Himalayan glacier report not backed up

UN study forecast total loss by 2035

January 21, 2010|Associated Press

GENEVA - A United Nations warning that Himalayan glaciers are melting faster than any other place in the world and may be gone by 2035 was not backed up by science, UN climate specialists said yesterday - an admission that could energize climate change critics.

In a 2007 report, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the Himalayan glaciers are likely to disappear within three decades if the present melting rate continues. But a statement from the panel now says there is not enough scientific evidence to back up those claims. The warning in the report “refers to poorly substantiated estimates of rate of recession and date for the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers,’’ the panel said. “In drafting the paragraph in question, the clear and well-established standards of evidence, required by the IPCC procedures, were not applied properly.’’

The Himalayan glacier claim, made in the group’s voluminous Nobel-receiving report, was little noticed until The Sunday Times said the projection seemed to be based on a news report.

The leaders of the UN panel are investigating how the forecast got into the report, Chris Field, director of the ecology department at the Washington-based Carnegie Institution for Science, said.

The UN panel did not give a new estimate of when Himalayan glaciers might melt away, but said “widespread mass losses from glaciers and reductions in snow cover over recent decades are projected to accelerate throughout the 21st century.’’

This will reduce the availability of water and change the seasonal water flows in major mountain ranges, including the Himalayas, it said.

India’s Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh on Tuesday repeated his criticism of the panel’s assessment of the Himalayan glaciers. “The health of the glaciers is a cause of grave concern, but the IPCC’s alarmist position that they would melt by 2035 was not based on an iota of scientific evidence,’’ Ramesh was quoted as saying by The Times of India.

The panel’s Fourth Assessment Report of 2007 said the Himalayan glaciers were receding faster than any other place in the world. “The likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate,’’ it said.