We’re talking about the greatest chain of ice-capped peaks in the world – from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgyzstan – and satellite measurements show that they have lost NO ice in the past 10 years.
“The discovery has stunned scientists, who had believed that around 50bn tonnes of meltwater were being shed each year and not being replaced by new snowfall,” says this article in the Guardian.
Not significantly different from zero
Bristol University glaciologist Prof Jonathan Bamber, who was not part of the research team, said: “The very unexpected result was the negligible mass loss from high mountain Asia, which is not significantly different from zero.”
And yet, in 2009 the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) mistakenly stated that all of the Himalayan glaciers would disappear in just 26 years, by 2035.
(See also world-misled-over-melting-himalayan-glaciers/ )
Why the discrepancy?
“Until now, estimates of meltwater loss for all the world’s 200,000 glaciers were based on extrapolations of data from a few hundred monitored on the ground,” the article explains.
But “extrapolation is really tough as only a handful of lower-altitude glaciers are monitored and there are thousands there very high up.”
In other words, we’ve been basing our dire global warming predictions – and taxing ourselves to death, and regulating ourselves to death – on “only a handful of lower-altitude glaciers.”
Amazingly, even in the face of these new revelations, the lead scientist for the report insists that the loss of ice caps and glaciers around the world remains a serious concern.
“People should be just as worried about the melting of the world’s ice as they were before,” admonishes Professor John Wahr of the University of Colorado.
I don’t think I trust Professor Wahr.
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