Glaciologist demands apology from Pachauri for 'voodoo' remark

Written By DNA Web Team | Updated:

VK Raina's demand comes even as the UN body, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC) headed by RK Pachauri, deliberates on retracting its statement on Himalayan glaciers melting.

India's senior glaciologist VK Raina today said the chief of the UN climate body should apologise to the scientist fraternity for dubbing their work on melting of Himalayan glaciers as "voodoo science".

Raina's demand comes even as the UN body, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC) headed by RK Pachauri, deliberates on retracting its statement on Himalayan glaciers melting.

"The IPCC had dumped our report that the glaciers have not retreated abnormally. Now, with the truth out in open, the IPCC should dump its own report which was based on mere speculation," Raina told PTI.

He was reacting to the revelations that the UN panel's predictions that the Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035 stemmed from a 1999 article in a scientific journal which relied on an estimate made by a glaciologist Syed Iqbal Hasnain and not based on a peer review.

IPCC must be answerable to all the scientists and experts associated who stand vindicated that glaciers melting is not being happening at the abnormal pace as declared by it, Raina noted.

"It only shows that IPCC has based its arguments on speculations and did not verify it before making it public," the former deputy director general of the Geological Survey of India said.

Raina, in his report, had maintained that glaciers have "not shown any remarkable retreat in the last 50 years and the reports of the glaciers demise are a bit premature."