Earth ChangesS


Snowman

Glacier scientist: I knew data hadn't been verified

Glacier
© AlamyChilling error: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change wrongly asserted that glaciers in the Himalayas would melt by 2035
The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders.

Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research.

In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report's chapter on Asia, said: 'It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.

Igloo

Poland sinks further into deep freeze

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Thermometer plunges in Warsaw, Monday.
As temperatures plunge to minus 30 C in some places in Poland, the winter claimed more lives, the Government Security Center (GSC) has announced.

"Sixteen people have died from hypothermia over the weekend, eleven of them within the last 24 hours," GSC's Bozena Wysocka told Polskie Radio.

The statistics do not only concern the homeless, as some people have frozen to death in their homes. The dead also includes a 13-year old boy found on Saturday, who died on his way home.

The extreme weather conditions caused power outages due to network failures, with entire provinces deprived of electricity in southern Poland. The military has for several days now been assisting the efforts to remove ice from electricity lines. About 8,000 households remain without power in the country.

Meanwhile, last night the temperature has hit a new low, with -30 degrees C in the eastern parts of the country. What's worse, some parts of southern Poland are still deprived of electricity after heavy snow falls at the beginning of January. At the ground level, the temperature fell even below -30 degrees Celsius (-22F) in south eastern Poland, Anna Nemec of a weather forecast center told the newspaper. Tonight is supposed to be even colder. Only in January, over 70 persons died due to the harsh weather conditions.

Igloo

Temperatures as low as minus 34 as fresh cold snap hits Europe

Snowmen protest climate change!
© OBSHelp, I'm melting: In the German capital of Berlin, artist Ralf Schmerberg erected 750 snowmen as part of a demonstration calling for greater efforts to fight climate change. Schmerberg called on aspiring snow sculptors across the city to participate in the action.
Vienna/Berlin - A fresh cold snap on top of an already unseasonably cold winter in Europe has seen temperatures plummet as low as minus 34, and left a mounting toll of death and disruption on Monday. The worst death toll appeared to be in Romania, where authorities confirmed 23 deaths over the weekend. The authorities urged hospitals to open their doors to the homeless to give them shelter.

A record low of minus 34 was recorded in the town of Bilaystok, north-east Poland overnight Sunday to Monday.

Some 8,000 people in the east of the country were left without electricity after a power outage on Sunday, the Polish Press Agency reported.

Better Earth

New Finding on Key Element of Earth's Lower Mantle

The electronic spin state of iron in perovskite, a major component of Earth's lower mantle, can influence the physical and chemical properties of the mantle. However, previous studies have presented an unclear picture of the spin state of iron in perovskite, with some experiments contradicting computational results.

In a new experiment designed to better control the conditions under which perovskite is synthesized, Grocholski et al. measured the spin state of iron in perovskite. They found the dominant spin state at pressures below 50 gigapascals (7.25 million pounds per square inch) to be high spin but observed a transition to a possible mixed spin state at higher pressures.

These results indicate that perovskite is in a mixed or high spin state at least to 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles) depth in the mantle, consistent with computational results.

Fish

Study of Shark Virgin Birth Shows Offspring Can Survive Long Term

Shark pups born to virgin mothers can survive over the long-term, according to new research published Jan. 25, 2010 in the Journal of Heredity. The study shows for the first time that some virgin births can result in viable offspring.

Genetic analysis led by a Field Museum scientist working with numerous colleagues has confirmed the first known case of a virgin female shark producing multiple offspring that survived. Two daughters of the white-spotted bamboo shark are now more than five years old. Earlier research proved that reproduction occurred in two other shark species without aid of male sperm, a phenomenon called parthenogenesis, but the offspring did not survive in those cases.

Dr. Kevin Feldheim, manager of the Pritzker Laboratory for Molecular Systematics and Evolution at the Field Museum, analyzed the sharks' genetic material to rule out any paternal reproduction assistance.

Life Preserver

More Scandals Implicate Delusional IPCC Climate Scientists

Only days after the failed Copenhagen Global Warming Summit, yet a new scandal over the scientific accuracy of the UN IPCC 2007 climate report has emerged. Following the major data-manipulation scandals from the UN-tied research center at Britain's East Anglia University late 2009, the picture emerges of one of the most massive scientific frauds of recent history.

Senior members of the UN climate project, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have been forced to admit a major error in the 2007 IPCC UN report that triggered the recent global campaign for urgent measures to reduce "manmade emissions" of CO2. The IPCC's 2007 report stated, "glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world." Given that this is the world's highest mountain range and meltdown implies a massive flooding of India, China and the entire Asian region, it was a major scare "selling point" for the IPCC agenda. As well, the statement on the glacier melt in the 2007 IPCC report contains other serious errors such as the statement that "Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 square kilometers by the year 2035." There are only 33,000 square kilometers of glaciers in the Himalayas. And a table in the report says that between 1845 and 1965, the Pindari Glacier shrank by 2,840 meters. Then comes a math mistake: It says that's a rate of 135.2 meters a year, when it really is only 23.5 meters a year. Now scientists around the world are scouring the entire IPCC report for indications of similar lack of scientific rigor.

Cult

Pachauri: the real story behind the Glaciergate scandal

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© STEFAN WERMUTH/REUTERSBad scientist: Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Dr Pachauri has rapidly distanced himself from the IPCC's baseless claim about vanishing glaciers. But the scientist who made the claim now works for Pachauri, writes Christopher Booker

I can report a further dramatic twist to what has inevitably been dubbed "Glaciergate" - the international row surrounding the revelation that the latest report on global warming by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contained a wildly alarmist, unfounded claim about the melting of Himalayan glaciers. Last week, the IPCC, led by its increasingly controversial chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, was forced to issue an unprecedented admission: the statement in its 2007 report that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035 had no scientific basis, and its inclusion in the report reflected a "poor application" of IPCC procedures.

What has now come to light, however, is that the scientist from whom this claim originated, Dr Syed Hasnain, has for the past two years been working as a senior employee of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), the Delhi-based company of which Dr Pachauri is director-general. Furthermore, the claim - now disowned by Dr Pachauri as chairman of the IPCC - has helped TERI to win a substantial share of a $500,000 grant from one of America's leading charities, along with a share in a three million euro research study funded by the EU.

Comment: This would seem to be one of the main ways in which big government and big corporations buy off scientists. Under the cover of charities, NGOs, think-tanks and research groups, they offer large grants for the 'right type' of research. This naturally selects the 'right scientists and researchers' who are willing to prostitute science in the name of 'man-made global warming.'


Umbrella

'Climate science' edifice crumbling: IPCC report plagiarized from 10-year-old New Scientist magazine article

The United Nations climate science panel faces new controversy for wrongly linking global warming to an increase in the number and severity of natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.

It based the claims on an unpublished report that had not been subjected to routine scientific scrutiny - and ignored warnings from scientific advisers that the evidence supporting the link too weak. The report's own authors later withdrew the claim because they felt the evidence was not strong enough.

The claim by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that global warming is already affecting the severity and frequency of global disasters, has since become embedded in political and public debate. It was central to discussions at last month's Copenhagen climate summit, including a demand by developing countries for compensation of $100 billion (£62 billion) from the rich nations blamed for creating the most emissions.

Fish

Study Says Dolphins World's Second Smartest Species

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© Getty Images
Study shows that dolphin brains are four to five times larger for their body size, making them the second intelligent species after humans.

New MRI scans revealed that dolphins show some skills and awareness thought to be exclusively used by humans, Discovery News reported.

"If we use relative brain size as a metric of 'intelligence' then one would have to conclude that dolphins are second in intelligence to modern humans," said neuroscience senior lecturer at Emory University Lori Marino.

Although she admitted that "size isn't everything", Marino said that there were at least two other evidence supporting her claim.

Bizarro Earth

15 Whales Die Beached in New Zealand, 33 Coaxed to Sea

Rescuers in New Zealand managed to coax 33 beached whales back out into deep waters Sunday, but another 15 of the pod died, a conservation official said.

The 48 pilot whales stranded Saturday at Port Levy on South Island, but scores of volunteers joined Department of Conservation workers to refloat them off the shallow, muddy inlet, said the department's community relations manager, Grant Campbell.

It was the third mass stranding on the New Zealand coast this summer. Some 125 pilot whales died in the two other beachings, while 43 were returned to the ocean.

Campbell said that in the latest incident, residents were quick to help after spotting the whales apparently feeding in the inlet before they stranded.