Indian glaciologist fires back at skeptics

Bangalore - "It's the fact that global warming is happening. If the Arctic sea ice melts, as the Himalayan glaciers do not melt?" Glaciology Syed Iqbal Hasnain outraged.

Among Brouhaha on the withdrawal last week, the UN body on its report in 2007 that the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers in 2035 global warming skeptics quickly seized on the mistake, taking note of media reports on this issue, which they believe has strengthened its position.

But Hasnain, who was in the middle of the Himalayan debate the crisis, said that "ridiculous" suggest that



NOT glaciers melting.

The scientist reportedly linked in 2035 the Himalayan glaciers could be lost to global warming will disappear in 1999 interview with the British publication New Scientist. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), picked the date of the next item and reported that eight years, in its Fourth Assessment Report in 2007, only to withdraw the previous week.

The report of the IPCC, the United Nations agency said that the phenomenon of climate change will melt most Himalayan glaciers by 2035, which was taken from an article published in New Scientist in 1999, a British poster "Sunday Times" in its January 17 issue. Article is based on telephone interviews with the author of the journal Hasnain, Fred Pearce.

IPCC, which assesses the valuable information about climate change, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 along with VS former Vice President Al Gore.

Hasnain, who denies all with 2035 dates to give the writer, "said Pierce went on record in the same article, Sunday Times, said in a 1999 report prepared by a scientist, he is reading, it means" not as a term of 2035 the Himalayan glaciers melt.

Hasnain, senior fellow at the Institute of Energy and Resources (Terry), said the date specified in the New Scientist article is a "journalistic interpolated assumption interviewer that I had no control."

Summary Hasnain's recent research on the Himalayan glaciers "includes studies conducted over the past ten years proves that the Himalayan glaciers are retreating.

Glaciers in the eastern and central Himalayas, particularly sensitive to warming of the atmosphere as a result of snow accumulation years, the current system, Glaciology the report said, citing a study in 1984 Yasunari K Ageta and Higuchi.

The increase in air temperature in the summer ice melt not only increased but also significantly reduces the accumulation of snow precipitation correction. In contrast, "winter-accumulation type glaciers are getting their main accumulation at lower temperatures and, consequently, less sensitive to temperature increases, the report said Hasnain.

Himalayas, located between the Indian subcontinent and the Tibetan Plateu, is the highest mountain chain in the world and includes Mount Everest. It is home to more than 15,000 glaciers.

2009 study by melting glaciers group of scientists headed by optical sensor Shukla use satellite data to estimate glacier Samundratapu in Lahaul-Spiti, Himachal Pradesh in northern India, deglaciated at 13.7 square kilometers of the last 41 years, with the face of retreating 588 meters. The researchers concluded that any changes that seem related to the Earth's climate.

The issue of climate change on the basis of strong global discussions and the focus of serious efforts by the international community to deal with the consequences, including the rapid melting of glaciers, which are known to lead to a wave of natural disasters.

At the end of last year, a flurry of letters sent by e-climate scientists at the University of East Anglia in Britain, arguing that it was rigged so that some statistical data to show climate change has caused public outrage. Scientists at the center of the dispute said that their letters had been broken into and taken out of context.

Hasnain said vested interests are trying to scientists, who "in good faith to do their utmost to discredit the research problem."

And collection of scientific data on glacier retreat in the Himalayas, almost impossible, both physically and technically challenging. Kathmandu established the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), no systematic measurements of glacier mass balance in the Himalayan region.

China is the only country in the region, which conducts long-term studies of mass balance of some glaciers. It will expand research in a Himalayan glacier in the future, said ICIMOD.

In November 2009, together with a group of foreign journalists Khardung La, the highest pass in the Indian state of retreating glaciers, observe, Hasnain found scientific proof of the glacial retreat in Chota Sigri in Himachal Pradesh, Drang Drung Zanskar in Ladakh region and East - Rathong in Eastern Himalayas.

Chota Sigri showed a sharp decline in the annual mass balance of the glacier is moving at 40 meters per year, higher and reaches 25 meters each year in the lower reaches.

"It's definitely less", Hasnain said that a group of European, American and South Asian journalists.

Together with Dr. Veerabhadra Ramanathan of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, Hasnain as scientific evidence of how black carbon aerosols, which contributes to "atmospheric brown cloud" phenomenon, have been deposited in the Himalayan snows, and the effect of temperature is to accelerate even more than "normal" global warming.

In India, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry seems to feel justified about its value, made in mid-2009, the position of the IPCC was "alarmist." Chairman of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri, as well as the director, Terry, have been described in the report, as a ministry on the basis of "Voodoo Science".

Painful fiasco over the projected date of the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers Clouded debate about the poor state of these ice masses, particularly small ones.

U Lada, in the northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, a former engineer Chewang Norphel quiet rural refutes the claim that there is insufficient scientific evidence to prove that India is retreating glaciers.

"I have scientific data," said Norphel. "I have seen, for example, the size of the glacier La Khardung, since I was a child: he is a firm ice," he said in an interview with a group of international journalists in November 2009.

Norphel, popularly known as "Ice Man of India", building high-rise feed water protection freeze, as "artificial glaciers" in the absence of water storage of the Himalayan glaciers are retreating.

Khardung La is an example of the melting of glaciers Okay, now just learn how the glacier. More than 70% of the Lada district water comes from the spring from melting snow and glaciers is the only source of water for irrigation in remote mountainous areas.

But in recent years the increase in temperature led to serve in snow in the upper reaches "build" areas of these glaciers, resulting in reduced water in the spring.

Review of 20 villages and 211 people aged over 65 years in the area of Ladakh, by the French non-governmental organizations GeREs (Groupe énergies renouvelables, Environmental Protection and Solidarity) showed that 90% of them thought the winter was warmer now.

Metereological GeREs analyzed data from 1973 shows an increase by one degree Celsius in the winter months in Ladakh, with a sharp fall in the snow and an equally strong increase in average summer temperatures in July, August and September.

Temperature changes have already begun to affect biodiversity in the region and communities, said that the international conservation organization World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

"Selection of Bar-headed Goose and black-necked crane is not on the track in recent years," said Neath Khatun, project manager of World Wildlife Fund in Leh.

She added that the migration routes of the community of more Tsokar Leh, the world famous weaving Pashmina Libra, "has become more visited, because these rural communities to migrate due to grazing degrading.