IPCC Caught Off Guard by a Typo
Imagine an historian claiming that World War II ended in 1954 and then ridiculing anyone who dared question him claiming he has a very clear idea of what is happening. Would anyone conclude that historian has any credibility? What would that say about the organization he heads?
When you think about it, this is surprisingly close to what happened Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the IPCC. The Washington Post reports about some of the recently found mistakes in one of global warming’s most sacred texts, the 2007 IPCC Report. This includes the claim that the Himalayan glaciers.
He said colleagues regarded the error as too ridiculous to fuss about until recently. Last month, the journal Science printed a letter to the editor that traced the origins of the mistaken data: The U.N. panel seemed to have quoted an activist group’s report, not a peer-reviewed study. And, in citing another source, it appeared to have committed a serious typo: The year 2350 had become 2035.
Fair enough. Typos happen. As hard as I try, I’m sure there are several dozen typos on my blog. But a typo that gets the time scale off by a factor of more than 10? Considering how many times this claim got trumpeted in the media, you’d think someone in the know would have caught it. Well, someone did in November, and here’s what happened.
Jairam Ramesh, India‘s environment minister, released the controversial report in Delhi, saying it would “challenge the conventional wisdom” about melting ice in the mountains.
Two years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN agency which evaluates the risk from global warming, warned the glaciers were receding faster than in any other part of the world and could “disappear altogether by 2035 if not sooner”.
Today Ramesh denied any such risk existed: “There is no conclusive scientific evidence to link global warming with what is happening in the Himalayan glaciers.” The minister added although some glaciers are receding they were doing so at a rate that was not “historically alarming”.
However, Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the IPCC, told the Guardian: “We have a very clear idea of what is happening. I don’t know why the minister is supporting this unsubstantiated research. It is an extremely arrogant statement.”
Keep this in mind the next time the IPCC says they have a very clear idea of what is happening. It could mean, in fact, they’re entirely clueless about the very basics of their claims. While the average Joe knows very little about the Himalayans, he does know very clearly that the war ended in 1945, even if he’s not necessarily a WWII expert. The WWII “expert” who gets caught off guard by a typo and then claims the war ends in 1954 won’t be considered an expert for long. If these people who call themselves climate change experts have a very clear idea of what is happening, they should know as well as you and I know that the war ended in 1945 that the Himalayan glaciers melting within 30 years is totally off the mark.
