Environment

Erroneous climate claim hurts credibility

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A recent UN report stated that the Himalayan glaciers would be melted by the year 2035. Well, that was wrong. Anchor Marco Werman gets the story from reporter Juliet Eilperin of The Washington Post.

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MARCO WERMAN: Back in 2007, a report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a dramatic warning.  The IPCC report said huge glaciers in the Himalayas region were very likely to melt completely by the year 2035.  Now the IPCC is back tracking on that warning.  It says there isn’t enough scientific evidence to back it up. The admission has the Nobel prize-winning IPCC scrambling to regain the moral high ground on climate change science.  Juliet Eilperin reports on the environment for The Washington Post.  Juliet, clarify this for us.  What is the accepted wisdom for how fast the glaciers in the Himalayan Mountains are melting and how does that compare to what was mentioned in the IPCC report?

JULIET EILPERIN: It appears that they are retreating.  The vast majority are retreating. For example, on the Northern Slope of the Himalayas measurements there indicate of more than 100 glaciers that 95% of them are retreating.  On the Southern Slope where there are a huge number of glaciers, it’s less clear what the number is at the rate of melting because they simply just don’t have the extensive observations.  And so, the safest thing to say based on what we have in terms of peer-reviewed science is that the vast majority are retreating, but it’s certainly impossible to fix a specific date when all of them would disappear.

WERMAN: So what happened here?  I mean, I was kind of surprised to read that the IPCC has this peer-reviewed kind of data panel that goes over all this kind of gray area stuff. What didn’t happen in the vetting and editing process that should have happened?

EILPERIN: What didn’t happen for reasons that still remain somewhat unexplained is that there was not the same level of vetting and scrutiny because while they say that there was a level of vetting, there were challenges made at the time that said there was not the same standard that applies to the rest of the IPCC Report, which is that you look at the peer-reviewed papers and you see what’s there in that literature. And only peer-reviewed papers can be the basis for the scientific conclusion. In this case, they were apparently referring to a news article from 1999 in the New Scientist magazine where it’s based on a phone interview with one researcher. That certainly doesn’t quality as peer-reviewed science.

WERMAN: Well, regardless of the melt speed I would guess that this controversy is going to be kind of dangerous to the overall body of evidence showing that global warming is a serious problem for the planet.  I mean, won’t this just serve as fodder for the deniers out there who will say, “See, one more example of exaggerated evidence of climate change?”

EILPERIN: It does serve as fodder and, in fact, it’s already begun to happen that you have climate skeptics that are saying the fact that there’s a flaw with this one small data point shows that one should question the entire broad conclusions.  The argument that of course many climate scientists are making at this point is that first of all these conclusions about glacier melt weren’t based on just this one area. That this specific projection was, but if you look at Himalayan glacier melt there are multiple lines of evidence for that that broadly speaking worldwide in terms of glacier melt there are teams of researchers that are working on this in many different locations.  But there is absolutely no question that this has sparked another round of questioning the overall conclusions of the connection between human activity and the climate change that we’re seeing worldwide.

WERMAN: And so soon after Copenhagen, what are climate change scientists going to do to coil the controversy over the IPCC Report?

EILPERIN: They’re being very aggressive actually.  In fact, the Union of Concern Scientists has organized a formal response with some scientists including a glacier expert.  You’ve seen Science Magazine is posting something on their website today addressing this issue. You’re definitely seeing the scientific community mobilize in part because they feel defensive in light of other recent attacks including the pirated emails that came off the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit server. So really you definitely see a push back from the scientific community. And the IPCC itself has posted a formal statement on its website, and has announced that they are investigating the matter.

WERMAN: Julia Eilperin reports on the environment for the Washington Post.  Juliet, I appreciate it. Thanks.

EILPERIN: Thank you.

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