NZ Glaciologist responds to doubts over Himalayan melt

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POSTED: Thu 21 January 2010 (updated Fri 22 January)

RAPID ROUNDUP: Glaciologist responds to doubts over Himalayan melt

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is reexamining a report it issued that suggests Himalayan glaciers could vanish by 2035.

The veracity of the claim is in doubt after it was revealed that information cited in the report was based on "grey literature". It was taken from a WWF report that was not based on peer-reviewed research.

"We are looking at the issue and will be able to comment on the report after examining the facts. The science doesn't change: Glaciers are melting across the globe and those in the Himalayas are no different," Rajendra Pachauri, head of the IPCC, told Bloomberg.

Here is the actual chapter and subsection under scrutiny:

The Australian and New Zealand science media centres sought comments from glacier and ice melt experts.

Feel free to use the quotes below in your stories. Any further comments will be posted here. If you would like to speak to an expert, please don’t hesitate to contact us on (08) 7120 8666 or by email.

Dr John Hunter is an oceanographer with Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre adn the University of Tasmania.

"It is important to realise that there are three main IPCC Assessment reports, which are devoted to science (the "Working Group I" report, or "WG1"), impacts ("WGII") and mitigation ("WGIII"). The error regarding Himalayan glaciers occured in the WGII (impacts) report. It is helpful to think of the WGI report as a description of the partially assembled "science" jigsaw and WGII as a description of another jigsaw (the "impacts" one), which is based on the science one.

The impacts jigsaw is assembled by looking at the present state of the science jigsaw. Both jigsaws are incomplete and undoubtedly contain ill-fitting pieces, but each displays a coherent (although somewhat fuzzy) picture. The WGII error regarding Himalayan glaciers resulted from a clear misinterpretation of the "science" jigsaw obtained by looking at the science through a rather poor lens (publications which do not meet declared IPCC criteria).

This in no way casts doubt on the science - the view of one piece of the science was just distorted when it was expressed in WGII."

Dr Andrew Mackintosh is a senior lecturer in geography and geology at Victoria University, New Zealand

"Himalayan glaciers have been less well studied than in many areas of Earth such as the European Alps. From what we do know, the overall trend is of increasing mass loss, although this might not be true of every region."

"Satellite observations of glacier retreat in the eastern Himalaya in particular show large changes in the glaciers. Here, much like in New Zealand, many glaciers are covered by surface debris and they have been thinning vertically rather than retreating horizontally. However, these glaciers have recently began to form lakes at their fronts, and this has enhanced retreat. This is also true of the Khumba region near Mount Everest where an overall thinning is evident and lakes have increased in size during the last few decades, much like the Tasman Glacier at Mt. Cook.

"It is clear that these glaciers are retreating and the spectre of their complete loss is very real."

This useful research presentation, recommended by Dr Mackintosh, gives in-depth information about glacier change in the Himalayas.

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