In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have had to admit 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. Hasnain, of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, who at the time was chairman of the International Commission on Snow and Ice’s working group on Himalayan glaciology, never repeated the prediction in a peer-reviewed journal. He now admits the comment was “speculative”. Even though the 10-year-old New Scientist report was the only source, the claim found its way into the IPCC fourth assessment report published in 2007. Moreover the claim was extrapolated to include all glaciers in the Himalayas! This could well turn out to be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research. Subsequently consider that the IPCC was set up to ensure that world leaders had the best possible scientific advice on climate change. Could it maybe turn out to be that the IPCC (as some claim) was not so much established for the reasons outlined previously but actually for no other purpose than to provide legitimacy to otherwise political agendas in which climate change is no longer the cause but a means for other unrelated purposes?
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.” It’s a significant embarrassment for IPCC which exists and is funded to provide quality scientific information on climate change and its implications.It all sounds like tales or gossip spreading through the neighborhood or the office, doesn’t it? Remember: these are big players, paid big bucks. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. In lauding the IPCC’s mobilization of scientific knowledge about climate change, the Nobel presenter said (http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/laureates/laureates-2007/presentation-2007),
Is it me or is this all sounding like some sort of a big mess or stuff up. I can’t help but thinking what other stuff ups will surface in the coming period. IS this perhaps providing an argument to keep science and state separated similarly to church and state? Himalayan glaciers supply fresh water to rivers that impact millions of people in South Asia. The IPCC’s 2007 glacier statement (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch10s10-6-2.html) warned:
A prominent Indian glaciologist disputed the IPCC 2007 statement in a 2009 Indian government report. IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri shot back, calling the report “voodoo science” that lacked peer review. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. The IPCC glacier prediction itself lacked peer review, something central to IPCC’s mission (http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization.htm):
The WWF report which the IPCC cited was a campaigning report rather than an academic paper. The difference is important as because of its status the WWF report was not subjected to any formal scientific review. Would that not have been exactly what you would have expected from the IPCC, or is it maybe that if findings or reports support the underlying agendas of the funding agencies, that is enough of an excuse to be slack? Even though the exposure of this ill-founded prediction, the IPCC, is still concerned about glacier melting, but called the prediction “poorly substantiated” and said “clear and well-established standards of evidence were not applied properly” in this case. I take it that also applies to the reporting standards of the IPCC.
…it is hard to believe none of the many kiwis working on the report failed to read it and comprehend the massive schoolboy errors.
Even more interesting is that the IPCC was warned in 2006 by leading glaciologist Georg Kaser that the 2035 forecast was baseless. “This number is not just a little bit wrong, but far out of any order of magnitude,” Mr. Kaser told the Agence France-Presse. “It is so wrong that it is not even worth discussing.”
Among five errors identified in their report was also an assertion that Himalayan glaciers would shrink from 500,000 square kilometers in area to just 100,000 square kilometers. In fact, glaciologists have confirmed the Himalayan glaciers only covered 33,000 square kilometers to begin with.
The New Zealanders listed as “reviewers” or “contributing authors” of Working Group 2 include glaciologist Jim Salinger of NIWA, David Wratt (NIWA’s top climate scientist) and Howard Larsen, principal analyst for New Zealand’s Ministry for the Environment and NZ’s representative to the IPCC. Salinger and Wratt were senior figures on the IPCC AR4 reports, including the one in question – and Wratt was a Vice Chair of the IPCC’s Working Group 1 report as well.
The full list of kiwis who may have failed to spot the errors (many below may not be glacier experts, but some will be and in my opinion should have known) and bring them to Pachauri’s attention are:
REVIEWERS of WGII report
Baxter, Kay, Ministry for the Environment
Becken, Susanne, Landcare Research
Becker, Julia, Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences
Bell, Robert, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research
Collins, Eva, University of Waikato
Dymond, Stuart, Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Trade
Fairbairn, Paul L, SOPAC South Pacific Applied Geoscience
Gray, Warren, Ministry for the Environment
Hales, Simon, University of Otago
Hall, Alistair, HortResearch
Hannah, John, University of Otago
Hay, John, University of Waikato
Hughey, Ken, Lincoln University
Kenny, Gavin J, Earthwise Consulting Ltd
Kerr, Suzi, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research Institute
King, Darren, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research
Larsen, Howard, Ministry for the Environment
Lawrence, Judy, Climate Change National Science Strategy Committee
Lawson, Wendy, University of Canterbury
Maclaren, Piers, Piers Maclaren & Associates Ltd
McKerchar, Alastair, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research
Mullan, A. Brett, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research
Plume, Helen, Ministry for the Environment
Porteous, Alan, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research
Power, Vera, Ministry for the Environment
Purdie, Jennifer, University of Waikato
Rys, Gerald, Ministry of Research, Science and Technology
Saggar, Surinder, Landcare Research
Stephens, Peter, Ministry for the Environment
Stroombergen, Adolf, Infometrics
Waugh, John Robert, Opus International Consultants Ltd.
Weaver, Sean, Victoria University of Wellington
Whitehead, David, Landcare Research
Wilson, Toni, Ministry for the Environment
Woodward, Alistair, University of Auckland
Wratt, David, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research
CONTRIBUTORS TO WGII REPORT:
Tord Kjellstrom, University of Auckland
Darren King, NIWA
Gavin Henry, Earthwise Consulting
Guy Penny, NIWA
Jim Salinger, NIWA
Roderick Henderson, NIWA
Matt Dunn, NIWA
Blair Fitzharris, University of Otago
Simon Hales, University of Otago
Alistair Woodward, University of Auckland
John Hay, University of Waikato
Richard Warrick, University of Waikato
Susanne Becken, Landcare
In all fairness: many of the people listed may well be involved in policy no particular glacier expertise or at best with the depth of a pancake. Some however will be experts and should have recognized the impossibility of the claims, all of them could have seen the methodological issues at hand. If we go from the premise that these people actually read the report, do we have to conclude here then that they failed to understand what they were actually reading? And if they did identify the errors: is there any evidence that they reported it, an if not why not? That does not give me much hope for the future. What faith can we have in our New Zealand scientists and moreover the IPCC.
This global warming campaign is getting more and more dubious or questionable. We have just come out of another controversy, variously dubbed “ClimateGate” and “SwiftHack, in which hacked emails suggest some scientists may have sought to conceal data that did not support their climate change views. And now this. All I can wonder is: WHAT’S NEXT?
The Desk of the Renaissance Man 