Indian study challenges global view on Himalayan glacial melt

New Delhi - The Indian government has published a discussion paper which says there is no conclusive evidence to prove that the Himalayan glaciers are melting due to climate change, news reports said Tuesday. The paper, released by the federal Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh Monday, challenges the globally accepted view that the Himalayan glaciers are rapidly shrinking due to global warming, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported. 'The Himalayan glaciers, although shrinking in volume and constantly showing a retreating front, have not in any way exhibited, especially in recent years, an abnormal annual retreat, of the order that some glaciers in Alaska and Greenland have reported,' the paper authored by VK Raina, a retired official of the Geological Survey of India, says. Raina said a glacier was affected by a range of physical features and complex interplay of climatic factors and it would be premature to state they were retreating as a result of periodic climate variation until many centuries of observation were available. He added the views expressed in the discussion paper were not those of the government, but its publication was intended to stimulate discussion. Ramesh said that while most Himalayan glaciers were retreating, some like the Siachen glacier were actually advancing and others like the Gangotri glacier were retreating at a rate lower than before. The Himalayan glaciers feed major rivers flowing through India, Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar. 'The overall health of Himalayan glaciers was poor as the debris cover had reached alarming proportions,' Ramesh said citing the discussion paper, but added that there was no conclusive scientific evidence to link this to climate change. The minister said he wanted scientists to discuss the report and would bring it to the notice of RK Pachauri, chief of the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC in its 2007 report had warned that the Himalayan glaciers were fast receding and that at the current rate of depletion there was a high likelihood that they may disappear by 2035 or earlier. 'I don't understand the logic of this ... I am puzzled where this magical science has come from ... This is something indefensible,' Pachauri was quoted as saying by the Times of India newspaper when asked for his response to the discussion paper. Raina admits in his paper that there is a lack of available data. For the moment long-term data exists for only 20 to 30 Himalayan glaciers and that there was only one automated weather station recording climatic data in the Himalayas, he said.