IPCC ignored leading scientists' warning on false Himalayan glaciers report

London, Jan. 31 (ANI): The United Nations' climate watchdog was warned by leading scientists not to publish its bogus claims that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035, but it ignored them.

Austrian glaciologist Georg Kaser, who was a lead author on another section of the report, had warned the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2006- a year before the Nobel-prize winning report was published.

"I sent warnings to the IPCC telling them the claim about Himalayan glaciers melting by 2035 was false," The Times quoted Kaser, as saying.

Another warning came from Gwyn Rees, a British hydrologist who oversaw a 300,000 pounds study funded by the UK government in 2001 to assess the claims about rapid melt.

His findings were published in 2004 - three years before the IPCC report - and also showed there was no risk of rapid melt.

"The sheer size and altitude of these glaciers made it highly unlikely they would melt by 2035," Rees said.

The IPCC had to issue a humiliating apology over its inaccurate claim that global warming will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 was based on a "speculative" article published in New Scientist.

The revelations raise more questions about why the IPCC ever took the claim seriously.

Recently, it had emerged that its warning about ice disappearing from the world's mountain tops was based on a student's thesis and an article published in a mountaineering magazine.

Earlier, the IPCC had to issue a humiliating apology over its inaccurate claim that global warming will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 was based on a "speculative" article published in New Scientist.

Scientists fear the controversies will be used by climate change sceptics to sway public opinion to ignore global warming - even though the fundamental science, that greenhouse gases can heat the world, remains strong. (ANI)