Article Tags: Doug L. Hoffman, Himalayan Glacier Data
There is a new report in the journal Nature that some climate change alarmists are saying repudiates criticisms leveled at the IPCC over the Glaciergate scandal. In the “news feature,” a reporter looks at the “clues” scientists have found regarding the fate of the Himalayan glaciers from ground- and space-based studies. Though the scientists quoted clearly state they do not have enough data to draw meaningful conclusions—only 15 of 20,000 glaciers were examined on-site—the article still misleadingly says the glaciers are in trouble. It still had to admit the Himalayan glaciers won’t vanish by 2035 and that they are not receding faster than glaciers in any other part of the world, both claims made previously by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
This blog has previously report about the dust-up between Vijay Kumar Raina, formerly of the Geological Survey of India, and certain IPCC officials over a bogus claim that the glaciers of the Himalayas were rapidly melting due to climate change (see “Himalayan Glaciers Not Melting”). The false claim originated in the Asia chapter of the IPCC’s 2007 Working Group II report, which claims that Himalayan glaciers “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.” Raina called “foul” and the resulting public scandal became commonly known as Climategate. Now, a new article has appeared in the journal Nature that attempts to soften the blow dealt to climate science.
Entitled “Settling the science on Himalayan glaciers,” the report would seem to resolve the fate of the glaciers but, in fact, it does nothing of the sort. Mason Inman, a freelance science writer based in Karachi, Pakistan, starts out with some local color—heroic glaciologists hiking through the harsh Himalayan environment facing “innumerable hazards en route: rock falls, heatstroke, dehydration, freezing and diarrhoea, among others.” Once you get beyond the fluff, there are some interesting comments farther in. Here are some salient tidbits from that article:
Click source to read FULL report by Doug L. Hoffman
Source: theresilientearth.com