NASA too got it wrong on glaciers

One scientific body — the National Aeronautics and Space Administration — was worse than the IPCC in predicting the death of Himalayan glaciers. More IPCC errors

Updated on: Jan 28, 2010, 02:24:43 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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One scientific body — the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) — was worse than the IPCC in predicting the death of Himalayan glaciers.

NASA, on its website till last week, told the world that most Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2030. The website now states that glaciers around the world are in poor health.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had retracted its prediction that most Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035.

“Mountain glaciers and snow cover have declined on average in all hemispheres, and may disappear altogether in certain regions of the world such as Himalayas, by 2030,” the NASA webpage had said.

From where NASA got the 2030 date is surprising.

The premier US space agency said its wrong assertion was from the IPCC’s fourth assessment report and summary for policymakers.

HT did not find any reference to 2030 with regard to Himalayan glaciers in the policy document of the IPCC released in 2007. “No date of melting of Himalayan glaciers was mentioned,” said former environment secretary Pradipto Ghosh.
The policy document had referred to the year 2030 with regard to sea level rise and its impact but not about Himalayan glaciers. “By 2030, beach erosion and inundation of shoreline properties is likely to be a real problem...,” it said about India.

NASA was quick to correct its mistake. “Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world — the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Alaska and Africa,” said the NASA website this week with reference to Himalayan glaciers.
Instead of the IPCC, NASA referred to the findings of the World Glacier Monitoring Service, a body of glaciologists.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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