Glaciergate Was A Blunder,
But It's The Sceptics Who Dissemble
By Robin McKie
26 January, 2010
The Observer
It was a strange moment that linked the fates of some of the world's poorest farmers to the interests of an increasingly powerful set of western lobby groups. Last week, UN climate researchers admitted they had grossly overestimated the chances that the Himalayas' glaciers would soon disappear as a result of global warming.
For millions of Indian and Chinese families who till land washed by rivers that pour from the Himalayas, this was good news. The prospects of major droughts, loss of farmland and food shortages could be postponed (though not indefinitely, please note.)
And then there were the sceptics, that regiment of angry lobbyists who say our planet cannot possibly be affected by mankind's profligate burning of fossil fuel. For years, they have waited for an admission of an error by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN body that has promoted the idea of manmade global warming.
Last week, they got it. On Wednesday, the panel's chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, apologised for including, in the organisation's fourth assessment report of 2007, the claim that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035. In fact, it will take at least 300 years for global warming to take its toll.
Given that the IPCC's 2007 report had won the panel a Nobel peace prize that year (shared with Al Gore), the error looks egregious, particularly to those who reject the idea that the billions of tonnes of carbon we pump into the atmosphere could possibly have an impact on our climate. Now, every word and line of IPCC's work is being scrutinised by these sceptics in their search for further climate calumnies. If they are lucky, they may even stumble on one or two.
The prospect, not surprisingly, causes many climate change scientists to squirm. Indeed, such is their discomfort that many now argue it is time for a total reorganisation of the IPCC, an organisation that is now more than two decades old and whose operations are beginning to creak suspiciously.
Certainly, Glaciergate, as the incident has inevitably been dubbed, is an embarrassment for climate science and can be traced to a study by the environmental lobby group WWF which, in turn, was based on a single remark about the perilous state of Himalayan glaciers that had been made by Indian scientist Syed Hasnain.
How the claim ended up in a report whose authors are supposed to scrutinise "every statement in every sentence" is a mystery. Worse was the IPCC's reaction to the geologists who first questioned the panel's glacier claim last year. IPCC chairman Pachauri dismissed this work as "voodoo science" and argued it was not peer-reviewed. In fact, it was his own panel's report that had not been properly peer-reviewed. "At that point, the glacier claim ceased to be an appalling cock-up and looked more like a systematic failure on the IPCC's part," says Fred Pearce, the New Scientist journalist who first reported the glacier story. A seasoned climate change writer, he adds: "Deniers will now be on a hunt to find more errors like these and if they get them, Pachauri will be in real trouble."
As a result, many researchers now believe it is time for a change at the IPCC, a point backed by Mike Hulme, professor of climate change at the University of East Anglia. "The panel was set up in 1988, in a previous century," he argues. "There was no internet then, yet emails have transformed climate science. They get hacked and uploaded on to servers for all the world to read. People can follow the trail of an idea or argument in a way that was impossible 10 years ago. Climate science – like science in general – is being democratised and the IPCC needs to reflect that."
Instead of producing huge, voluminous reports every six or seven years, in which the results of tens of thousands of climate studies are each distilled into a few paragraphs, a much lighter touch needs to be taken, argue critics like Hulme. The panel needs to produce briefer reports on particular climate topics every year and be able to respond quickly to new studies and critiques.
Similarly, the intergovernmental nature of the panel needs re-examining. National academic bodies, like Britain's Royal Society, should take over controlling roles at the IPCC instead of governments, it is argued. In this way, a future IPCC would be better able to keep itself free from political pressure.
Not every scientist agrees. We should not be blinded by a single error, on one page of one volume of a mammoth three-volume report, they argue. And don't forget that this mistake was highlighted not by deniers but by scientists themselves. Glaciergate actually shows we can police ourselves, say researchers. And while the glacier claims exaggerate the impact of climate change, other parts of the 2007 IPCC report clearly underplay the risks. "We should also remember the overwhelming evidence still shows global warming is real and manmade," adds Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change. "Arctic ice sheets are shrinking and droughts are spreading while nine of the last 10 years have been the hottest on record. Only rising emissions of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can explain that."
In any case, there is more to this issue than making sure the IPCC is fit for purpose in the 21st century. We should also be concerned about the sharing of the burden of proof when debating global warming. At present, scientists are being asked, often in the most offensive terms by hostile, ideologically motivated groups, some funded by rich industrial lobbyists, to justify every conclusion they make about our overheating world.
And why not? you might ask. Our lives will change dramatically if we quit our dependence on fossil fuel. We will have to fly less, guzzle less petrol in our cars, live in better designed homes and ensure that we stop wasting heat, water and electricity. Hence the pressure on scientists to justify their work.
But this process has to proceed in both directions. Deniers say there is no connection between rising carbon levels and global warming. But how confident are they? If they persuade us to do nothing but are wrong, then the consequences will be terrible. Temperatures could rise by up to 5C. Earth will become hotter than it has been at any time over the past 30 million years. Coastal cities will drown, deserts will spread, crops will wither and billions will be left homeless.
Deniers insist this scenario is unrealistic. But how unrealistic? Can they demonstrate – with the same confidence and transparency employed by scientists working for the IPCC – that the danger of doing nothing is negligible and that greenhouse gases pose no risk to the planet? Could their arguments withstand the same rigorous examination that took place during Glaciergate? The answer to these questions is a straightforward "no". At no time have deniers ever put together a case – that inaction poses no threat to civilisation – that could withstand proper scientific peer review.
This is crucial, adds Ward. "Unless climate sceptics can demonstrate there is a negligible danger, then most sensible people will insist we should take careful, cost-effective measures now to avoid the possibility of disaster in future." That point was valid before Glaciergate – and remains true in its aftermath.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010
