IPCC Retracting Claim that Himalayan Glaciers Will Melt by 2035

Times Online UK is reporting that the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is retracting its claim that the Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035

* The claim was based upon a 1999 news story in the New Scientist.

* 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

* Professor Murari Lal oversaw the chapter on glaciers in the IPCC report. Lal himself admits he knows little about glaciers. [so why was a non-glacier expert in charge of the glacier section ?]

* In 2005 the WWF cited the Hasnain work in a report called An Overview of Glaciers, Glacier Retreat, and Subsequent Impacts in Nepal, India and China
(the WWF has lied at other times in its reports. Like biasing a report on CO2 report cards for countries. Penalizing France’s nuclear power with natural gas levels of CO2 in order to increase France’s report card becaues the WWF did not believe in CO2)

* glaciologists found hte IPCC 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.

* The average thickness is 300 metres thick so to melt one even at 5 metres a year (5-8 times faster than highest rates) would take 60 years (twice as long). So the error is 10-16 times any reasonable level of melting.

* Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, has previously dismissed criticism of the Himalayas claim as “voodoo science”.

* 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.

I have said before it is foolish and dishonest to make up climate stories. There are real reasons to change energy generation. The reasons are because of air pollution, which increases the likelihood of heart attacks and lung disease. Those increased disease risks cause 3 million deaths per ryear worldwide.