Slamming a UN climate body for predicting that most of the Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035, the government said such forecasts were sans scientific basis.
The United Nations-led Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) projection that the Himalayan glaciers would be wiped out from the earth’s surface by 2035 was, it turns out, a false alarm.
According to a recent study, there is no scientific evidence to
suggest that the projection is true and the 9,500 glaciers would disappear due to climate change.
Embarrassed, IPCC is now planning to withdraw the report. During the weekend, Britain’s Sunday Times reported that the 2035 doomsday claim was based on an interview given by Indian glaciologist Syed Iqbal Hasnain to New Scientist in 1999 and there was no scientific evidence to back it.
Obviously, minister for environment and forests Jairam Ramesh, who had claimed otherwise, is elated. “I was dismissed for peddling voodoo science, but the ministry for environment and forests was right on glaciers,” he said.
The ministry had come out with a detailed report in November last year that though the Himalayan glaciers were receding, there was no scientific evidence to suggest the cause was climate change.
A paper published by the ministry said most of the 9,500 Himalayan glaciers were retreating, but smaller ones were in most trouble. Indian experts also concluded that the average annual retreat of glaciers was around 5 metres till the late 1950s, but with the advent of the 1990s it began to slow down.
The Siachen, Machoi, Drung Drung, Gangotri, Satopanth-Bhagirath Kharak and Zemu glaciers stopped retreating during 2000-2009.
“The claim of IPCC is not based on an iota of scientific evidence. The conclusions were misplaced,” Ramesh said.
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