As I sit in my office and peer out the windows, a snowstorm is howling and the midwest is getting blanketed with snow and ice. It’s winter is it not? It’s also a fact I have taken on the global warming alarmists and Al Gore while getting some “nasty” comments because I’m always looking for both sides of the debate. Read on……………

Some experts have questioned the alarmists theory on global warming leading to shrinkage of Himalayan glaciers. VK Raina, a leading glaciologist and former ADG of GSI is one among them.

He feels that the research on Indian glaciers is negligible. Nothing but the remote sensing data forms the basis of these alarmists observations and not on the spot research.

Raina told the Hindustan Times that out of 9,575 glaciers in India, till date, research has been conducted only on about 50. Nearly 200 years data has shown that nothing abnormal has occurred in any of these glaciers.

It is simple. The issue of glacial retreat is being sensationalised by a few individuals, the septuagenarian Raina claimed. Throwing a gauntlet to the alarmist, he said the issue should be debated threadbare before drawing a conclusion.

Raina, who has been associated with the research and data collection in over 25 glaciers in India and abroad, debunked the theory that Gangotri glacier is retreating alarmingly.

Maintaining that the glaciers are undergoing natural changes, witnessed periodically, he said recent studies in the Gangotri and Zanskar areas (Drung- Drung, Kagriz glaciers) have not shown any evidence of major retreat.

“Claims of global warming causing glacial melt in the Himalayas are based on wrong assumptions,” Raina, a trained mountaineer and skiing expert said. He rued that not much is being done by the Government to create a bank of trained geologists for an in-depth study of glaciers.

The present presumptions are based on the cosmatic study of the glacier surfaces. Nobody knows what is happening beneath the glaciers. What ever is being flaunted about the under surface activity of the glaciers, is merely presumptions, he claimed. 

Another report, closer to home, suggests two of Greenland’s largest glaciers are melting at variable rates and not at an increasing trend.

The study, led by Ian Howat, a researcher with the University of Colorado’s National Snow and Ice Data Center and the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory, shows the glaciers shrank dramatically and dumped twice as much ice into the sea during a period of less than a year between 2004 and 2005.

But then, fewer than two years later, they returned to near their previous rates of discharge.

Howat says such variability during such a short time underlines the problem in assuming glacial melting and sea level rise will necessarily occur at a steady upward trajectory.

“Our main point is that the behavior of these glaciers can change a lot from year to year, so we can’t assume to know the future behavior from short records of recent changes,” he said. “Future warming may lead to rapid pulses of retreat and increased discharge rather than a long, steady drawdown.”

More on global warming articles may be found here as we pursue both side of the global warming debate beyond Al Gore and the non-scientific community in Hollywood, the United Nations and the Beltway.