Vijay Kumar Raina, a senior glaciologist and an avid mountaineer himself, has carefully analyzed some 20 glaciers to document retreat as well as advance of some of the glaciers and has cautiously concluded that it is premature to make a statement that the Himalayan glaciers are retreating abnormally because of global warming. The Indian Minister of Environment Mr Jairam Ramesh hailed the report as an excellent latest study on glaciers and tacitly agreed with the conclusion.
Predictably, the IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri reacted angrily citing the IPCC 2007 climate change reports which asserted that the (Himalayan) glaciers are receding faster than in any other part of the world and if the present rate ( of melting) continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps even sooner is very high if the earth keeps warming at the current rate. Several other Indian scientists and glaciologists have got into the debate now with some of them criticizing the Indian Government with an ostrich-like attitude in the face of impending disaster.
What is the reality? Let us take a closer look:
First, where did this number 2035 (the year when glaciers could vanish) come from?
According to Prof Graham Cogley (Trent University, Ontario), a short article on the future of glaciers by a Russian scientist (Kotlyakov, V.M., 1996, The future of glaciers under the expected climate warming, 61-66, in Kotlyakov, V.M., ed., 1996, Variations of Snow and Ice in the Past and at Present on a Global and Regional Scale, Technical Documents in Hydrology, 1. UNESCO, Paris (IHP-IV Project H-4.1). 78p estimates 2350 as the year for disappearance of glaciers, but the IPCC authors misread 2350 as 2035 in the Official IPCC documents, WGII 2007 p. 493!
Wow. The IPCC must have a fact checking squad to rival the New York Times.
Of course, it was mere happenstance that the error was made in such a way that the alarmist position was accentuated.
Right?
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