Himalayan glaciers to disappear by 2035: A flawed estimate
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
From Fazle Rashid
NEW YORK, Jan 19: United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which shared the Nobel Prize with former Vice-President Al-Gore was roundly criticised for predicting that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035 if present warming trends continued. The date has been much quoted and has been a cause for enormous consternation since hundreds of millions of people in Asia rely on ice and snow melt from these glaciers for their water supply, the New York Times in a report said today. The UN panel's estimate about Himalayan glacier melt was based on a decade old interview of one climate scientist in a science magazine, the New Scientist magazine and that hard scientific evidence in support of the figure is lacking.
The scientist Dr. Syed Hussain, a glacier specialist who works with a research institute in New Delhi in an e-mail message said he was misquoted about the 2035 estimate in the magazine The New Scientist. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN body admitted this to be a very serious lapse and said "we are working very hard to set the record straight as soon as we can" the Co-chairman of the panel was quoted as saying by the NYT.
The revelation is the latest that climate change skeptics have seized on to support their contention that fears about warming are unfounded and overblown. The Nobel committee will also come under attack for awarding a prize without proper knowledge. The flawed estimate has been the basis of the global policy and their conclusions have been widely heeded
The Himalayan glaciers will not disappear by 2035, a teacher at the Santa Barbara who teaches climate said. Dr. Bodo Bookhagen hastened to add that there is unmistakable sign of glacier melting and that it is having devastating impact. There is mounting proof that accelerating global melt is occurring although the specifics are poorly defined in part because these glaciers are remote and poorly studied NYT said.
NEW YORK, Jan 19: United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which shared the Nobel Prize with former Vice-President Al-Gore was roundly criticised for predicting that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035 if present warming trends continued. The date has been much quoted and has been a cause for enormous consternation since hundreds of millions of people in Asia rely on ice and snow melt from these glaciers for their water supply, the New York Times in a report said today. The UN panel's estimate about Himalayan glacier melt was based on a decade old interview of one climate scientist in a science magazine, the New Scientist magazine and that hard scientific evidence in support of the figure is lacking.
The scientist Dr. Syed Hussain, a glacier specialist who works with a research institute in New Delhi in an e-mail message said he was misquoted about the 2035 estimate in the magazine The New Scientist. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN body admitted this to be a very serious lapse and said "we are working very hard to set the record straight as soon as we can" the Co-chairman of the panel was quoted as saying by the NYT.
The revelation is the latest that climate change skeptics have seized on to support their contention that fears about warming are unfounded and overblown. The Nobel committee will also come under attack for awarding a prize without proper knowledge. The flawed estimate has been the basis of the global policy and their conclusions have been widely heeded
The Himalayan glaciers will not disappear by 2035, a teacher at the Santa Barbara who teaches climate said. Dr. Bodo Bookhagen hastened to add that there is unmistakable sign of glacier melting and that it is having devastating impact. There is mounting proof that accelerating global melt is occurring although the specifics are poorly defined in part because these glaciers are remote and poorly studied NYT said.