bad science=question global warming...good research=plagerizing popular science mag

[Kratos]

nce
UN Climate Chief Won't Resign Over Glacier WarningUpdated: 2 hours 18 minutes ago
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Theunis Bates
Contributor
LONDON (Jan. 23) -- It sounds like the plot of a Hollywood disaster movie: Central and Southern Asia are hit by biblical floods when the Himalayan glaciers suddenly melt. After that cataclysm, water no longer flows from the mountains, leaving rivers like the Mekong and Ganges dry and millions facing permanent drought. That was the picture painted by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2007 report, which said there was a "very high" chance that these glaciers would disappear by 2035 if the world kept warming.

But the IPCC, the U.N. body charged with investigating climate change, retracted that claim after it emerged that its predictions of a sudden melt weren't based on peer-reviewed evidence, but instead on an article that appeared in the popular science magazine New Scientist in 1999.


Subel Bhandari, AFP / Getty Images
While the Khumbu Glacier near Mount Everest is shrinking, the United Nations admits it overstated the threat of a total glacial meltdown in the Himalayas.
On Saturday, IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri dismissed calls for his resignation over the error and said no action would be taken against the report's authors, The Associated Press reported. He expressed regret that the doomsday prediction was included in the report but said the mistakes should not obscure the fact that glaciers are melting at an alarming rate.

Climate change skeptics have lapped up the scandal, which they dubbed "Glaciergate," saying that it further erodes the credibility of climate science already damaged by last year's Climategate e-mail scandal. Global warming denier Peter Foster, writing in Canada's National Post, said the error showed how the "IPCC's task has always been not objectively to examine science but to make the case for man-made climate change by any means available."

But Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice chairman of the IPCC, said the mistake did not undermine the report's key conclusions: that the warming climate is accelerating glacial melt and that this will affect the supply of water from the world's major mountain ranges, "where more than one-sixth of the world population currently lives."

"I don't see how one mistake in a 3,000-page report can damage the credibility of the overall report," van Ypersele told the BBC. "Some people will attempt to use it to damage the credibility of the IPCC; but if we can uncover it and explain it and change it, it should strengthen the IPCC's credibility, showing that we are ready to learn from our mistakes."

The argument over the IPCC's melt date went public last November, when a paper written by Indian geologist Vijay Kumar Raina revealed that there was little consistency in the behavior of the Himalayan glaciers. Some were shrinking, he found, some expanding, and others were stable. If global warming were to blame, he asked, why weren't they all following the same pattern? "A glacier ... does not necessarily respond to the immediate climatic changes," he wrote. "For if it be so then all glaciers within the same climatic zone should have been advancing or retreating at the same time."

India's environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, endorsed the paper and accused the IPCC of being "alarmist" in its predictions. But Pachauri shot back that Raina's findings were "voodoo science" and accused Ramesh of repeating the claims of "climate change deniers."

Embarrassingly, it's now the IPCC that stands accused of sloppy science, as a rigorous system of fact checks would have kept the controversial assertion out of the 2007 report. The claim first appeared in a 1999 interview between a New Scientist journalist and the Indian glaciologist Syed Hasnain, who speculated that the mountain range's glaciers could vanish by 2035.

Environmental group the World Wildlife Fund then repeated Hasnain's prediction in its 2005 report, "An Overview of Glaciers, Glacier Retreat, and Subsequent Impacts in Nepal, India and China." As this was only was a campaigning paper, it had not undergone a thorough scientific review. But its lack of scientific rigor didn't stop the IPCC using the WWF document as a source.

In chapter 10 of its 2007 report, the IPCC concluded: "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. Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 square kilometers by the year 2035 (WWF, 2005)."

But many glaciologists believed those claims were overheated. As most Himalayan glaciers are hundreds of feet thick, only a sudden, huge spike in global temperatures could cause them to disappear before 2035. "The reality, that the glaciers are wasting away, is bad enough," Graham Cogley, a glaciologist at Canada's University of Trent, who played a key role in exposing the flawed claim, told the United Kingdom's Sunday Times. "But they are not wasting away at the rate suggested by this speculative remark and the IPCC report. The problem is that nobody who studied this material bothered chasing the trail back to the original point when the claim first arose."

Indian glaciologist Murari Lal, the lead author of that section of the IPCC report, last week rejected claims that the U.N. group had made a serious error. "We relied rather heavily on gray [not peer-reviewed] literature, including the WWF report," Lal told New Scientist. "The error, if any, lies with Dr Hasnain's assertion and not with the IPCC authors."

Unsurprisingly, Hasnain has refuted that attempt to pass the blame. "The magic number of 2035 has not [been] mentioned in any research papers written by me, as no peer-reviewed journal will accept speculative figures," he said to New Scientist. "It is not proper for IPCC to include references from popular magazines or newspapers."

That's a tough but obvious lesson, and one the IPCC is unlikely to forget.

http://www.sphere.com/science/articl...elt%2F19324494

[MuscleScience]

Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive

[O.fO.shO]

global warming is a lie . The planet may be warming , but not for the reasons the majority push for . Its a natural cycle .

[TITANIUM]

global warming is a lie . The planet may be warming , but not for the reasons the majority push for . Its a natural cycle .

I question that statement.

We, as a population have alot to do with it.

It may be a natural cycle, but we contribute to it.

Best

T

[TITANIUM]

nce
UN Climate Chief Won't Resign Over Glacier WarningUpdated: 2 hours 18 minutes ago
.Print Text Size E-mail More
Theunis Bates
Contributor
LONDON (Jan. 23) -- It sounds like the plot of a Hollywood disaster movie: Central and Southern Asia are hit by biblical floods when the Himalayan glaciers suddenly melt. After that cataclysm, water no longer flows from the mountains, leaving rivers like the Mekong and Ganges dry and millions facing permanent drought. That was the picture painted by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2007 report, which said there was a "very high" chance that these glaciers would disappear by 2035 if the world kept warming.

But the IPCC, the U.N. body charged with investigating climate change, retracted that claim after it emerged that its predictions of a sudden melt weren't based on peer-reviewed evidence, but instead on an article that appeared in the popular science magazine New Scientist in 1999.


Subel Bhandari, AFP / Getty Images
While the Khumbu Glacier near Mount Everest is shrinking, the United Nations admits it overstated the threat of a total glacial meltdown in the Himalayas.
On Saturday, IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri dismissed calls for his resignation over the error and said no action would be taken against the report's authors, The Associated Press reported. He expressed regret that the doomsday prediction was included in the report but said the mistakes should not obscure the fact that glaciers are melting at an alarming rate.

Climate change skeptics have lapped up the scandal, which they dubbed "Glaciergate," saying that it further erodes the credibility of climate science already damaged by last year's Climategate e-mail scandal. Global warming denier Peter Foster, writing in Canada's National Post, said the error showed how the "IPCC's task has always been not objectively to examine science but to make the case for man-made climate change by any means available."

But Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice chairman of the IPCC, said the mistake did not undermine the report's key conclusions: that the warming climate is accelerating glacial melt and that this will affect the supply of water from the world's major mountain ranges, "where more than one-sixth of the world population currently lives."

"I don't see how one mistake in a 3,000-page report can damage the credibility of the overall report," van Ypersele told the BBC. "Some people will attempt to use it to damage the credibility of the IPCC; but if we can uncover it and explain it and change it, it should strengthen the IPCC's credibility, showing that we are ready to learn from our mistakes."

The argument over the IPCC's melt date went public last November, when a paper written by Indian geologist Vijay Kumar Raina revealed that there was little consistency in the behavior of the Himalayan glaciers. Some were shrinking, he found, some expanding, and others were stable. If global warming were to blame, he asked, why weren't they all following the same pattern? "A glacier ... does not necessarily respond to the immediate climatic changes," he wrote. "For if it be so then all glaciers within the same climatic zone should have been advancing or retreating at the same time."

India's environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, endorsed the paper and accused the IPCC of being "alarmist" in its predictions. But Pachauri shot back that Raina's findings were "voodoo science" and accused Ramesh of repeating the claims of "climate change deniers."

Embarrassingly, it's now the IPCC that stands accused of sloppy science, as a rigorous system of fact checks would have kept the controversial assertion out of the 2007 report. The claim first appeared in a 1999 interview between a New Scientist journalist and the Indian glaciologist Syed Hasnain, who speculated that the mountain range's glaciers could vanish by 2035.

Environmental group the World Wildlife Fund then repeated Hasnain's prediction in its 2005 report, "An Overview of Glaciers, Glacier Retreat, and Subsequent Impacts in Nepal, India and China." As this was only was a campaigning paper, it had not undergone a thorough scientific review. But its lack of scientific rigor didn't stop the IPCC using the WWF document as a source.

In chapter 10 of its 2007 report, the IPCC concluded: "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. Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 square kilometers by the year 2035 (WWF, 2005)."

But many glaciologists believed those claims were overheated. As most Himalayan glaciers are hundreds of feet thick, only a sudden, huge spike in global temperatures could cause them to disappear before 2035. "The reality, that the glaciers are wasting away, is bad enough," Graham Cogley, a glaciologist at Canada's University of Trent, who played a key role in exposing the flawed claim, told the United Kingdom's Sunday Times. "But they are not wasting away at the rate suggested by this speculative remark and the IPCC report. The problem is that nobody who studied this material bothered chasing the trail back to the original point when the claim first arose."

Indian glaciologist Murari Lal, the lead author of that section of the IPCC report, last week rejected claims that the U.N. group had made a serious error. "We relied rather heavily on gray [not peer-reviewed] literature, including the WWF report," Lal told New Scientist. "The error, if any, lies with Dr Hasnain's assertion and not with the IPCC authors."

Unsurprisingly, Hasnain has refuted that attempt to pass the blame. "The magic number of 2035 has not [been] mentioned in any research papers written by me, as no peer-reviewed journal will accept speculative figures," he said to New Scientist. "It is not proper for IPCC to include references from popular magazines or newspapers."

That's a tough but obvious lesson, and one the IPCC is unlikely to forget.

http://www.sphere.com/science/articl...elt%2F19324494

It will be like that movie "water world", with Kevin Costner.

The movie sucked, but the point was driven.

Best

T

[Bull_Nuts]

I question that statement.

We, as a population have alot to do with it.

It may be a natural cycle, but we contribute to it.

Best

T

I can't ever think of disagreeing with you titanium but what is there to question? It is natural weather or not we contribute to it. Yes we contribute to it and Im sure we have a certain amount to do with it...buy not "alot to do with it".

Im pretty sure Ive seen data(though cant remember where it is) that co2 levels were "cyclicly" higher...during the stone age...ironicly...

And the statement "global warming is a lie" is short a few words.....it should be rephrased as "global warming caused by humans is a lie"....you may have noticed that they conveniently changed the phrase to "climate change"....all the while they are still marketing their "global warming" products. Because if they really meant "climate change" instead of "global warming"...they would not be trying to make money off of this...

Is climate "change" a lie?...i dont think so

Is global warming (AND COOLING) a lie...no

Is it caused by man....maybe, in the whole existance of man, 1% true

Is it one giant scam? DEFINATELY


One more thing....this damn global warming here in texas is killing me...its a burning 28 degrees F.

[Bull_Nuts]

It will be like that movie "water world", with Kevin Costner.

The movie sucked, but the point was driven.

Best

T

I actually liked water world...damn...second time ever I disagree'd with you T. But like global warming is caused by man...you and I are now mortal enemy's....LOL (based on these 2 random variences in the same thread) what are the odds? I wonder if i can make money off of this...

[Kratos]

it's pretty bad when you call a sci-fi article a source

[BJJ]

It will be like that movie "water world", with Kevin Costner.

The movie sucked, but the point was driven.

Best

T

I am just awaiting...
My 15 meters Mc Leod catamaran is already placed nearby the peak of Gran Sasso!!!

[BJJ]

Believing that the human race was able to change the climate of our planet in just 300 years (since the start of the industrial revolution in England, XVIII century), it is like believing in any religions.

Climate is changing no matter what we do and our contribution to it is totally careless.
If you guys are looking someone to blame, look at the Sun.
Mars is experiencing our same problem, due to the increase in the sunlight in the long term.

So, we all should speak about galactic heating.