Wednesday, December 7, 2011

UN scientist repeats warnings of Himalayan melting

The discredited head of the international scientific body on climate change today repeated his claim that the Himalayan glaciers were ‘undoubtedly’ melting.

Speaking at the latest round of UN talks on tackling global warming, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said more research was needed on the state of Himalayan glaciers but there was no doubt they were retreating.

Dr Pachauri – called ‘Patchy’ in scientific circles - found himself embroiled in a row in 2010 over the inclusion in the IPCC's last major report, used to inform international policy on climate change, of incorrect claims that the mountain region's glaciers could melt away by 2035.


Melting: Patchy has warned that Himalayan glaciers are retreating



Dr Rajendra Pachauri was embroiled in a row of glacial melt in 2010

Today he said the claim was an error that had been corrected, but said the general picture in the fourth assessment report - that glaciers were retreating - was right.
‘We clearly based our estimates on measurements that exist, which are a pretty representative sample of what's happening.

‘But that doesn't give you the complete picture, it gives you a depiction of what is happening, and therefore it was perfectly valid of us to say that net melting was taking place,’ he said.

‘The findings we came up with in general, which are also worldwide, were very clear there's a net melting of the glaciers taking place.’

His comments come as the Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development published three reports including one that maps for the first time the number and cover of glaciers in the region, providing a baseline for future research.

While it revealed that there are 54,000 glaciers, covering 60,000 square kilometres, just 10 have been studied regularly enough to determine net gain or loss.



Ice one: Glaciers in the Himalayas cover a staggering 60,000 square kilometres. Pictured is Mount Everest



Research: The number of glaciers in the Himalayas has been worked out for the first time - 54,000

The handful of studies show the glaciers are retreating.

Dr Pachauri said that while only a few studies of glaciers had been published in peer-reviewed science journals, there was a large amount of raw data, which he had seen, which gave similar conclusions.

Asked if the Himalayan glaciers were melting and retreating, he said: ‘Undoubtedly. As to that, there's no doubt at all.’

But he said there was not enough information about what was happening to the glaciers, or the different effects on them in various locations, making new studies important.

Patchy's reiteration of glacial melt in the Himalayas follows an announcement at the American Geophysical Union that glaciers in the French Alps have shrunk by a quarter in the past 40 years.

They covered 375 sq km in the 1960s and early 1970s, but this figure now stands at 275 sq km.

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