Himalayan Glaciar Claim Melts Down Faster than the Glacier

More Stories from the Man-Made Global-Warming is Neither Department

In the past few months, we have seen much of the "science" behind anthropological-caused global warming to be riddled with errors, improperly or not peer-reviewed, and just plain wrong.

Now comes two new stories that we "deniers" can add to the growing cachet of evidence that man-made global-warming is neither.

It seems that a couple of years ago, a critically-acclaimed and Nobel prize winning article by the UN included a claim that the Himalayan glaciers would be gone in 25 years. Well, turns out that this claim -- like so much in the pro-global warming debate -- is both bogus and fraudulent.

The scientist behind the claim that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders.

In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr. (Murari) Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: 'It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action. It had importance for the region, so we thought we should put it in.'

In short, it sounded good so they threw it in just to scare people.

This bizzare charge came from an article by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) who wrote their article around two 1999 magazine interviews with glaciologist Syed Hasnain, which they took on faith. Dr. Lal spun the WWF article into an article of his own, without question.

Which is tragic, for had any of the scientists bothered to have someone take a second look, they may have noticed a tiny mathematical error.

The World Wildlife Fund article also contained a basic error in its arithmetic. A claim that one glacier was retreating at the alarming rate of 134 metres a year should in fact have said 23 metres – the authors had divided the total loss measured over 121 years by 21, not 121.

The time-line on the melting glaciers did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research, Dr Lal admitted. No kidding.

But, WWF did apologize on its Web site for the oversight saying the group regrets any confusion caused. {Note: The statement seems to have disappeared from the site, but ironically, one can find a piece called Separating Myth From Reality http://www.worldwildlife.org/climate/act-for-our-future/myth-from-reality.html). No comment from Dr. Lal if he accepted WWF's apology for the inconvenience of having to apologize himself.

I made up a lie about global warming and I told two friends and they told two friends and so on...

Critics of the glacier claim seemed to have be aplenty before the UN study was published; however, Dr. Lal seems to have been more intent to scare people than inform:

...an analysis of those 500-plus formal review comments, to be published tomorrow by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), the new body founded by former Chancellor Nigel Lawson, suggests that when reviewers did raise issues that called the claim into question, Dr Lal and his colleagues simply ignored them.

Benny Peiser, the GWPF’s director, said the affair suggested the IPCC review process was ‘skewed by a bias towards alarmist assessments’. I couldn't agree more.

When reached for comment, Dr Lal reportedly said: "I am shocked, shocked to find that my claim is incorrect."

Part 2 tomorrow