Baby It’s Cold Outside

Academics and climatologists are on the defensive about the ClimateGate scandal and errors in UN-sponsored research, especially amid a public growing more skeptical of climate change news hype.

A recent Gallup Poll released March 11 finds that “a record-high 41%” of Americans believe that “the seriousness of global warming” is exaggerated in mainstream media coverage—a 10% increase since 1997. The majority of survey respondents still hold that news reports are “generally correct” about the issues, or underestimate the severity of global warming, down 4% from 1998 and 5% from 2008.

It is not surprising, then, that environmentalists are trying to buttress public support for the theory of anthropogenic global warming. For example, a February Center for American Progress (CAP) event titled “The Science of Climate Change” featured two speakers, Dr. Michael MacCracken and Stanford Professor Christopher Field, who both have helped author reports produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

During his presentation Professor Field said on February 3 that “it’s extremely unfortunate in the case of the Himalayan glaciers, for example, that there was wasn’t sufficient vetting to identify one poorly substantiated number” and that “our” goal in the IPCC is “that there be 100 percent error-free analysis…,” according to the CAP transcript.

The passage from the 2007 IPCC report asserts that

“Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world (see Table 10.9) 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 km² by the year 2035 (WWF, 2005).”

“I mean, I think it’s important to understand that each of these chapters is a big topic,” said Dr. MacCracken, who works at the Climate Institute, at the CAP event. “The topic in the Himalayas was all of Asia so you’ve got to cover everything in Asia in 25 pages. … And so somehow they didn’t catch it and it got in.”

In contrast, the Global Warming Policy Foundation argues that the results of its freedom of information request demonstrate that questions were raised about the passage on Himalayan glaciers, yet few changes were made. “The contentious 2035 date appears in the paragraph from lines 13 to 17 on page 46 of the second order draft of Working Group II,” writes David Holland for the GWPF. “The only changes to the draft text in the finally published text are the removal of a short redundant sentence and the addition [of] the reference to (WWF, 2005).”

The “WWF, 2005” citation refers to a 2005 World Wildlife Fund (WWF) publication upholding claims by glaciologist Syed Hasnain. The WWF has since issued a correction within the report, stating, “This statement was used in good faith but it is now clear that this was erroneous and should be disregarded.”

When The New Scientist’s Fred Pearce re-interviewed Hasnain this January, Hasnain told Pearce that his original 1990 comment was “speculative,” was never republished in peer reviewed journals; Hasnain also said that “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,” Pearce reported.

The WWF report now states that “This statement should also be disregarded as being unsound.”

IPCC Chair Rajendra K. Pachauri is widely quoted as condemning an Indian government discussion paper entitled “Himalayan Glaciers A State-of-Art Review of Glacial Studies, Glacial Retreat and Climate Change,” as “voodoo science.” In the paper, V.K. Raina, Ex. Deputy Director General of the Geological Survey of India, argues that “It is premature to make a statement that glaciers in the Himalayas are retreating abnormally because of the global warming.”

“A glacier is affected by a range of physical features and a complex interplay of climatic factors,” he writes. “It is therefore unlikely that the snout movement of any glacier can be claimed to be a result of periodic climate variation until many centuries of observations become available. While glacier movements are primarily due to climate and snowfall, snout movements appear to be peculiar to each particular glacier.”

Hasnain now works for The Energy And Resources Institute (TERI); Pachauri is the Director-General for the India branch and President of the North American branch of this organization.

On March 10, the same day that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced that the InterAcademy Council (IAC) will head “a comprehensive, independent review of the IPCC’s procedures and processes,” Yale also announced that Pachauri will head their “newly established” Climate and Energy Institute (YCEI), according to University press release. “Nearly 100 Yale scientists, engineers, physicians, social scientists and policy experts have joined together to launch the enterprise,” it states.

There have been a series of other errors found within the 2007 IPCC report, AR4, but Ed Barnes reports for Fox News that the independent review will not reexamine “past mistakes.”

“On several occasions during Wednesday’s press conference, Dijkgraaf said that the mandate of the new panel is not to look at past mistakes but to ensure that the IPCC’s next report, its fifth, on the state of climate science will be accepted by the public and the scientific community,” writes Barnes.

According to the UN website, UN Secretary General Ki-moon told the press that he has “seen no credible evidence that challenges the main conclusions of that [2007 IPCC] report.”
On March 15 The India Blooms News Service quoted Pauchari as saying, “In fact, it was I who had asked to probe into the blunders in the IPCC report.”

“There is no ‘several mistakes.’ There is only one mistake. Why should I resign? I have no reason to resign. I have a task to complete and I will finish it,” the article quoted Pachauri.

The IAC, which is supposed to independently review the IPCC, utilized Pachauri’s scholarship in a 2007 report on “Lighting the Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future.” Pachauri was a study group member.

In the report, the IAC identifies two main energy threats—energy security and global warming— and calls for the “worldwide introduction of price signals for carbon emissions…,” developing and deploying technologies for “capturing and sequestering carbon from fossil fuels, particularly coal,” and the accelerated development and use of “renewable energy technologies.”

Bethany Stotts is a staff writer at Accuracy in Academia.