glaciergate, and the voodoo scientist [sic] behind it: hasnain, from JNU and calicut university!

jan 23rd, 2010

it looks like pachauri is in serious hot water with glaciergate. his credibility is ruined. i had heard that TERI was a dubious entity, and this seems to support that contention.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7062667/Pachauri-the-real-story-behind-the-Glaciergate-scandal.html

and here's information about the authority on glaciers, padmashree professor syed hasnain (quoted from pundita's blog http://pundita.blogspot.com/2010/01/world-misled-over-himalayan-glacier.html ), so JNU demonstrates it sucks at science as well as at the humanities. 

another example of voodoo research from JNU. and rapid advancement -- so what exactly was his qualification for VC, calicut university, other than being a JNU type and a mohammedan? this is exactly like the hindu-hating and sanskrit-illiterate JNU communist k n panikkar was made the VC of adi sankara sanskrit university! (i am embarrassed that he was at IIT bombay, but they probably realized he was a fraud and kicked him out -- just in time to  be kicked upstairs as VC, calicut-- and, jeez, this was during the time of the NDA govt -- another example of the NDA tolerating nehruvians).

and this also shows the value of the padmashree awarded by the indian government.

----- begin quote from pundita ---------------------

The cascading fallout from ClimateGate is providing us with a "teachable moment," or two or four or more, it seems. Jonathan Leake and Chris Hastings headlined "World misled over Himalayan glacier meltdown" in today's UK Sunday Times:

A WARNING that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it.

Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.

In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in theNew Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC's 2007 report.

It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.

Leake and Hastings continue:

The IPCC's reliance on Hasnain's 1999 interview has been highlighted by Fred Pearce, the journalist who carried out the original interview for the New Scientist. Pearce said he rang Hasnain in India in 1999 after spotting his claims in an Indian magazine. Pearce said: "Hasnain told me then that he was bringing a report containing those numbers to Britain. The report had not been peer reviewed or formally published in a scientific journal and it had no formal status so I reported his work on that basis.

"Since then I have obtained a copy and it does not say what Hasnain said. In other words it does not mention 2035 as a date by which any Himalayan glaciers will melt. However, he did make clear that his comments related only to part of the Himalayan glaciers, not the whole massif." [...]

Graham Cogley[is] a geographer from Trent University in Ontario, Canada, who had long been unhappy with the IPCC's finding.

He traced the IPCC claim back to the New Scientist and then contacted Pearce. Pearce then re-interviewed Hasnain, who confirmed that his 1999 comments had been "speculative", and published the update in the New Scientist.

In 1999 Professor Syed Iqbal Hasnain may have been a little known-scientist. In March 2009, however, he was therecipient of the Government of India's Padmashree Award for his work on glaciers.

According to his Award profile, Professor Hasnian's credentials appear impressive. He is the sixth Chairman of the Consortium for Educational Communication Governing Board and a Senior Fellow with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), New Delhi.

Between October 2002 and October 2006 he was Vice Chancellor at the University of Calicut. Prior to that he was "Professor in Glaciology in the School of Environmental Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He was also at the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai and Delft Technical University, Netherlands for his specialization. He spent many years researching Himalayan Glaciers and has gained international recognition for his work."

Hasnain chaired the "working group on Himalayan Glaciology within the International Commission on Snow and Ice between 1995 and 1999. He has served on the 'Hydrology 2000' working group set up by the International Association of Hydrological Science. Prof. Hasnain is also serving as a Member of the Governing Council of Indian Mountaineering Foundation and Chairing Scientific Committee of IMF which has prepared a roadmap of climate change studies in the high altitude Himalaya." Additionally, Hasnain "authored a book on Himalayan Glaciers: Hydrology and Hydrochemistry" and "published more than 40 papers in the international and national scientific journals."

Plus, Professor Hasnain is a "Visiting Professor to lecture on Himalayan Glaciers at the Universities of Nebraska at Omaha and University of Washington, Seattle."

Professor Hasnain continues with his unsubstantiated predictions. The India Tribune wrote:

"The Hindukush-Himalayan-Tibetan glaciers are the water towers of Asia," says Prof. Syed Iqbal Hasnain of the Energy Research Institute, who has been studying the melting of the Himalayan glaciers for several years.

Looking ahead, the prospects seem to be getting worse rather than better, according to Hasnain. "Scientists have projected a 43 percent decrease in the glacial area on an average by 2070 and a 75 percent decrease in the glacial area by the end of the 21st century at the current rate of global warming," says Hasnain.

Put this into its proper context. From the same article we learn:

Incidentally, studies to draw a precise link between the rising temperatures and the melting of glaciers are still in their infancy.

"Glaciology is a very young science and we are still learning about the relationship between global warming and the melting of glaciers," says Rajesh Kumar, a glaciologist with the Birla Institute of Technology. Kumar, who has done pioneering work on the shrinking snout of the Gangotri glacier that feeds the Ganges.

Research on retreating glaciers has been taken up seriously only for the past 25 years. "We are depending largely on anecdotal evidence from old residents in the area for information on glaciers," says the coordinator for the Worldwide Fund for Nature in Leh.

Key points here:

Studies "are still in their infancy..."

Glaciology is a "very young science..."

Research "on retreating glaciers has been taken up seriously only for the past 25 years."

... and "depend[s] largely on anecdotal evidence ..."