Bishop Hill GuardianEco loses the plot
Nov 18, 2011 Climate: IPCC Climate: Pachauri Climate: WG2 Guardian Eco publishes an interview with Raj Pachauri, which very surprisingly returns to the subject of the melting of Himalayan glaciers.
The [IPCC] report included an estimate that "if the present rate [of melting] continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high (IPCC-speak for 90 percent-plus likely) if the earth keeps warming at the current rate." This prediction came from a 1999 magazine interview with India's leading glaciologist, Syad Iqbal Hasnain, not an article in a peer-reviewed journal.
So, yes, a small lapse, and within 24 hours the IPCC had acknowledged it. But how significant was the error? It happened that I had interviewed Hasnain in New Delhi in 2009; he told me that he had slightly modified his projections on the basis of new data compiled over the intervening decade. What he said now was, "If the current trends continue, within 30 to 40 years most of the glaciers will melt out." It was hard to be more precise, he said, because so much of the affected region in India, Pakistan, and Tibet is off-limits to researchers for national security reasons. So most of the glaciers are very likely to be gone by 2040 to 2050, rather than all the glaciers are very likely to be gone by 2035.
If I were one of the 1.5 billion Asians whose future survival depends on meltwater from the Himalayas, I'm not sure I'd grasp the fine distinction.
Now, my understanding is that even on the inflated IPCC estimates, the correct figure is 2350, not 2040 or 2050. If so, then the Guardian's decision to publish this is...astonishing.
Reader Comments (59)
& "within 24 hours the IPCC had acknowledged it". In fact it took tears.
The Guardian run a section where they boast of correcting errors, usually such minor ones as that a runwayb is 3007 feet rather than 3000 so clearly the entire article will be loudlt apologised for. Either that or it will be maintained as both the very highest standatrd of honesty to which the Grainiad ever aspoitre and a total heap of steaming crap of a level of dishonesty Goebbels would have been ashamed of.
Anybody want to bet?
"voodoo science"
Durbanitis...
I'm not surprised at all they ran it. You can always correct these genuine mistakes *after* Durban.....
Your Grace
Durban is barely weeks away.
The Guardian is fully signed up to all catastrophic and anthropogenic aspects of global warming.
The (il)liberal pseudo-intellectuals — whose house magazine the Guardian is — have always believed that the ends justify the means.
And you find this astonishing?
There was this (by me) a few weeks ago at WUWT, reporting on a scientific American article.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/25/another-climate-fail-new-research-casts-doubt-on-doomsday-himalayan-water-shortage-predictions/
Sci-American: New Research Casts Doubt on Doomsday Water Shortage Predictions [glaciers]
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=research-casts-doubt-doomsday-water-shortage-predictions
Some great quotes from various scientists (including Peter Gleick) in Scientific American:
He agreed that overstatements about the impacts are rampant in the Himalayas as well, saying, “The idea that 1.4 billion people are going to be without water when the glaciers melt is just not the case.
The quote in Scientific American, from Peter Gleick sound perfectly reasonable…….
—————————–
Creeping hyperbole
“There has been a lot of misinformation and confusion about it,” said Peter Gleick, co-director of the California-based Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security. “About 1.3 billion people live in the watersheds that get some glacier runoff, but not all of those people depend only on the water from those watersheds, and not all the water in those watersheds comes from glaciers. Most of it comes from rainwater,” he said.
—————————–
From Gordon Brown’s ‘Fewer than 50 Days’ speech: (skip the ad. glaciers 55sec in)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pyZEC__hfQk#t=0s
Gordon Brown PM:
“There are now fewer than 50 days to set the course for the next few decades’
“If we do not reach a deal over the next few months, let us be in no doubt”
“Once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement in some future period can undo that choice, by then it will be irretreivably too late..
..we should never allow ourselves to lose site of the catastrophy we face, if present warming trends continue…..”
“In 25 years the glaciers that provide water for 3/4 of a billion people could disapear entirely”
Where all these scientists were 2 years ago, when politicians were spouting off like Gordon Brown to the world’s media…. is of course another question…
Why were they not correcting these hugely high profil public announcements of ‘water shortgages’ that afftected hundreds of millions of people in a few short years…
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What on earth the Guardian is doing by stating by 2040-50 is almost beyond belief..
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=research-casts-doubt-doomsday-water-shortage-predictions
"In Peru's Rio Santa, which drains the Cordilleras Blanca mountain range, glacier contribution appears to be between 10 and 20 percent. In the eastern Himalayas, it is less than 5 percent.
"If anything, that's probably fairly large," said Richard Armstrong, a senior research scientist at the Boulder, Colo.-based Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), who studies melt impact in the Himalayas.
"Most of the people downstream, they get the water from the monsoon," Armstrong said. "It doesn't take away from the importance [of glacier melt], but we need to get the science right for future planning and water resource assessments."
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I found this bit amusing (understatement perhaps)from Scientific American: (my caps)
Those aren't messages that environmental activists will likely find easy to hear. Armstrong recalled giving a presentation in Kathmandu on his early findings to a LESS THAN APPRECIATIVE AUDIENCE.
"I didn't agree with the doomsday predictions, and I didn't have anything that was anywhere near spectacular," Armstrong said. But, he added, "At the same time, it's just basic Earth science, and we want to do a better job than we have been."
I live about 1km away from the Danube. I have cycled from Rotterdam to Bucharest along the Rhine and Danube.
Not many glaciers left in the Alps, but there is certainly plenty of melt water come spring/summer. So with all this increased precipitation we hear about, the Himalayas will not be providing any snow on high ground?
Oh my god, people die in weather events shock. Freakish indeed.
So there are the glaciers in a steady state. The amount of water arriving in a year equals the amount of water leaving. The volume of the glaciers themselves is pretty immaterial to this equation. They coudl be utterly stupendous, or mnegligible. It doesn't affect the flow.
If the glaciers start melting thne - while the melting is going on, the amount of runoff water is temporarily increased, only to return to the earlier level when there is nothing left to melt.
The only factor that overall affects the flow of water is how much rain/snow arrives, not how much has been previously stored.
Have I missed something important? Because if not this is 11-plus level maths for a bath with a tap and a plughole.
@Neil Craig
Mice touch - Grauniad typos
The Asian rivers are fed by the summer monsoon rains, not glacier melt water.
I think there should be a panel of glaciologists whose only job would be to scan the media for '2035' and issue reprimands. We saw Time magazine's 'lapse' bringing in an article from Le Monde.
This nonsense is no more the IPCC's fault, it is the fault of journalists (i.e., people like Keith Kloor) who will sell anything down the river.
http://youtu.be/bnYmQjFoNCs
watch at 3:00 min onwards:
Pachauri: "...I don't think he [Jairam Ramesh] has any business questioning a body that established its credentials over the last 21 years..."
Question: Are you not willing to examine the Indian Ministry's report and see if there is any meeting point etc?
Pachauri: "No. I will not sit down with the minister. I sit down with the minister very often,..he is a good friend of mine. But what I'll like to say is that, if this report is solid then publish it, ...let it go through a peer-review process. It can't be on the basis of two individuals [Ramesh and Raina], the minister and whoever's written this report, deciding on something that is so complex.You know, we are trivialising the science."
See this video of glacier expert Syed Iqbal Hasnain @ COP15 - Part 2. Feb 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLUBpYqOpqc
According to Hasnain (from 4.50min to 5.20min) the rate of melt will be as follows
43% of Himalayan glaciers will melt out by 2070
75% of Himalayan glaciers will melt out by 2100
Hasnain points out the prime cause of increased de-glaciation in the Himalayas is due to Black Carbon, see here
Glacier expert Syed Iqbal Hasnain @ COP15 - Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQBPqX_yDu0&feature=relmfu
So who is telling the truth over the Himalayan glaciers?
Can we believe any of it?
If the glaciers start melting thne - while the melting is going on, the amount of runoff water is temporarily increased, only to return to the earlier level when there is nothing left to melt.
The only factor that overall affects the flow of water is how much rain/snow arrives, not how much has been previously stored.
Have I missed something important? Because if not this is 11-plus level maths for a bath with a tap and a plughole.
No that is my understanding too, the glaciers act as a dam, while the dam empties the flow is increased, once the dams are gone the flow returns to normal. The only time to worry about lack of water is when the glaciers are advancing as the dam is filling, but at 5 to 10% of total water even this is minor.
The UNESCO report of the International Hydrological Programme of 1996, Variations of Snow and Ice in the past and at present on a Global and Regional Scale had a paper by V. M. Kotlyakov, The Future of Glaciers under the Expected Climate Warming, stating
"With the further progress of warming or stabilization of the present climate…The degradation of the extrapolar glaciation of the Earth will be apparent in rising ocean level already by the year 2050, and there will be a drastic rise of the ocean thereafter caused by the deglaciation-derived runoff (see Table 11 ). This period will last from 200 to 300 years. The extrapolar glaciation of the Earth will be decaying at rapid, catastrophic rates—its total area will shrink from 500,000 to 100,000 km² by the year 2350. Glaciers will survive only in the mountains of inner Alaska, on some Arctic archipelagos, within Patagonian ice sheets, in the Karakoram Mountains, in the Himalayas, in some regions of Tibet and on the highest mountain peaks in the temperature [temperate?] latitudes."
Note that 500, 000 km² is the total area of ALL extrapolar glaciers throughout the world. With unabated global warming, shrinkage to 100,000 km² takes place by 2350 (not 2035), and even then glaciers will survive in the Himalayas.
If anyone can be considered an 'authority' on the Himalayas it is Jack Ives, Professor Emeritus, Environmental Science, University of California and Davis Honorary Research Professor, Carleton University, Ottawa. Ives has over 180 publications, scientific papers, and books to his credit, and was Founder and Editor (1968-1980) of Arctic and Alpine Research journal, and Founder and Editor (1980-2000) of Mountain Research and Development journal.
His work 'Himalayan Perceptions' was described by Kumar Mainali, Editor of the Himalayan Journal of Sciences, as “probably the single most influential monograph ever published on Himalayan environmental issues” (INASP Newsletter, Spring 2006). The section in both editions entitled 'Some current myths on a Himalayan scale' was largely reproduced in a paper published in the peer-reviewed Himalayan Journal of Sciences 2005 entitled 'Himalayan misconceptions and distortions: What are the facts? Himalayan Delusions: Who’s kidding who and why — Science at the service of media, politics and the development agencies.'
In this he writes (note: this was 2005):
"…the following examples are offered because the degree of misinformation appears to be both extensive, widespread, and continuing…Reporting on global warming, the world economy, international terrorism, or almost any disaster has become comparable to the campaign speeches politicians tend to make at election time. It has also been understood for several decades now that ‘green’ movements have felt compelled to exaggerate in order to compete for attention with the possible bias of well-financed campaigns of big business and industry. Regardless, the examples of ‘latter-day myths’ are set forth because their pervasiveness tends to clutter the sustainable development landscape and perpetuate the Himalayan scale of uncertainty…
…The Times of London (21 July 2003), reporting on an international meeting held at the University of Birmingham, noted that ‘Himalayan glaciers could vanish within 40 years because of global warming . . . 500 million people in countries like India could also be at increased risk of drought and starvation.’ Syed Hasnain is quoted as affirming that ‘the glaciers of the region [Central Indian Himalaya] could be gone by 2035’.
According to Barry (1992: 45) the average temperature decrease with height (environmental lapse rate) is about 6ºC/km in the free atmosphere. The dry adiabatic lapse rate (DALR) is 9.8ºC/km. If it is assumed that the equilibrium line altitude (comparable with the ‘snow line’) in the Central Himalaya is about 5,000 masl and it will need to rise above 7,000 m if all the glaciers are to be eliminated, then the mean temperature increase needed to effect this change would be about 12–18ºC. Given that degree of global warming, summers in Calcutta would be a little uncomfortable.
As indicated earlier, myths tend to be self-perpetuating. In practice their longevity is often encouraged by vested interests of one form or another."
In a comment he made to me, Jack Ives stated
"The silliness of writing that all the Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035 should be self-evident: it would likely cause an undergraduate in physical geography or geology to laugh."
So Ives, in 2005, showed that the 2035 date was an outright lie and deliberate media manipulation, and he showed it as such in the peer-reviewed literature. IPCC decided to go for dodgy WWF grey literature instead, in spite of the fact that even an undergraduate would think it a joke.
Why should people be expressing concern about the imminent melting of the glaciers if it isn't actually true?
The timescale of Himalayan glacial melt seems to be based on pick a number any number ..................
...................... and is the culprit AGW or Black Carbon?
The situation at present is laughable.
As Groucho Marx once said, "A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five."
voodoo journalism
Hmm, arse about face. Now what was that stuff about CO2 rising after warming?
ZDB:
Because the only time glaciers cause drought is when they are advancing, as has been explained by several commenters.
Glaciers have been melting for a long time. Like, centuries.
No, there is not. Advocates like you told lies about the imminence, and they were caught.
If people discuss a lie, that is not called a debate.
Mike Jackson
Nicely put, and quite correct. A very nice summary, Mike.
ZDB
That is because they have done so in the past only to reappear later. Such happenings were commonly referred to as Ice Ages. Perhaps you heard of them?
"Hmm, arse about face. Now what was that stuff about CO2 rising after warming?"
Nov 18, 2011 at 2:49 PM | Neal Asher
*sighs*
Do you really not understand it, or are you just rehashing old tropes?
Do you really think that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas? Do you deny its basic physical properties like Phillip Bratby does?
A rise in CO2 causes warming. That warming then causes a further rise in CO2. That rise then causes further warming etc.
It's really not very hard.
get a grip Zed or you will scare the kids. Oh and can you explain why with all this increased CO2 the world has not warmed for 10 years + ?
Who reads the papers?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M
Nov 18, 2011 at 3:13 PM | ZedsDeadBed
Nov 18, 2011 at 3:15 PM | ZedsDeadBed
Nov 18, 2011 at 3:17 PM | ZedsDeadBed
Please stop feeding the Troll
The guy is an embarrassment to the warmist case. He's starting to sound positively delusional. It took 24 hours? Are you kidding me? Anybody remember "voodoo science?"
And now he's doubling down on the same absurd claim. WTF is all I can say.
ZDB "There seems to be debate regarding their imminence, but not that they are melting. It's going to happen at some point, and we're the prime instigator of this. It's a key signifier of Global Warming."
'we're the prime instigator of this. It's a key signifier of Global Warming' - that's a key signifier of begging the question.
"Jesus Christ!"
Please do not use The Lord's name for Warmist purposes. It's offensive.
Andrew
DNFTT
Was this cosy little chat "peer reviewed" - I wonder.
Even this lot have given up trying to pretend that now, after the BEST figures. Have you even actually looked at the temperature data?
the BEST figures, you nearly made me choke on my coffee! Even Muller was last seen scuttling for cover!
Why are the glaciers receding? We have had less than 1C increase in global temperature over the last 150 years, so what mechanisms are making the glaciers recede?
@ Barry Woods
What on earth the Guardian is doing by stating by 2040-50 is almost beyond belief..
They've realised that the error, Pachauri's denial of the error and subsequent lying about the IPCC process, and his smearing of those who exposed the error, have hugely damaged the credibility of the IPCC.
So they're trying to rehabilitate the claim.
Actually there is nothing like 500,000 km^2 of extrapolar glaciers in the World whatever UNESCO might claim. That figure is actually for all glaciers in the World except Antarctica and Greenland.
Most of those glaciers are not "extrapolar" by any reasonable definition. There is something like 100,000 km^2 in Central Asia and about 25,000 km^2 in South America. All other tropical or temperate glaciers are practically negligible.
The rest are in places like Alaska, Baffins Land, Ellesmere Land, Iceland, Svalbard, Franz Joseph's Land, Novaya Zemlya, Severnaya Zemlya and South Georgia.
"Why are the glaciers receding? We have had less than 1C increase in global temperature over the last 150 years, so what mechanisms are making the glaciers recede?"
1 C warmer means that the altitude of the equilibrum line will rise by about 150 meters. For most glaciers this is a significant amount. A smaller accumulation area means that the glacier front will recede, and since the glacier snout is often fairly narrow and thin it can easily recede from several hundred meters to a couple of kilometers as a result. The effect will be most dramatic where ice from a large accumulation area is funneled through a narrow outlet glacier. Hence the popularity of "climate pilgrimages" to Ilulissat and Jakobshavns Isbrae, where ice from 15% of the entire Greenland Icecap is calved into a fjord only a few miles wide.
I think they're just asking why the CO2 death spiral seems to have never happened in the geological history of the planet, no matter the CO2 concentration. It's almost as if the climate has hundreds if not thousands of factors of which a minor trace gas is but one. I'm still hoping we go full tropic and get rid of this life inhibiting ice. There is no more a lifeless desert anywhere on this planet than Antartica. Do you wish for an ice-free future too, ZDB?
Retreating glaciers area sign of temperature REDUCTION as they are formed from snowfall and as temperatures decrease, so does snowfall. In a warming world, a glacier would gain more mass than it loses and the terminus of the glacier would advance. In a cooling world, with the glacier losing more mass than it gains, its terminus will retreat.
Of course, I am speaking of the mechanism of glaciers pre-IPCC.
"If the current trends continue", you can see for yourself at WoodForTrees.org: Plot of HADCRUT3 Unadjusted global monthly mean temperature anomalies 1980-2011.75 (°C) + linear trends from 1980 & 2001
If in Series 3 you change the From (time) Value to 1998 you will see how the trend has been flat from 1998 on (0.03°C per century).
You can substitute HADCRUT3 with BEST if you prefer not see the coming cooling.
Glaciers are now just a thing of the past. Children won't know what snow is.
Riiiiiiiiiiight.
Ah, yes. The Grauniad kneels and performs the ecco la fica in time for Durban.
The journalistic equivalent of shouting fire in a theatre...
Thanks for having stopped feeding the troll. I am getting worried as she seems to be stalking me. I hope she doesn't know where I live, because I am one and she is many.
tty
"Hence the popularity of climate pilgrimages .....calved into a fjord only a few miles wide."
Calving is not melting. Glaciers calve when they are flowing and terminate at sea level. The ice breaks when the buoyancy force is less than their mass.
"1 C warmer means that the altitude of the equilibrum line will rise by about 150 meters."
Not so if the traditional mechanism is considered but could apply if the glacier was not flowing.
Would it be simpler to say that the science on Himalayan glacial melt is bolloxed.
Philip Bratby: Your posts are what keeps me sane.
I read BH and WUWT daily and have done for years. I kinda like reading Zed (in a masochistic way) as I see a style of argument in there that was once shown in a documentary I saw years ago about how Moonies were brain-washed.
With that in mind, I am increasingly of the opinion that, unless they attended the same Moonies course, Zed on BH is R.Gates on WUWT. As a theory, it probably has more going for it than AGW.
Keep up the good work Philip.
What is this all about?
OnEarth? What on Earth?? ... Mind you, I've always wondered if the graun editorial had been taken over by little green men or alien greenies.
Honestly, butter wouldn't melt, poor old Pachauri - always the innocent victim, the little guy, the poor Indian railway engineer............... hounded by those evil disbelieving and wicked men of the heterodoxy.
What a puke inducing article this is.
What a load of unscientific drivel - some of the Himalayan glaciers may be melting, some are not.
But the reasons are complex and manifold and it is nothing to do with MMCO2. It is, to do with Monsoonal winds, soot, massive lower slope deforestation.
And in any case [despite man's best efforts to disrupt it] the hydrological cycle is basically intact, it will still precipitate in the Himalayas the rivers will still flow - there will be changes but these are mainly man made alterations in LAND USE.
The graun = endless pap and Pachauri needs to go......... hang on a minute, no! The IPCC needs to be put to bed and let it be an eternal sleep.
Assuming there are fact checkers and editors at the Guardian, who should have known about the 2350 date, then we must accept that repors such as this are blatant manipulation of public opinion.
The question is for whose benefit we are being manipulated. For the benefit of l those who report record profits from businesses that normally would not make any money in an open unrigged market. Vestas, the Danish wind turbine maker is pulling in money at record rates. To increase its profitability it plans to move production to China- so much for green european jobs- and continue selling turbines to Europe. We, the consumerst of us are being convinced via terrorising reports to accept meekly the taxes that are necessary to pay the extortionate Feed In Tarrifs. Talk about shills!!!
I've deleted all Zed's contributions and any responses.
A related link at the Gaudrain article, showing Pachauri's reaction to a challenge to the 2035 prediction in Nov. 2009, is here:
From the Daily Mail 24 Jan. 2010: "The scientist [Dr Murari Lal] behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders."