Misskilningurinn mikli: Bráðnun jökla Himalajafjalla orðum aukinn...

 

 

 

 

Í skýrslu Loftslagsnefndar Sameinuðu þjóðanna frá árinu 2007 er nánast fullyrt að jöklar Himalajafjalla verði horfnir árið 2035 eða fyrr. "Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate." Þessar fullyrðingar eru byggðar á stórfurðulegum misskilningi sem óhjákvæmilega fær menn til að staldra við og íhuga hvort allt sé með felldu hjá þessari virtu stofnun, International Panel of Climate Change - IPCC. Málið teygir sig jafnvel til Íslands eins og sjá má hér fyrir neðan. Einhverjir muna eftir upphlaupinu í nóvember síðastliðnum þegar Rajendra Pachauri verkfræðingur og forstöðumaður IPCC ásakaði Indverska umhverfisráðuneytið um hroka. Sjá hér.

Fréttamiðlar víða um heim hafa fjallað um máið og verður hér vísað á nokkra þeirra:

Á vefsíðunni Vísir.is er fjallað um málið 18. janúar. Þar segir:

http://www.visir.is/article/20100118/FRETTIR02/877981067

"Bullspár um bráðnun jökla:

Fullyrðingar Loftslagsnefndar Sameinuðu þjóðanna um að jöklar Himalayafjalla verði að mestu horfnir árið 2035 eða jafnvel fyrr eru á byggðar á furðulegum misskilningi og vísindalegum mistökum að sögn vefsíðu breska blaðsins The Times.

Tvö ár eru síðan Loftslagsnefnd Sameinuðu þjóðanna setti fram þessa geigvænlegu spá. Þetta er sama nefndin og stóð fyrir Loftslagsráðstefnunni í Kaupmannahöfn á dögunum. Því var haldið fram að spáin væri byggð á nýjustu og ítarlegustu rannsóknum sem fyrir lægju um loftslagsbreytingar.

Þetta var kallað tímamótaspá sem tæki af allan vafa um hlýnun jarðar af mannavöldum.

Nú hefur komið í ljós að í raun var spáin byggð á stuttu símtali sem blaðamaður á tímaritinu New Scientist átti við lítt þekktan indverskan vísindamann fyrir níu árum. New Scientist er tímarit um tækni og vísindi fyrir almenning.

Indverski vísindamaðurinn Syed Hasnian hefur viðurkennt að hann hafi aðeins verið með vangaveltur um bráðnun jöklanna. Engar formlegar rannsóknir hafi legið þar að baki.

Erfitt er að útskýra hvernig í ósköpunum Loftslagsnefndin ákvað allt í einu að taka þessu sem heilögum sannleika.

Rétt er að geta þess að jöklafræðingar tóku spá Loftslagsnefndarinnar með mikilli vantrú á sínum tíma. Hún varðist hinsvegar með kjafti og klóm.

Rajendra Pachauri formaður nefndarinnar kallaði gagnrýni á spána „voodoo vísindi". Þegar umhverfisráðherra Indlands lýsti efasemdum um spána sagði Pachairi að það lýsti miklum hroka.

The Times telur líklegt að að minnsta kosti Himalaya-hluti heimsendaspárinnar verði dreginn til baka".

 

 Nokkrar tilvísanir í aðra fjölmiðla þar sem lesa má um málið:

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Dagens Nyheter í Svíþjóð:

 

 http://www.dn.se/nyheter/vetenskap/fn-rapport-om-glaciarer-felaktig-1.1029731

FN-rapport om glaciärer felaktig

Uppdaterat 2010-01-19 17:26. Publicerat 2010-01-19 15:05

En rapport som använts av FN:s klimatpanel (IPCC) om att Himalayas glaciärer kan vara borta år 2035 har visat sig vara ren spekulation. Forskaren bakom påståenden erkänner nu att han bara gissat och inte använt sig av vetenskapliga fakta.  [Meira...]

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Frá Canada.com:

 http://www.canada.com/technology/climate+report+Scientist+warned+glacier+forecast+wrong/2455973/story.html

 UN climate report: Scientist warned glacier forecast was wrong
 
By Marlowe Hood, Agence France-PresseJanuary 18, 2010

PARIS - A top scientist said Monday he had warned in 2006 that a prediction of catastrophic loss of Himalayan glaciers, published months later by the UN's Nobel-winning climate panel, was badly wrong.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report said in 2007 it was "very likely" that the glaciers, which supply water to more than a billion people across Asia, would vanish by 2035 if global warming trends continued.

"This number is not just a little bit wrong, but far out of any order of magnitude," said Georg Kaser, an expert in tropical glaciology at the University of Innsbruck in Austria.

"It is so wrong that it is not even worth discussing," he told AFP in an interview....

Kaser was a lead author in Working Group I of the IPCC report, which dealt with the physical science of climate change....

"This is a source of a lot of misunderstandings, misconceptions or failures," Kaser said, noting that some regions lacked a broad spectrum of expertise.

"It is a kind of amateurism from the regional chapter lead authors. They may have been good hydrologists or botanists, but they were without any knowledge in glaciology."  [Meira...]

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 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Ramesh-turns-heat-on-Pachauri-over-glacier-melt-scare/articleshow/5474586.cms

Ramesh turns heat on Pachauri over glacier melt scare
Nitin Sethi, TNN, 19 January 2010, 05:39am IST

NEW DELHI: The furore over the validity of data used by UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has taken some of the sheen off the Nobel prize-winning institution's reputation.

A day after it emerged that IPCC's dire prediction that climate change would melt most Himalyan glaciers by 2035 was based on mere "speculation", environment minister Jairam Ramesh slammed the processes of the celebrated body saying "due diligence had not been followed by the Nobel peace prize winning body".

"The health of 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," the environment minister said.

Ramesh recalled how IPCC chief R K Pachauri had scornfully dismissed doubts raised by a government agency about the veracity of the UN body's sensational projection about melting of glaciers. "In fact, we had issued a report by scientist V K Raina that the glaciers have not retreated abnormally. At the time, we were dismissed, saying it was based on voodoo science. But the new report has clearly vindicated our position," he said.

This may not be the first time that climate science relating to India has been found to be fallacious or incorrect. However, revelation that the data on glacial melt in Himalayas was unverified has dented the image of the IPCC -- which has set the agenda for climate change talks. It has given a handle to climate sceptics who have long accused the IPCC of being biased.... [Meira...]

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6991177.ece

From The Sunday Times

January 17, 2010

World misled over Himalayan glacier meltdown

  Jonathan Leake and Chris Hastings

 

A WARNING that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it.

Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.

In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted 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....

When finally published, the IPCC report did give its source as the WWF study but went further, suggesting the likelihood of the glaciers melting was "very high". The IPCC defines this as having a probability of greater than 90%.

The report read: "Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate."

However, glaciologists find such 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... [Meira...]

 

 

 

 

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EU Referendum:

 http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/01/pachauri-theres-money-in-them-glaciers.html

Syed Hasnain (pictured), the scientist at the centre of the growing controversy over melting Himalayan glaciers (not), is now working for Dr R K Pachauri's TERI as head of the institute glaciology team, funded by a generous grant from a US charity, researching the effects of the retreat.

Highlighted in The Sunday Times yesterday, Dr Hasnain was the scientist responsible for claiming that the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035. This was picked up by the New Scientist and then by a 2005 WWF report, and subsequently published as a definitive claim in the IPCC's 2007 fourth assessment report, masterminded by Dr R K Pachauri....

The Global Center is an Icelandic-based private institute with links to the office of the president of Iceland, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson. Its aim is to establish "a major research and training program involving scientists from South Asia, Europe and the Americas," of which Dr Pauchari's TERI India is a central part...

The research fund is also to be topped up from the $108,000 proceeds of the Nehru Prize awarded to Grímsson this month... [Meira...]

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 Prófessor Roger Pielke jr:

 http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/01/sorry-but-this-stinks.html

 "Sorry, But This Stinks".

 "The IPCC treatment of Himalayan glaciers and its chairman's conflicts of interest are related. The points and time line below are as I understand them and are informed by reporting by Richard North.

1. In 2007 the IPCC issues its Fourth Assessment Report which contains the false claim that the Himalayan glaciers are expected to disappear by 2035.

2. The basis for that statement was a speculative comment made to a reporter by Syed Hasnain in 1999, who was then (and after) a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.

3. Following the publication of the IPCC report, and the widespread media coverage of the false claim about Himalayan glaciers, Dr. Hasnain joins TERI as a Senior Fellow, where Dr. Pachauri is the director.

4. Drs. Pachauri and Hasnain together seek to raise fund for TERI for work on Himalayan glaciers, justified by the work of the IPCC, according to Dr. Pachauri just last week:

Scientific data assimilated by IPCC is very robust and it is universally acknowledged that glaciers are melting because of climate change. The Energy & Resources Institute (TERI) in its endeavor to facilitate the development of an effective policy framework and their strategic implementation for the adaptation and mitigation of climate change impacts on the local population is happy to collaborate with the University of Iceland, Ohio State University and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

5. When initially questioned about the scientific errors Dr. Pachauri calls such questions "voodoo science" in the days leading up to the announcement of TERI receiving funding on this subject. Earlier Dr. Pachauri criticized in the harshest terms the claims made by the Indian government that were contrary to those in the IPCC

Pachauri said that such statements were reminiscent of "climate change deniers and school boy science".

6. Subsequent to the error being more fully and publicly recognized, when asked by a reporter about the IPCC's false claims Dr. Pachauri says that he has no responsibility for what Dr. Hasnain may have said, and Dr. Hasnain says, rather cheekily, the IPCC had no business citing his comments:

“It is not proper for IPCC to include references from popular magazines or newspapers.”

Of course, neither Dr. Pachauri nor Dr. Hasnain ever said anything about the error when it was receiving worldwide attention (as being true) in 2007 and 2008, nor did they raise any issues with the IPCC citing non-peer reviewed work (which is a systemic problem). They did however use the IPCC and its false claims as justification in support of fund raising for their own home institution. At no point was any of this disclosed.

If the above facts and time line is correct (and I welcome any corrects to details that I may have in error), then what we have here is a classic and unambiguous case of financial conflict of interest. IPCC Chairman Pachauri was making public comments on a dispute involving factual claims by the IPCC at the same time that he was negotiating for funding to his home institution justified by those very same claims. If instead of climate science we were instead discussing scientific advisors on drug safety and funding from a pharmaceutical company to the advisory committee chair the conflict would be obvious.

Climate science desperately needs to clean up its act."

 

Þetta voru bara sýnishorn af þeim fréttum sem hafa verið í miðlum heims undanfarna tvo daga. Því miður hefur þetta atvik ásamt Climategate uppnáminu skömmu fyrir jól ekki verið til að auka tiltrú manna á loftslgsvísindinum svokölluðu. Climate science desperately needs to clean up its act, skrifar prófessor Roger Pielke jr. Það eru orð að sönnu...

Hver var annars að tala um „voodoo vísindi"?

 

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