our climate that indicate long-range correlations? If you do not understand what such issues means for our ability to give accurate climate predictions, it’s no wonder why so many people trust the climate models! I think I know who is being arrogant here…
If arrogance mattered in science, JP II should never have apologized for Galileo. The world is the world and science does not care whether the discoverer of something is arrogant or humble, merely whether the paper is correct and replicable.
Alvin (07:47:42) :
The world is full of pots jeering at kettles.
some of the specialists in the IPCC could mount a scientific investigation into the climate surrounding the Himalayas, to verify whether the present state there is due to global warming or not
A day does not go by, that some warmer, accuses me of arrogance because of a statement which contradicts consensus. Every statement claiming consensus is a reflection of ignorance. Arrogance, is therefore, a required characteristic of any practicing scientist, and much preferable to ignorance. GK
[snip]
Pretty much the same thing as cited in Real Climates most recent post “Is Pine Island Glacier the Weak Underbelly of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet?”
It is way past time that the scientific community dump the politicking and concentrate on reality. Is that too much to ask? Yup, i expect it is.
I’m an engineer! I guess that makes me a climate scientist too….. 😛
Of course Pachauri is a leading climate scientist. Climate science is all about economics and taxation, is it not? So who better to represent climate science than an economist?
Climate science has nothing to do with empirical evidence, or truth, or honesty, or open and transparent sharing of raw data, or independent verification of tests or any number of other “old fashioned” and “out of date” so-called scientific methodologies.
It is about motivation for increases in taxation through producing the results required, regardless of the means undertaken to produce those results. Only the new real science of climatology can produce such reliable results time after time in the face of changing and contrary evidence. That is REAL science. Economists and failed politicians and paid advocates producing the same fear inducing results, year in-year out even when the planet is doing the opposite of what was predicted. you CANNOT get that kind of reliable delivery time after time from physisists, or chemists, or oceonographers, or paleogeologists or any of those other PHd qualified professors who insist on using the old methodologies of testing what actually happens! No, they just do NOT deliver enough certainty or consistency.
Railway engineers, economists, media guru’s, lifestyle guru’s, failed politicians etc.. These are the NEW REAL scientists who produce consensus, no matter HOW many times they have to back-track and alter and amend and re-analyse their results.
THAT is reliable delivery of scientific consensus for ya!!! Climatology*. The ONLY real science of the 21st century.
*Evidence not included!
Via the Guardian website you can download the original report. To me this seems objective, well researched and clear. The report does not deny global warming, it only says that they cannot find an effect of it on the retreat of the gletschers. This should be non-controversial. However, the reaction of mr Pachauri is very telling: the report detracts from the IPCC party line and should therefore be attacked.
This party line, which is so evident in all communications from official institutions, is for me proof that something is wrong. Normally scientist do not agree so completely with one another. There seems to be an agreement not to confuse the public with conflicting information concerning climate change. This implies that those institutions are giving out information of which they may well have a different opinion themselves. This puts them in a difficult position when -next year I think- those official institutions will be attacked by the media and politicians for misleading the public. After all, politicians are expert at shifting blame, and scientist are not.
[snip]
“I don’t know why the minister is supporting this unsubstantiated research. It is an extremely arrogant statement.”
This from a man who compared Bjorn Lomborg to Hitler for daring to suggest that perhaps the best solution to the Maldives “problem” was to re-train and relocate the population!
Proud Chairman Pachauri’s a sight
But his visage is not the main fright
This train engineer
Just said with a sneer
That his arrogance proves he is right
Well I think I’ll start a travel company for senior citizens; and get ready to drive busloads of them up to the top of Mt Everest to see where all those wonderful glaciers used to be. With all that ice and snow gone by 2035, we should be able to finally find what is left of Irvine’s body.
So just what is the average temperature up there on the South Col these days ?
Is there no end to the silliness of this IPCC bunch ? So Mt Kilimanjaro at 20,000 ft or so, wasn’t high enough to escape global warming; so now it has moved up another couple of km or so.
The standard atmosphere has a temperature drop of 6.5 deg C per km up to 11 km starting at 15 deg C at sea level. Those Himalayan Glaciers are at least 5 km above sea level at their terminus, which puts the atmospheric temperature at around -17.5 deg C. So Just how much melting are you going to get other than direct sunlight on the surface of the ice.
Now if ocean temperatures cooled limiting evaporation, thereby diminishing the monsoons, then yes you might get less precipitation and more sublimation up at those higher altitudes.
I think I’ll stick around till 2035 just to see what the ice free Himalayas look like.
A more honest headline for this would be “UN apparatchik attacks Indian climate scientist after publishing research showing the himalaya glaciers unaffected by global warming.”
Jeremy (07:51:48) :
“The pot calling the kettle black!
IPCC is the very height of arrogance”
Spot on, I say! The IPCC always refers to itself as THE WORLD’S leading authority on Climate Change. A prime example of making oneself out to be better than one is!
Wayne Richards (07:56:12) :
“The article describes Mr. Pachauri as a ‘leading climate scientist’. He is in fact an industrial engineer and an economist.”
He has PhD’s in Industrial Engineering & Economics. I have often wondered how that equates to being “a leading climate scientist”. Whilst I have every admiration & respect for such qualifications it is equally arrogant, & not a little fraudulaent, to let oneself be called what one is not, a climate scientist, I am just as qualified a climate scientist as he is in that case although I do not possess a PhD! Absolute piffle.
Can you say “projecting”, ….
It is worth looking through Pachauri’s comments in the full article at the Guardian. Some of them are really offensive, like
“I cannot see what the minister’s motives are”.
Well, maybe the motives are to obtain some scientific data?
science fiktion?
glaciers in himalaya are between, lets say, 5000 and 8000m above see level.
let the temperature increase for 3°C, they will still be “alive” about 5.500m or so.
what the hell is with the brain of this hysteric ipcc chairman?
He’s right, how DARE Ramesh go against AGW doctrine! What heresy! What blaspheme! He needs to be burned at the stake, to “wash” him clean of his Carbon sins, and as a lesson to any and all who dare go against the High Church of Global Warming. sarc/off
Jeremy (07:51:48) :
The pot calling the kettle black!
IPCC is the very height of arrogance.
Not since King Canute have we seen such preposterous pretentions
I believe that Canute was actually demonstrating to courtiers and sycophants that no matter how powerful a man is, nature is more powerful and connot be resisted.
George E Smith: “Those Himalayan Glaciers are at least 5 km above sea level at their terminus, which puts the atmospheric temperature at around -17.5 deg C.”
Not quite. I’ve been to the Gangotri Glacier, which is often quoted as melting, and the terminus was at about 4000 meters. That was in 1982. If it’s at 5000 now, it would really be alarming 😉 But of course it isn’t, it has retreated a lot, there’s still a lot to go.
There has been atmospheric cooling the last 8 years, and no new high global annual temperatures in the last 11 years. You may find it interesting what the head of the IPCC said 1-1/2 years ago concerning the lack of new annual high global temperatures:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1171501720080111
Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N. Panel that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, said (1-1/2 years ago) that he would look into the apparent temperature plateau so far this century.
“One would really have to see on the basis of some analysis what this really represents,” he told Reuters 1-1/2 years ago, adding “are there natural factors compensating?” for increases in greenhouse gases from human activities.
Also in this article from 1-1/2 years ago, Amir Delju, senior scientific coordinator of the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) climate program, said temperatures would have to be flat for several more years before a lack of new record years became significant.
Well, we are 3/4 of the way to being significant.
The government report that’s gotten Pachauri’s pajamas in a twist is sited above and in the original Guardian Article. As Evert Jesse (09:01:31) says, it’s an objective, thorough, and scientific study.
Ramesh does not challenge glacier shrinkage, and in fact confirms the century-long warming trend shown in other records.
Using RSS data, “snout” recession measurements, snowfall records, mass balance measurements, stream flow emittance, etc, and decades-spanning “before” and “after” pictures, it’s clear that the glaciers are in the process of shrinking – or were, up until about 2001. Since then, the recession of most has slowed, in some cases stabilized, and in a very few cases, reversed.
But he “arrogantly” fails to attribute this to anthropogenic sources, and he has the temerity to contradict Pachauri’s dire claims that any glaciers are going to disappear by 2035.
From Ramesh’s conclusion:
Glacier Retreat in the Himalayas
The glacier ice cover, in the Himalayas, during the
last Ice Age, is believed to have been at least three
times than what it is today. It started dwindling, with
more and more area getting exposed from under the
ice cover, with each successive Interglacial warm
period. Evidences have come forth, which would
postulate that, at the end of the last glacial cycle of
the Quaternary Ice Age-15ky-17ky BP, glaciers in
general, in the Himalayas, may not have extended
beyond the limit of 20-30 odd kilometres from the
present snout position. And the current retreat of
the glaciers, in the Himalayas, barring the advance
during the Younger Dryas Period (9ky-10ky) and the
Little Ice Age (around 200-300 years, BP), is, more
or less, in consistent with and continuance of the
retreat that began at the end of the last glacial cycle.
Pachauri’s comment is like the pot calling the mirror black, i.e., it’s a case of psychological projection.
Espen (09:44:12) :
RE: Melting glaciers
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/09/melting-glaciers-and-cognitive-dissonance/
Then there’s this.
<em"May 5, 2009 — Perched on the soaring Karakoram mountains in the Western Himalayas, a group of some 230 glaciers are bucking the global warming trend. They're growing. "
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/05/05/himalayas-glaciers.html
(NOTE – they also pay homage to the “water from glaciers threatened by melting” meme, but they do present some of the contrary evidence, even though they try to rationalize it away.
They want it to appear that their agenda is being driven by facts, when the fact is, it is there “facts” that are being driven by their agenda.
Re: “sited above”
It’s also cited above.
“Two years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN agency which evaluates the risk from global warming, warned the glaciers were receding faster than in any other part of the world and could “disappear altogether by 2035 if not sooner”.”
Once again, the prediction is 20 years plus , just out of range for the common man who cares about such things, they really need to polish up the crystal ball or is it tarot cards this time???
I think in this context “arrogant” simply means “blasphemous”.
It is clear that the IPCC is purely a political vehicle for political goals, when it appoints a railway engineer like Rajendra Pachauri as its head, rather than a climatologist.
Why is it that whenever I see that picture it brings to mind the old Charlie Drake song “The Witch Doctor”?
The UN, and all it’s good works, would do well to consider the terrible price the IPCC Chairman’s comments and behavior are having on their public image. It looks terribly like the IPCC is dedicated to subjugating emerging nations to the whimsical vision of a handful of enviro-kooks.
This is why Copenhagen has little chance of doing anything more than setting the 2C temp goal. Human beings don’t accept being told they cannot better themselves. Especially when the reasoning is fallacious data and speculation based on faulty computer simulations. IF and when the GCM’s can hindcast properly – maybe there will be reason for a Copenhagen.
Demagoguery is the height of arrogance.
See the regional climate summary of India including information on temperatures, rainfall, sea level, glaciers and black carbon: http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/RS_India.htm
And what degree in Climate Science or Climatology does Pachauri hold?
Oh wait, that only applies to skeptics. Anybody who repeats the IPCC line is in the club and does not have to have credentials. It’s not your qualifications that matter, only correct thinking matters.
Jeremy (07:51:48) :
The pot calling the kettle black!
“IPCC is the very height of arrogance.
Not since King Canute have we seen such preposterous pretentions”
King Canute was the opposite of pretentious. The stunt with the sea was to demonstrate to those who worshiped him that he was not all powerful.
Scuse the rant but misquoting Shakespeare sets my buzzer buzzing.
Meantime I have just read a 200+ page broker’s report about the prospects in ’emerging markets’. The real economy does not believe in global warming
Evidently Rajendra Pachauri thinks he can make friends and influence people by playing the odious clown. 2035 is now the final date for the farcical AGW apocalypse? I hope I live another 25 years just so I can see this politician eat his words. Maybe it will only take five years.
Pachauri is not a climate scientist.
If the glaciers melt away – which I seriously doubt- does that mean it will no longer rain, either?
Of course he’s a leading climate scientist.
Just like the Goreacle and Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize.
Incidentally, I’m a Prima Ballerina Assoluta (even if I am 62 and weigh 250 lbs)…….
Don’t confuse me with facts, I made up my mind!
This summer I stood at the mouth of a huge glacial valley in the Absoroka Mountains of northwestern Wyoming. Ten or twelve thousand years ago the spot where I was standing would have been covered by at least 300 meters of ice. The remnant of that ancient glacier was visible about 20 miles away, high up in the volcanic peaks at the head of the valley. Manifold evidence of recent glaciation was all around.
We are in an interglacial period that began 12,000 or so years ago. These warm periods usually last 12-14K years, followed by long ice ages on the order of 100K years. Glaciers melted, sea levels rose. We had no part in it. Each of the last three ice ages had lower lows than the preceding one.
If the cycles continue as they have in the past we are enjoying the waning years of our interglacial and the long term outlook, geologically thinking, is for the onset of the next big freeze.
The paltry single molecule of CO2 per 10,000 molecules of air that we may have added to the atmosphere over the past 150 years will not save us from that fate.
“”” Espen (09:44:12) :
George E Smith: “Those Himalayan Glaciers are at least 5 km above sea level at their terminus, which puts the atmospheric temperature at around -17.5 deg C.”
Not quite. I’ve been to the Gangotri Glacier, which is often quoted as melting, and the terminus was at about 4000 meters. That was in 1982. If it’s at 5000 now, it would really be alarming 😉 But of course it isn’t, it has retreated a lot, there’s still a lot to go. “””
I thought in matters climate we deal with averages; not extremes. If there is at least one Himalayan glacier whose terminus is below 5 km, then I apologise for misleading everybody.
On the other hand, in New zealand, the Fox, and Franz Josef glaciers both come down almost to sea level, and I believe they are both currently advancing; although generally retreating over the long haul as we emerge from the last ice age.
So I’ll take 6.5 deg C off my temperature estimate to allow for your Gangotri glacier which evidently is only -11 deg C and therefore would melt much faster.
No, no. You’ve got it all wrong. Pachauri in an attempt to inject some honesty into his statement add the last sentence as a description of what he had just said. That’s all
Rajendra Pachauri, by what detailed quantifiable and qualifiable process are the Himalayan glaciaers melting?
What a wonderful report! Has Pachauri read it, before speaking?
Ecotretas
Since when has Rajendra Pachauri been a leading “climate scientist”?
India should have used an un-validated model full of guesswork, than the IPCC might take them seriously!
I protest any claim that Pachauri is any kind of a climate scientist.
He is a political mouthpiece for a political agenda. Nothing he says has anything to do with science.
How arrogant Pachauri is no climate expert and, by his complete disregard for the research, he demonstrates a lack of the honest scepticism required of any scientist. What a scandal that such a man is head of the IPCC.
History shows that glaciers are never static, but always in a state of either advance or retreat and this has been so throughout recorded time. Just like our dynamic chaotic climate they can never be static and are entrained to be in a state of constant change.
Nothing new here then except the failing AGW theory and it’s desperate defenders who are already punch drunk and desperately trying to avoid the knock-out punch. Wish I could bring myself to feel sorry for the poor guy, but I don’t.
Sikkim Tourism October 6, 2009
In Landmass Sikkim covers only 0.5 percent of India’s total landmass, though the size of the state is small compared to other states in the country this small state has 84 glaciers. In the last six years studies show that ice caps in the state have grown about four times. Of the many glaciers in Sikkim, the most famous prominent and most famous of all is Zemu Glacier. It is the largest glacier in Eastern Himalayas.
Evidently Rajendra Pachauri forgot about Sikkim.
http://sikkimtourism.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/zemu-glacier/
Precipitation in lower than freezing temperatures = glacier growth and increased glacier ice mass. Increased ice mass causes the extrusion of glacier ice to increase. Sublimation of glacier ice at the surface causes the reduction of glacier ice mass. Higher wind velocities cause faster rates of sublimination.
If precipitation – sublimation is greater than zero, the glacier will get larger in mass. If precipitation – sublimation is less than zero, the glacier will shrink in mass.
If the only tool you have is a thermometer, all the changes in glacier mass will seem like temperature and melting situations to you. One trick ponies are fun to watch only for a short while, and then get tiring.
Pachauri claims Indian scientific position “arrogant”
“Mr Kettle, there’s a Mr Pot on line one for you”
I’ve watched Mr Pachauri making his case during a presentation in New Zealand.
He is one of the IPCC charlatans who sold out on his own integrity to sell all the lies about our climate he does not believe himself. He is a liar.
Lubosz Motl has done a very good article on the subject and you can download a PDF of the Indian Research here”
http://motls.blogspot.com/2009/11/pachauri-glaciology-is-arrogant.html
Arrogant? Arrogant? That’s a non sequitur of an adjective to use on the conclusion of a scientific report. The only terms that count are; is it accurate or inaccurate?
It seems to me that Mr. Pachauri doesn’t really understand the science of his own organization’s hypothesis. Since, as the Kilamanjaro situation has established, glacier extent is more strongly determined by precipitation levels than by temperature, if glaciers were in accelerated decline globally, that would indicate that global precipitation levels were also declining and by extension so must global levels of water in the atmosphere be declining. But the central premise on which the AGW hypothesis is based is that as rising levels of anthropogenically generated CO2 raise global temperatures, additional water vapor will be present in the atmosphere to generate the catastrophic warming we’re supposed to be so frightened about. The ad hominems Mr. Patchauri aims at Mr. Ramesh seem quite ironic, since Ramesh’s observations seem to offer more confirmatory support for the AGW hypothesis than the vision of a glacier free world that Patchauri posits.
Of course, since of the estimated number of nearly a hundred thousand glaciers on the planet, little more than one percent have ever been monitored or studied and of that small group most observations have been either scant and/or sporadic, it is quite a stretch to be extrapolating any conclusions about global climate from the behavior of glaciers anyway.
MartinG Atkins 08:18:49
I’m still laughing at your comment as I type this. What a great Holloween Mask!
Scary! What an idiot -not a scientist.
That poor man does not get a lot of love here. Pretty impressive resume though. Sure beats the typical Sunday scientist’s.
Here is an article explaining why some Himalayan glaciers are growing, though most are retreating: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/05/05/himalayas-glaciers.html
The Chinese are worried for sure: http://www.china.org.cn/english/2002/Jun/33719.htm
Just trying to bring some balance…
“Ken Hall (09:01:22) :
Of course Pachauri is a leading climate scientist. Climate science is all about economics and taxation, is it not? So who better to represent climate science than an economist?”
Well it works too in Australia. The Govn’t’s leading climate adviser is Ross Gaurnot, an economist.
http://www.garnautreview.org.au/domino/Web_Notes/Garnaut/garnautweb.nsf
chmd (17:03:57),
That last link was just parroting the UN: “We need more funding.” And the link was from 2002. Got anything current? Nevermind, they’re still money grubbing.
Your other link blamed global warming for the retreating glaciers: “Throughout much of the Tibetan Plateau, high-altitude glaciers are dwindling in the face of rising temperatures.” But the growing glaciers? Oh, they’re growing because of local conditions.
If you’re going to blame everything on global warming, you might as well use the original list: click
And you’re right about Pachauri. We’re on to him here. Put “Pachauri” in the search box. You’ll see what I mean.
I knew of Pachauri’s flight from New York to Delhi during a break in a seminar. It was for a cricket match. Now I hear the flight was private charter jet.
Tell me, at least, that it was a public flight, with recycled copies of the Guardian.
Please assure me (a) that no-one is that blatant, and (b) that no-one would ever again lend credence to anyone that blatant.
Pachauri continues to embarass my alma mater (NCSU).
*sigh* 🙁
It’s an interesting question. I’m not a scientist, but have long wondered about a graph featured prominently in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science which suggests something quite different. I hope you’ll have a look and tell me what you think.
http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm
Scroll down to see award-winning paleo-artist Christopher Scortese’s view of Earth’s paleoclimate history. He depicts the fluctuations of Earth’s climate on both sides of a mean 17 C during the last 2 billion years. We’re presently at a (relatively chilly) 12-13 C.
If accurate, we’ve had four long excursions into the hothouse (all peaking at nearly 25 C – where we’ve remained each time, for 100’s of millions of years), and four relatively short excursions (prior to the present one) into the icehouse, with lows around 10 C (only a few degrees below our present temps). Those “down” times (ice ages) represent only a small percent of the overall “up” times.
It true, it’s a globe which has spent the preponderance of its geological history well above the mean – in the hothouse. From its present temps, and the protracted period of (again, relative) cold that Earth has endured in the Pleistocene, it would appear warmer temps in the next few million years are in store.
Here’s Scortese’s C.V.
http://www.scotese.com/ScoteseCV.htm
If the underlying assumption is valid, that a cyclical upswing is in progress, then the century-long warming since the “Little Ice Age” (and fraudulent claims of AGW) may have their geneses in a real and vastly larger warming trend.
For a scientist to say something like ““disappear altogether by 2035 if not sooner” does it not imply they have a model of the behaviour of the artifact to disappear, and therefore they must be able to make statements about its state in the intervening years? E.g. they must be able to say something like (or plot a graph):
2015 – 90% of 2007 levels
2020 – 70%
2025 – 45%
2030 – 15%
2035 – 0%
Does that model exist for the Himalayan glaciers?
I asked the UK met office for their intervening year projections on arctic ice melt since they claim it would disappear by 2060-80 by have yet to receive any reply.
Mr Pachauri needs a good haircut. A beard trim wouldn’t go astray either.
It wasn’t very long ago that glaciers covered Yosemite Valley several thousand feet deep. An intelligent person might conclude that glaciers have been retreating since before the invention of the internal combustion engine.
Mr. Pachauri is also n the Board of Directors of the Chicago Carbon Exchange.
The IPPC is the worlds foremost agency on climate change, IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri is the head of the agency and is therefor the worlds foremost climate change science expert. No other credituals needed.
EXPERT is a former drip under pressure
Pachauri should have been here!
We know that glaciers are always either advancing or retreating – they must do one or the other. Are people like Pachauri saying they would rather see glaciers advancing? And if they were advancing we would no doubt have another set of alarmism ranting about a coming ice age – caused by man of course. “The glaciers are advancing – faster than the most dire predictions!”
What a load of nonsense it all is. We should just pack those people off to a commune where they can cavort with nature and the rest of us with jobs to do can get on with our lives.
This “Glacier War” has been going on for quite a while.
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New Study Casts Doubt on Cause of Himalayan Glaciers Melting
10 08 2009
Weather variations, not global warming cause glacier melt
From the The Hindu, 9 August 2009
excerpts:
New Delhi (PTI): Himalayan glaciers, including the world’s highest battlefield Siachen, are melting due to variations in weather and not because of global warming, Jammu University scientists have claimed.
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Geologists R K Ganjoo and M N Koul of Jammu University’s Regional Centre for Field Operations and Research of Himalayan Glaciology visited the Siachen glacier to record changes in its snout last summer. “To our surprise, the Siachen glacier valley does not preserve evidences of glaciation older than mid-Holocene, suggesting that the glacier must have advanced and retreated simultaneously several times in the geological past, resulting in complete obliteration and modification of older evidences,” they said reporting their findings in ‘Current Science’.
Ganjoo and Koul dubbed as “hype” some earlier studies which suggested that the Himalayan glaciers were melting fast and caused serious damage to the Himalayan ecosystem.
“There is sufficient field and meteorological evidence from the other side of Karakoram mountains that corroborate the fact that glaciers in this part of the world are not affected by global warming”, they said.
Ganjoo said that the east part of the Siachen glacier showed faster withdrawal of the snout that is essentially due to ice-calving, a phenomenon that holds true for almost all major glaciers in the Himalayas and occurs irrespective of global warming.
Ganjoo contended the Siachen glacier shows hardly any retreat in its middle part and thus defies the “hype” of rapid melting.
The research findings by R.K. Ganjoo and M.N. Koul are published in today’s issue of CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 97, NO. 3, 10 AUGUST 2009 and are available at http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/aug102009/309.pdf
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comment
This has to be the most sadly hilarious glacier story printed. It is absolute proof that the crisis of global warming is “man-made”.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1203500/In-pictures-How-global-warming-changing-face-northern-hemisphere.html
The glacier is growing madly, choking a lagoon with ice, yet this is all claimed to be from global warming. Here is on of the comments from a geologist on that story.
“I am a geologist who has worked frequently in Alaska for 45 years. I would like to state that the reason the lagoon is filling up with ice is that the glacier is apparently advancing towards the sea. Glaciers advance when snowfall increases and temperatures decline enough for the snow to remain throughout the year. Less snow melts than falls in the year. Glaciers recede when melting exceeds the amount of new ice that forms from each year’s accumulation of snow. I hope that your article was a test to see how many people would believe the ridiculous conclusion you presented. Better yet, I hope it was a joke. I am not laughing, however. I am only shocked that the advance of a glacier could be presented as “evidence” of global warming.”
Here is an article in The Times of India, March09, regarding their glaciers.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/No_threat_to_Gangotri/articleshow/2892632.cms
We are fed NONSENSE on every single angle of this fabricated crisis.
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I had to dig up this oldie but goodie from Nat Geo. It’s from the “heads I win, tails you lose” department, i.e., glaciers melting – global warming; glaciers growing – global warming!
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/09/060911-growing-glaciers.html
Some Glaciers Growing Due to Climate Change, Study Suggests
Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News
September 11, 2006
Some glaciers in Pakistan’s Upper Indus River Basin appear to be growing, and a new study suggests that global warming is the cause.
The glacial growth bucks a global trend of shrinking ice fields (photos: melting glaciers) and may shed light on the regionally varying effects of Earth’s changing climate.
Meteorological data compiled over the past century show that winter temperatures have been rising in parts of the Western Himalaya, Karakoram, and Hindu Kush mountain ranges. But the region’s winter snowfall, which feeds the glaciers, has been increasing. And average summer temperatures, which melt snow and glaciers, have been dropping.
“One of the surprising results we found was a downward trend in summer temperatures,” said David Archer, study co-author and a hydrologist at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom. “That seems to be at odds with what people would expect, given the news about glaciers melting in the Eastern Himalaya.” (Read “Himalaya Ice-Melt Threat Monitored in Nepal” [March 2006].)
The combination of reduced summer melt and more winter snowfall could account for glacial growth, according to work to be published by Archer and colleagues in an upcoming issue of the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate.
The new study compiled thousands of pages of climatic data that were collected at weather stations during the past century. The records even include 19th-century documents taken from British archives that predate the creation of modern Pakistan in 1947.
In addition to explaining growing glaciers, the combined data could help scientists predict and manage critical meltwater resources that support about 50 million Pakistani people.
Temperatures and precipitation are the main drivers of seasonal water runoff into the Indus River and its tributaries, which nurture Pakistan’s largely agricultural economy.
Fed by snow-melt and glacial runoff, a massive dam and irrigation system in the Indus Basin supplies water to farmlands that cover about 65,640 square miles (170,000 square kilometers).
The waters also drive hydroelectric power facilities at the Mangla and Tarbela Dams.
Hayley Fowler is lead author of the study and a senior research associate with Newcastle University’s School of Civil Engineering and GeoSciences. “Our research suggests we could be able to predict in advance the volume of summer runoff, which is very useful in planning ahead for water resources and also the output from the dams,” Fowler said in a statement.
About a third of the annual runoff comes from glaciers in the high mountain peaks and is regulated largely by summer temperatures.
The latest study suggests that a 1.8°F (1°C) drop in mean summer temperature since 1961 has cut that glacial melt by 20%. But winter snowfall drives the remaining two-thirds of annual runoff. This volume has been increasing as snowfall totals rise.
Temporary Trend?
The data also reveals another climatic oddity—a change in the basin’s diurnal temperature range, or the span between daytime high and nighttime low temperatures for a given day. “There’s a large increase in the diurnal temperature range observed in all seasons and in all the annual data sets,” Archer said. “In most parts of the world there’s been a decrease in diurnal temperature change, and this is what’s being predicted by global climate change models.”
All together, the area’s regional variations are at odds with most glaciated regions worldwide, including the Eastern Himalaya, where glaciers have been shrinking significantly.
Lonnie Thompson, a paleoclimatologist and glacier expert at Ohio State University in Columbus, thinks the latest findings might be a short-term trend only. “My guess is that the glaciers in [Haley and Fowler’s] area of study might find short-term benefit where increased winter snowfall outweighs summer melt,” Thompson said. “[But] it’s likely these glaciers will follow the same pattern of those in Sweden and Norway, which were growing until 1999 due to increasing winter snowfall even as temperatures rose. However, since 1999 these same glaciers are now retreating. The balance of glaciers globally shows retreat and even acceleration in the rate of retreat”, Thompson stressed. (Related news: “Greenland Glaciers Losing Ice Much Faster, Study Says” [February 2006].)
It may take many years to understand climate change’s lasting effects on Pakistan’s glaciers. But Archer hopes for much more immediate payoff from the recently published climate data. “We’re not entirely sure what long-term climate change trends will do,” he said. “But in the meantime, [water forecasting] is a really important, immediate, practical issue”.
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note: India wants the transfer to them of very large sums of money and free technology to compensate for the efforts they are expected to make to reduce their own emissions and in order to ensure the blame for AGW is put firmly on the West.
Creating scientific reports that claim there is no AGW effect is entirely contrary to their interests as that reduces the liability and culpability of the west .
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What a surprise, the melting and reformation of Himalayan glaciers responds routinely to the latitudinal positions of the main air circulation systems as they move poleward in response to increased energy output from the oceans and equatorward from decreased energy output from the oceans.
Just like everywhere else on the planet.
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You can read more about Pachauri here at the website of The Energy and Resources Institute.
http://www.teriin.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15
He has been appointed as from July 2009 onwards:
Director-General. TERI
Director, Yale Climate and Energy Institute
Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
Adviser, International Advisory Board, Toyota Motor Corporation, Japan,
President, Asian Energy Institute (1992 onwards).
Board member of the Global Humanitarian Forum, (Kofi Annan)
Member of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Council on Climate Change
Board of Directors of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd
Board of Directors of the NTPC Limited
Board of Trustees of the India International Centre, New Delhi
Chairman of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway Heritage Foundation
Member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Environment Agency, Government of Japan
Board of Trustees of the India International Centre
Vice President of the Bangalore International Centre
Nice to see he still retains an interest in railways…..
Look at his picture… Would you buy a used car from that man? Then would you buy a complete overhaul of the world’s economic and political system?
“Not only is Pachauri not a “climate scientist” but an engineer who worked in managing transport issues.”
A railroad ‘engineer’? Reminds me of Jimmy.
Spent two year’s at Georgia Tech and was rushed through Annapolis in a year at end of WWII. Spent six months as junior officer, training for commission on the original nuclear submarines.
Resigned to run the peanut farm before completing training.
Nonetheless, he described his professional training as “Nuclear Engineer”.
Poor Rajendra. Not only does he bear a striking resemblance to Osama Bin Laden, but his own countrymen have effectively sabotaged Raj’s Copenhagen fest. The train has jumped off the IPCC tracks. The whole world is laughing at Raj and his army of petty UN bureaucrats, who mill aimlessly now, bashing into walls.
I almost feel sorry for him.
It was a shock to me that IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri is also an external advisory board member of the Chicago Climate Exchange… Along with Elizabeth Dowdswell (ex head of UNEP) and the ubiquitous Maurice Strong is on the board of directors… Not that this is a conflict of interests or anything:
http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/content.jsf?id=68
Scroll down to see his bio. No doubt advising them on the best carbon financial instruments to purchase… The hypocracy and the kelptocracy…
Um, kleptocracy. Not kelptocracy… sounds like a seaweed society 🙂
PG 22:38
Rajendra Pachauri is a Mechanical Engineer. He heads a political organization IPCC that compiles global warming research to create policy recommendations. (IMHO biased to the point of hysteria) He has not produced research in the field and is no more qualified to pass judgement on the researchers findings than you or I. He does have a Political opinion about Global warming but then so does everyone else in the world.
My suggestion is that he pass judgement on areas where he has real expertise such as the economics of Railway engineering and leave Global warming research to the experts.
Shiny
Edward
Even when confronted with the latest science, the IPPC continues it’s lies:
http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/himalayan-glaciers-not-melting
This may be somewhat OT:
I don’t have sources to note, but over 30 years ago (well before the AGW issue was brought up in the MSM), in a book that was well footnoted, I read that the assumption that the glaciers around the world had been around “forever” at some semi-constant state is simply not supported by the evidence. I do not have the capacity to prove or disprove this assertion, but it was something that made an impact on me at the time.
It stated that a study was done, extrapolating backward in time, how long each of many glaciers had been receding – from the ends of their moraines, if I recall.
The results were that apparently none of them – at the observed rates of receding – had been receding for more than about 2000-2500 years. (I am sure this was a straight-line regression.)
While that doesn’t mean that the glaciers were at their full length only 2500 years ago, it does mean that there are things about reading glaciers* that conflict with the idea of steady state glaciation, and that we really don’t know enough to conclude much about them.
The study did extrapolate that the glaciers, at their current rates of receding – would only last approximately X number of years. I cannot now recall what the X value was, but do recall it was not far into the future.
Considering that this was back in the early 1970s, prior to the alleged recent warming trend, and that the study had been actually done decades earlier, it suggests that glacier receding has been going on at a rate we don’t understand.
I, for one, completely object to straight-line regression of climate data curves. I’ve done enough rucimentary regressions in my work to know that there are always trends over short periods that do their own thing. Over-reliance or over-emphasis on straight-line trends is ridiculous; one can always pick out ranges to show just about anything in the data – from “no problem” to “abject alarmism.” But the real-world of it all is that climate changes in both directions all the time, with trends over more periods long and short, and that the trends themselves also change – in both directions.
Glaciers receded and glaciers grow, at varying rates. It mostly doesn’t mean much – at least, not much that we know enough yet to ascertain. The scientists should basically STFU and collect their data. When they open their mouths about conclusions they only set themselves up for counter conclusions and make themselves look stupid in the long run.
I am sure no current day glaciologists are referring to that earlier glacier evidence in their studies. Scientists strongly tend to think observers of past decades (and especially past centuries) were not as astute of observers as those of the present, so they tend to sweep past studies under the carpet – if they even read them at all – thinking they can re-invent the wheel better than some old-timers.
* One more somewhat OT point:
With the slow-motion turbulence that can exist within viscous fluids, I personally am very skeptical about ice cores as proxies for past climate. I strongly suspect the fundamental assumption is wrong: that the layers have been laid down in pretty strata, just sitting docilely their while snow above compacts into ice and does nothing internally within the glaciers. As long as glaciers flow, massive uncertatinties exist as to what those internal dynamics are.
Wow – you could not make it up. This is a great example of why I’m a skeptic.
The 2007 IPCC report alarmingly predicts the glaciers in the Himalayas would disappear by 2035.
The leading glaciologist in India, and many other glaciologists, rejected the unjustified claim. Even the Environment Minister of India accused the IPCC of being alarmist.
It turns out this information was taken from a single news article in 1999. It was never published in a peer reviewed paper. Even the scientist from the news interview says the 2035 date was a “magic date” he just made up.
The Chairman of the IPCC accused the Indian government of “voodoo science” and lacking peer review. Now this is complete hypocrisy, as the claim made by the IPCC was not peer reviewed!
Also note the remark from the lead author of the IPCC defending their process…
> The IPCC authors did exactly what was expected from them. We relied rather
> heavily on grey [not peer-reviewed] literature
So much for the peer review process and the credibility of the IPCC reports.
Even the original scientists in the 1999 news interview objected to it being used by the IPCC, adding “no peer-reviewed journal would accept such speculations.”
Also interesting to note the journalist in the following article was the one that published the 1999 interview that later became the source for the IPCC.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18363-debate-heats-up-over-ipcc-melting-glaciers-claim.html