http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7009081.ece The chairman of the leading climate change watchdog was informed that claims about melting Himalayan glaciers were false before the Copenhagen summit, The Times has learnt. Rajendra Pachauri was told that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment that the glaciers would disappear by 2035 was wrong, but he waited two months to correct it. He failed to act despite learning that the claim had been refuted by several leading glaciologists. The IPCCâs report underpinned the proposals at Copenhagen for drastic cuts in global emissions. Dr Pachauri, who played a leading role at the summit, corrected the error last week after coming under media pressure. He told The Times on January 22 that he had only known about the error for a few days. He said: âI became aware of this when it was reported in the media about ten days ago. Before that, it was really not made known. Nobody brought it to my attention. There were statements, but we never looked at this 2035 number.â Asked whether he had deliberately kept silent about the error to avoid embarrassment at Copenhagen, he said: âThatâs ridiculous. It never came to my attention before the Copenhagen summit. It wasnât in the public sphere.â However, a prominent science journalist said that he had asked Dr Pachauri about the 2035 error last November. Pallava Bagla, who writes for Science journal, said he had asked Dr Pachauri about the error. He said that Dr Pachauri had replied: âI donât have anything to add on glaciers.â The Himalayan glaciers are so thick and at such high altitude that most glaciologists believe they would take several hundred years to melt at the present rate. Some are growing and many show little sign of change. Dr Pachauri had previously dismissed a report by the Indian Government which said that glaciers might not be melting as much as had been feared. He described the report, which did not mention the 2035 error, as âvoodoo scienceâ. Mr Bagla said he had informed Dr Pachauri that Graham Cogley, a professor at Ontario Trent University and a leading glaciologist, had dismissed the 2035 date as being wrong by at least 300 years. Professor Cogley believed the IPCC had misread the date in a 1996 report which said the glaciers could melt significantly by 2350. Mr Pallava interviewed Dr Pachauri again this week for Science and asked him why he had decided to overlook the error before the Copenhagen summit. In the taped interview, Mr Pallava asked: âI pointed it out [the error] to you in several e-mails, several discussions, yet you decided to overlook it. Was that so that you did not want to destabilise what was happening in Copenhagen?â Dr Pachauri replied: âNot at all, not at all. As it happens, we were all terribly preoccupied with a lot of events. We were working round the clock with several things that had to be done in Copenhagen. It was only when the story broke, I think in December, we decided to, well, early this month â as a matter of fact, I can give you the exact dates â early in January that we decided to go into it and we moved very fast. âAnd within three or four days, we were able to come up with a clear and a very honest and objective assessment of what had happened. So I think this presumption on your part or on the part of any others is totally wrong. We are certainly never â and I can say this categorically â ever going to do anything other than what is truthful and what upholds the veracity of science.â Dr Pacharui has also been accused of using the error to win grants worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
I doubt global warming scientists are involved in a hoax but I do believe many have lost their way and abandoned their professional training for a cause. Generally, activists are motivated more by emotion than objectivity, something a scientist should never do, and as a direct result the data collected and released to the public reflect their personal biases.
Any theories on how they've biased the satellites? Melt Season in the Arctic Getting Longer http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=42456
I don't know Dave, it is interesting that Obama wants to cut NASA's budget. The one area of research for NASA that will not be cut is their work on global warming. NASA knows where its bread is being buttered.
NASA has interesting things to say about solar variability, too, Dave. The issue here, at least my issue, is not climate change, it's WHY is the climate changing. Is it the human induced increase in co2? Or is it something a little more natural, something the earth has seen several times before? Or maybe it's a combination of both? I don't know, but apparently leading global warming scientists know the unknowable and they're not afraid to shove it down our throats, or worse, a scientist's throat if he or she has an opposing opinion. I have issues with that, Dave, and I think more people should have issues with it. Has nothing to do with politicsâat least it shouldn't.
2009 was the second hottest year on record, and solar activity was at almost the lowest point in a century. Anecdotally, that's a bit of a problem for global warming deniers. It's not unknowable just because you don't know it. They know that the extra CO2 in the atmosphere is man-made, it's been proven. Read up on C12/C13 isotopes to learn how.
Well... not everywhere. http://www.prisonplanet.com/global-cooling-record-low-temperatures-hit-america.html http://www.iceagenow.com/Record_Lows_2009.htm http://www.accuweather.com/mt-news-...09/07/1000_low_temp_records_set_this_july.asp
Where did I say increases in atmospheric co2 are not due to mankind? I'm willing to concede all extra co2 is man made, but I do find it interesting not even a 1ppm decrease in carbon dioxide was detected during the great depression's 30% decrease in co2 emissions. And your carbon isotope testing method might have a few holes. Since I'm not worried about where the co2 came from, I'm not worried about the test either. Yeah, yeah, and co2 has risen 4% since the hottest year on record, 1998, and temperatures have gone down, not up. Ebb and flow only applies when temperatures go down, right?
You should find that scary. CO2 has a long half life in the atmosphere - maybe hundreds or even thousands of years before excess CO2 is scrubbed from the atmosphere and things return to equilibrium. It doesn't just fall out of the sky as does water vapor. No matter if CO2 emissions are cut dramatically right now, we are still stuck with excess CO2 for a long time. And the longer we leave it, the worse it gets. 1998 was a strong El Nino. CO2 is not the only thing affecting temp in the short term, but it has the most potential to change it on the average in the long term.