Ramesh-backed paper questions another IPCC claim

India has once again challenged the UN’s climate science body — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — through a new scientific paper.

Updated on: Jan 21, 2011, 03:24:54 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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India has once again challenged the UN's climate science body - the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) --- through a new scientific paper.

The Environment ministry sponsored paper says that human induced global warming is much less than what the R K Pachauri headed IPCC had said. The cause is reduced impact of Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs) on formulation of low clouds over earth in the last 150 years, says a paper by U R Rao, former chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation, released by Environment minister Jairam Ramesh.

The GCRs are the ones that enter solar system from outside, mostly from exploding of stars, and help in forming low-level clouds over the earth. The theory is that the solar magnetic field deflects GCRs, thereby impacting low-level cloud formation.

Analyzing the data between 1960 and 2005, Rao found that lesser GCRs were reaching the earth due to increase in solar magnetic field and thereby leading to increase in global warming.

"Consequently the contribution of increased CO2 emission to be observed global warming of 0.75 degree Celsius would only be 0.42 degree Celsius, considerably less than what predicted by IPCC," the paper said to be published in Indian Journal Current Science had said. This is about 44 % less than what IPCC had said.

Ramesh in 2009 had released a similar scientific paper saying that the IPCC's claim that most Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035 was wrong. A few months later, after a review the IPCC regretted the error. If Ramesh latest bid gets globally recognition, it can alter the rules of UN run climate negotiations of 200 nations.

Impact of GCRs on global warming had been highly controversial since 1998, when Henrik Svensmark of Danish National Space Center said it was causing global warming. A decade later a joint European study debunked the claim, saying there was no coorelation.

V Ramanathan of US based Scripps Institute of Oceanography at University of California said the Rao's paper strengthens the case for greenhouse a primary driver for global warming. "The observed rapid warming trends during the last 40 years cannot be accounted for the trends in GCRs," he said, in his comments on Rao's paper.

"I just want to expand scientific debate on impact of non-Green House Gases on climate change," Ramesh said, when asked whether he was again challenging the IPCC. "Science is all about raising questions."

International climate science is mainly western driven and collaborates the view of the rich world that gases such as Carbon Dioxide (CO2) are the main contributor for global warming. Any scientific work challenging the view has been debunked as work of a sceptic.

"Climate science is much more complex than attributing everything to CO2," said Subodh Verma, climate change advisor in the Environment ministry.

And, its first impact has come from IPCC chairperson R K Pachauri, who has told the government, that impact of GCRs on global warming will be studied in depth in the fifth assessment report to be published in 2013-14. In its earlier four assessment reports, IPCC had not studied the impact of GCRs in detail.

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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