WUWT first reported on this issue on 11/11/2009 and again on 12/22/2009,with
Pachauri claims Indian scientific position “arrogant”
The head of the IPCC Dr. Rajenda Pachauri had said: India was ‘arrogant’ to deny global warming link to melting glaciers.From the Guardian article:
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.”
We also reported on the finding of Texas state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon
Texas State Climatologist: “IPCC AR4 was flat out wrong” – relied on flawed WWF report
Now who looks arrogant?
It’s now taken almost a month for the Times to catch up to this issue, and now it has made MSM news. Highlights in excerpts below are mine.
The Times, January 17, 2010
World misled over Himalayan glacier meltdown
Jonathan Leake and Chris Hastings
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.
Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world’s glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.
In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC’s 2007 report.
It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.
Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was “speculation” and was not supported by any formal research. If confirmed it would be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research. The IPCC was set up precisely to ensure that world leaders had the best possible scientific advice on climate change.
Professor Murari Lal, who oversaw the chapter on glaciers in the IPCC report, said he would recommend that the claim about glaciers be dropped: “If Hasnain says officially that he never asserted this, or that it is a wrong presumption, than I will recommend that the assertion about Himalayan glaciers be removed from future IPCC assessments.”
The IPCC’s reliance on Hasnain’s 1999 interview has been highlighted by Fred Pearce, the journalist who carried out the original interview for the New Scientist. Pearce said he rang Hasnain in India in 1999 after spotting his claims in an Indian magazine. Pearce said: “Hasnain told me then that he was bringing a report containing those numbers to Britain. The report had not been peer reviewed or formally published in a scientific journal and it had no formal status so I reported his work on that basis. Since then I have obtained a copy and it does not say what Hasnain said. In other words it does not mention 2035 as a date by which any Himalayan glaciers will melt. However, he did make clear that his comments related only to part of the Himalayan glaciers. not the whole massif.”
The New Scientist report was apparently forgotten until 2005 when WWF cited it in a report called An Overview of Glaciers, Glacier Retreat, and Subsequent Impacts in Nepal, India and China. The report credited Hasnain’s 1999 interview with the New Scientist. But it was a campaigning report rather than an academic paper so it was not subjected to any formal scientific review. Despite this it rapidly became a key source for the IPCC when Lal and his colleagues came to write the section on the Himalayas.
When finally published, the IPCC report did give its source as the WWF study but went further, suggesting the likelihood of the glaciers melting was “very high”. The IPCC defines this as having a probability of greater than 90%. The report read: “Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world 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.”
However, 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.
…
Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, has previously dismissed criticism of the Himalayas claim as “voodoo science”. Last week the IPCC refused to comment so it has yet to explain how someone who admits to little expertise on glaciers was overseeing such a report. Perhaps its one consolation is that the blunder was spotted by climate scientists who quickly made it public.
…
Pearce said the IPCC’s reliance on the WWF was “immensely lazy” and the organisation need to explain itself or back up its prediction with another scientific source. Hasnain could not be reached for comment.
The revelation is the latest crack to appear in the scientific consensus over climate change. It follows the climate-gate scandal, where British scientists apparently tried to prevent other researchers from accessing key date. Last week another row broke out when the Met Office criticised suggestions that sea levels were likely to rise 1.9m by 2100, suggesting much lower increases were likely.
Read the full article here: World misled over Himalayan glacier meltdown
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I am serious. How much of their case is built on this stuff? Citation isn’t enough. Here is what I would like someone to give me. What are the three most fundamental papers to AGW?
Les Francis 19:10:05
“What’s the sound of backing out quietly? – The door hitting their Ar$e as they make their way out.”
Ummm, Les, if I were backing out of a room, the door would not be hitting my arse on the way out.
It would be more like “Oh dear – he’s caught one in the family jewels!”, I would think.
Fasool Rasmin (21:37:39) :
“It was 96 degrees F here in Brisbane today, but just down the road in the mountains it was zero in places.”
Hello to a fellow Brisvegas person, Fasool.
I must say, though, “just down the road” from Brissie to Cooma is sort of a greater distance than John O’Groats to Lands End (entire length of Great Britain), or from New York to Miami.
We know it’s just down the road in the next State, but it could be a bit misleading, at 1,300 km or so.
My temperature record today was 36.1C external shade. GLOBAL WARMENING!
perhaps its my age, but when i hear of the WWF, i think world wrestling federation.
The most telling point quoted above is Muraru Lal saying, “If Hasnain says officially that he never asserted this, or that it is a wrong presumption, [THEN] I will recommend that the assertion about Himalayan glaciers be removed from future IPCC assessments.”
The A in AR4 stands for “assessment”. The assessment is supposed to be done by the IPCC and Professor Lal. The IPCC is not meant to delegate assessment back to the authors of what is being assessed.
Professor Lal needs to be dismissed for dereliction of duty.
Michael, it just goes to show the more rubbish that comes out of the IPCC the less credible they are; that’s assuming they have any credibility left on the world stage. It will be interesting to see what other scare they will come up with. Also, we should be getting an update of their computer model predictions – I think later this year. The disparity between modeled and observed is so large now, and getting larger by the month that it will be interesting to see how they will try to cover it up. Of course they will just dig an even bigger hole for themselves, which is good.
Just in case this hasn’t been pointed out, it may have taken a month for the Times and other mainstream media to pick it up, but the BBC covered this back in early December – first with:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8355837.stm
(headline: Himalayan glaciers’ ‘mixed picture’ )
and then on Dec 5th:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8387737.stm .
(headline: Himalayan glaciers melting deadline ‘a mistake’ )
That said both pages were buried in the expanse of their website, and (not surprisingly) neither pages were given any links from the front page or from their Science/Environment section. (It was the run up to Copenhagen and they wouldn’t want tio upset the warmists would they?).
OT – But potentially significant. The sea ice in the Bohai Sea in North China is the worst in 3 decades and yet the Arctic sea ice extent is below the average of the last 20 years. Further the NSIDC map shows barely any sea ice in the seas to the north of the Bohai Sea. Whats up with that?
Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) — PetroChina Co. took steps to reduce the impact of the worst sea ice in three decades on its oilfields in the Bohai region where shipping activities were disrupted. The weather was forecast to deteriorate this week. At its thickest, the ice cover in Bohai Bay measures 1 meter (3.3 feet) deep, according to the State Oceanic Administration. The freezing may extend to the southern part of the bay, according to Beijing-based Global times said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601089&sid=aAO063SVkkLA
I hope the IPCC goes down with Pachauri.
I stand by what I wrote above.
WWF = World Wrestling Federation
Bet the nice, honest, up-front BBC can’t find the time to mention this in any news bulletins…
Michael (21:30:31) :
As much as I greatly appreciate the Emily Litela link, I don’t think it will work for Al Gore. First, he wouldn’t ever do any such thing, and second, even if he did, it won’t placate the angry mobs with torches and pitch forks that would descend on the studio.
Charles A…. your comment bears repeating…. unbelievable:
“Charlie A (19:53:40) :
Not to be outdone, NASA says that the Himalayan glaciers will be gone by 2030 !
About halfway down the page on http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
It is by a photo from space of Mt Kilimanjaro. The text reads “Mountain glaciers and snow cover have declined on average in both hemispheres, and may disappear altogether in certain regions of our planet, such as the Himalayas, by 2030″, with the reference being IPCC AR4 exec summary p 5.
Although NASA doesn’t make any claims for the Mt Kilimanjaro snow cover decrease, they do imply that it is due to climate change since it is on a page titled “Evidence” with a subtitle of Climate Change: How Do We Know.
Apparently NASA knows by reading IPCC, who knows by reading World Wildlife Foundation reports, who know by reading a magazine article where one scientist’s speculation is quoted as fact.”
Wow. The IPCC didn’t even have to destroy the data, none existed.
“New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain”
Who authored the New Scientist report and how and why did he interview Syed Hasnain?
Anthony,
Mr. Rajendra Pachauri was dumping on a paper that utilized
data drawn from numerous University, College Departmental
studies, Institute reports, and colloquiums done over the
years. There are 18 citations toward the end, most of them
peer-reviewed (but not by the IPCC “Team”) and written by
the folks who have been studying the Himalayan glaciers up
close and personally for years.
The paper is non-judgmental when it comes to climate change.
That’s one reason the information is such a threat to the IPCC
hubris concerning Himalayan glaciers. The second problem
for Mr. Pachauri is that it makes him look like he hasn’t got a
clue as to what’s been going on in his own backyard.
I suspect most Watts Up With That readers haven’t had the
opportunity to read the PDF format 60 page report Mr. Pachauri
raga’d on.
Here’s the difficult-to-find link to the Government of India’s
Ministry of Environment and Forests Discussion Paper,
“Himalayan Glaciers – A State-of-Art Review of Glacial Studies,
Glacial Retreat and Climate Change” edited by V.K.Raina, the
former Deputy Director of the Geological Survey of India:
http://moef.nic.in/downloads/public-information/MoEF%20Discussion%20Paper%20_him.pdf
Raga on. \ / Ray Brown
Michael (21:50:49) :
Not supported by **ANY** formal research ?!?!…
IOW. . .: What: He looked up at some local glaciers one day and decided it felt like they were melting ??..
Hey, look what happened when Uncle Al decided those two polar bears weren’t playing, they were actually in *trouble*.
He said one day, These glaciers will be gone in 35 years.
I believe he *actually* wrote “by the year 2350” and it was the IPCC who misquoted the report. If I’m in error on that, Somebody ‘Way Smarter Than I Am™ will correct me.
Not that that’s a *bad* thingl…
Alert !
Recreantly I’ve looked into the Southern Greenland temperature changes. The numbers if true are indeed alarming, if they are ‘value added’, than someone was rather generous with the ‘value’ added.
Here are graphs showing 6 locations, up to mid 1990’s, there is no great deal of excitement, the east coast warming, west coast cooling, and the southern tip more or less unchanged. Suddenly around 1994-5, whole hell gets loose at the two west coast locations, and in the short time of 10 years, while elsewhere world is cooling, average annual temperatures go up by almost an incredible +3 degrees in location of Egedesminde (68.7N, 52.8E), and a somewhat more modest +2C in
Nuuk /Godthaab (64.2N, 51.8W), a bit further south.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC4.htm
It is an ironic coincidence, that the line indicating these sudden temperature changes goes trough a town aptly named Alert!
Wonderful! IPCC own goals proliferating and dominoes keep falling.!
A new survey of the New Zealand public by the Herald newspaper there reports a rapidly rising disbelief in AGW.
OT, but an old friend volunteered to drive a relief supply truck during the Balkan conflict; he came out of that experience with a total disgust for and mistrust of the UN.
” Anticlimactic (17:05:56) :
…All three articles seem to have the same base story, and I think all three titles are owned by Murdoch. Is the stance of the Murdoch empire turning against AGW?”
The Daily Mail is not owned by Murdoch, and it has reported this today:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1243963/UN-science-report-stated-Himalayan-glaciers-melt-25-years-guess.html
To quote from the article:
“…The revelation is a major blow to the credibility of the IPCC which was set up to provide political leaders with clear, independent advice on climate change.
It follows the “Climategate” email row in which scientists at the University of East Anglia appeared to have manipulated data to strengthen the case for man-made climate change.
Dr Benny Peiser, of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, said: “The IPCC review process has been shown on numerous occasions to lack transparency and due diligence. Its work is controlled by a tightly knit group of individuals who are completely convinced that they are right. As a result, conflicting data and evidence, even if published in peer reviewed journals, are regularly ignored, while exaggerated claims, even if contentious or not peer-reviewed, are often highlighted in IPCC reports. Not surprisingly, the IPCC has lost a lot of credibility in recent years. It is also losing the trust of more and more governments who are no longer following its advice – as the Copenhagen summit showed.”…”
Isn’t this an example of plagiarize, plagiarize and plagiarised again
The IPCC not only has bad scientists but bad translators. Look at this from their home page: “The IPCC has started the works on the preparation of its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). We are currently looking for experts which can act as authors:” These people are really third rate.
Oh you naughty boys & girls, giving these honest joes such a hard time!
Why don’t you colonials get some copies of BBC’s (good old) wonderful “Yes Minister” & see how the Civil Service really works. Never have a Public Enquiry unless you know the outcome at the start. Always appoint the “right man” for the position. So, the Golden Rule is, NEVER put someone in charge of anything unless they don’t know anything about it! For example, the head of the Met Office used to work for WWF. He knows Sweet Fanny Adams about weather forecasting, but then again, that wasn’t the issue was it?
Things over here in Blighty seem to be surfacing, scepticism seems to also be surfacing here & there. People want to speak out but are frightened to do so I suspect. Cracks, huh, more like gaping chasms to me.
‘Professor Murari Lal, who oversaw the chapter on glaciers in the IPCC report, said he would recommend that the claim about glaciers be dropped: “If Hasnain says officially that he never asserted this, or that it is a wrong presumption, than I will recommend that the assertion about Himalayan glaciers be removed from future IPCC assessments.”.
Assert !? Is that all is necessary for the IPCC to publish reports which support their agenda. That says it all.
Here’s a good breakdown of some of the people involved. Including bloggers that work for the BBC thats posted articles in the New Scientist, namely Shanta Barley.
http://therealbarackobama.wordpress.com/2010/01/17/himalayan-glacier-meltdown-meltdown/
It’s not just in the Murdoch press, and the BBC is silent on this matter.
This is on the entire front page of The Express today
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/152422
THE NEW CLIMATE CHANGE SCANDAL
By Anil Dawar
“…It was also revealed that the IPCC’s controversial chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, described as “the world’s top climate scientist”, is a former railway engineer with a PhD in economics and no formal climate science qualifications.
Dr Pachauri was yesterday accused of a conflict of interest after it emerged he has a network of business interests that attract millions of pounds in funding thanks to IPCC policies. One of them, The Energy Research Institute, has a London office and is set to receive up to £10million from British taxpayers over the next five years in the form of grants from the Department for International Development. Dr Pachauri denies any conflict of interest arising from his various roles.
Yesterday, critics accused the IPCC of boosting the man-made global warming theory to protect a multi-million pound industry. Climate scientist Peter Taylor said: “I am not surprised by this news. A vast bureaucracy and industry has been built up around this theory. There is too much money in it for the IPCC to let it wither.”
Professor Julian Dowdeswell, a glacier specialist at Cambridge University, said: “The average glacier is 1,000ft thick so to melt one even at 15ft a year would take 60 years. That is a lot faster than anything we are seeing now so the idea of losing it all by 2035 is unrealistically high.”..” etc.