Thursday, January 21, 2010

UN climate chief admits mistake on Himalayan glaciers warning

UN climate chief admits mistake on Himalayan glaciers warning - Times Online

They gave the panel a Nobel Peace Prize for this report:


The 2007 report, which won the panel the Nobel Peace Prize, said that the probability of Himalayan glaciers “disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high”. It caused shock in Asia, where about two billion people depend on meltwater from Himalayan glaciers for their fresh water supplies during the dry seasons.


It emerged last week that the prediction was based not on a consensus among climate change experts but on a media interview with a single Indian glaciologist in 1999. That scientist, Syed Hasnain, has now told The Times that he never made such a specific forecast in his interview with the New Scientist magazine.

I guess the facts were just too damn good to check!