R K Ganjoo
All appreciation goes to the Indian glaciologists and geoscientists who stood by their scientific work and interpretations throughout the controversy, the famous “Climategate”, over the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers by 2035 published in IPCC Assessment Report 4 of 2007. Most of the scientific data and interpretations of Indian scientists were based on field work and stood the test of time. For months together the glaciologists and geoscientists with bare minimum logistics toiled hard and trekked the glaciers up and down to physically verify the changes occurring from year to year. It is this hard work and their confidence in the data that made them stand against the strong wind of “global warming” whipped up by the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The then IPCC chief had the cheeks to dismiss the research work of Indian glaciologists and geoscientists compiled by Sh.V.K. Raina, a renowned glaciologist, as “school-boy science”. The then IPCC chief repeatedly and vehemently emphasized on the point that the “Himalayan glaciers: A state-of-art review of glacial studies, glacial retreat and climate change – A MoEF Discussion Paper” published by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Government of India should be peer-reviewed before accepting the results therein. Ignorant of the fact that most of the work compiled in the “Discussion Paper” on Himalayan glaciers is derived from the research published in peer-reviewed scientific journals in India and abroad. The then IPCC chief was hell bent upon somehow dismissing the document of MoEF. The IPCC chief did not realize that his own house was in a shambles. The IPCC report 2007 itself had been compiled on the basis of work mentioned in magazines that are not peer-reviewed. Who was doing the “school-boy science”?
At last, the IPCC chief had to accept and apologise for the serious mistake that occurred in the IPCC Assessment Report 2007. The admission that the year 2035, given in the said report, for the complete melting of Himalayan glaciers is wrong, and exposed the casual scientific attitude of 2500 scientists, who were involved in the preparation of the report. It is hard to believe that a “blunder” of this magnitude escaped scrutiny by a large contingent of scientists. Was the mistake deliberate to attach significance to the IPCC report or was it under the dictation and influence of certain corporate or countries? The truth is yet to come out. The IPCC chief had no other choice than to accept the “blunder”, perhaps to cover it up and avoid any further snowballing of the issue that would have risked the exposure of any corporate /country behind the ‘mistake’.
As early as 2008, Professor A.D. Ahluwalia of Panjab University, Chandigarh at the International Geological Congress held in August at Oslo, Norway, openly ridiculed former Vice-President Al Gore and IPCC. Ahluwalia, during a question and answer panel discussion, said “I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists,”. Henrik Syensmark of Danish National Space Centre and Bob Carter of James Cook University, Australia, outspoken critics of Gore and IPCC, were also participants at the panel discussion. There is convincing evidence that the then IPCC chief was already in the know of the errors in the report much before the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) meeting at Copenhagen. It is now corroborated by Pallava Bagla, a science journalist, in his interview for Science Magazine with Dr. R.K. Pachauri, the then IPCC chief. The claims made by Indian glaciologists and geoscientists on the impact of global warming on Himalayan glaciers received credit at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) meeting of experts at the Energy Resource Institute (TERI), New Delhi, on December 28-29, 2009 where vital questions that followed the glacier controversy were discussed threadbare. It was agreed upon by the experts that changes in Himalayan glaciers are varied and complex. Some glaciers show change in length with respect to area and mass whereas some glaciers show variation in thickness and not in length. It was, therefore, emphasized upon by the experts that more study of the glaciers in the Himalayas is required to pinpoint the causes for change.
Long back, Prof. S.I. Hasnain, Head of the Glacier Research Group in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, declared that Gangotri glacier (source of river Ganga) is melting at the rate of 30m/year because of global warming and due to the continuous pressure of pilgrims , the glacier will vanish in the next couple of decades. Prof. Milap C. Sharma of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, has been studying the changes in Gangotri glacier for the past more than a decade and his scientific work has proved it beyond doubt that the changes in Gangotri glacier are exclusively a result of change in climate and not anthropogenic.
The jury, headed by former Chief Justice of India Justice J.S. Verma, decided to withdraw the Corporate Award, given by the President, to one of the nationally known hydel project corporation for exemplary work on catchment area treatment, muck disposal and compensatory afforestation. The withdrawal of award by the jury followed the complaints of shoddy work done by the hydel project corporation. The award to the hydel project corporation, for exemplary work, subsequently turned to be manipulated and misleading information provided to the highest office of the country.
Glaciers in Alps advanced in the 1750, 1820 and 1850, and between 1885 to 1890. Rapid retreat in Alpine glaciers, not correlatable with any periods of carbon dioxide accumulation, is noticed in the 1930s and 1990s. No match can be drawn between the behaviour of Himalayan and Alpine glaciers because global temperature is not the main control. Evidences now prove that the icecaps of Greenland and Antarctica are growing rather than shrinking. Global warming has not been held the culprit for melting of snow and ice on Mount Kilimanjaro, rather, it is decrease in precipitation. It is also true for the Himalayas, where changes in large-scale circulation patterns (subtropical Jet Stream) over a long period of time have caused reduction in the precipitation. This change is linked to inter- and intra-annual variability in precipitation and not to global warming. Though it is premature to link shrinking of glaciers in the Himalayas to any specific cause, yet the plausible explanation is lack of adequate snow accumulation during the winter season.
In the year 2001-2002, when most of researchers in the world, including India, had joined heads to understand the causes for the failure of the monsoon in India and prolonged droughts in other parts of the world, Dr. R.K. Pachauri, then IPCC head, arrived at the conclusion: “There is a high probability that the freaky weather we are seeing this year, especially in India, has a direct relationship with the phenomenon of global warming that we have been screaming about”. It was certainly not acceptable to meteorologist, Dr. G.B. Pant, the then Director of Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune. He pointed out that monsoon in India exhibits cyclical variation of normal spell of monsoon for 13 years followed by spell of bad monsoon.
The credibility of the IPCC report 2007, once again, was under scan on the issue of claims about the demise of Amazonian forest due to global warming. It has been learnt that the claims are exaggerated and based on papers that were published in non-peer reviewed magazine on mountaineering and dissertation of a geography student.
Measurements of CO2 from air trapped in polar ice cores over tens of thousands of years shows that atmospheric CO2 concentrations typically vary from about 270-285 ppm, averaging about 280 ppm. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have been stable at ~280 ± 10 ppm during the past millennium until the industrial revolution when it rose gradually. In 1945, CO2 began to increase rapidly. Atmospheric CO2 levels rose to ~370 ppm in 2000. However, from 1945 to 1977, while CO2 levels rose from approximately 300 ppm to 330 ppm, the global temperature rise reversed and cooled about 0.2 degrees during the same period. The increase in CO2 considered as main culprit for warming is not absolutely true.
While in-depth studies of glaciers, snow pack, and permafrost have been carried out in some areas, they have been scattered widely in space and time. There have been few or no detailed investigations of snow and ice processes or their relevance to climate in the high mountain ranges, and there are very few baseline studies and little long-term monitoring of perennial snow and ice.
The demand of the time is credible, salient and legitimate knowledge that can lead to good national and international policies on climate change. By credible we mean knowledge that has been derived from field observations and tested by scientists and users; salient information is immediately relevant and useful to policy-makers; and legitimate information is unbiased in its origin and creation and both fair and reasonably comprehensive in its treatment of opposing views and interests.
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