UN Secretary-General asks IPCC to go under the scanner

Ban said on Thursday: 8220;there were a very small number of errors8221; in the 3,000 pages of the beleaguered Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change8217;s last major synthesis of climate data in 2007.

The decision to review was announced by Ban and IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri in the wake of the report which erroneously claimed that Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035. The error has also been attributed to a typographical error with the words 2035 appearing instead of 2350.

But those errors,which include projections of retreats in Himalayan glaciers,have put public confidence in the Nobel Prize winning panel8217;s work at risk. 8220;This review will be conducted by the Inter Academy Council8230;it will be done completely independent of the United Nations,8221; he said.

Robbert Dijkgraaf,a Dutch mathematical physicist who co-chairs the group the Inter Academy Council of 15 nations8217; national academies of science,said: 8220;We enter this process with no preconceived conclusions.8221; The investigations carried out by an independent panel into the procedures and process of the UN climate change panel will be 8220;forward looking8221;,Dijkgraaf told journalists here.

8220;Our task is forward looking. We have been requested to recommend measures and actions to ensure the quality of IPCC reports in the future,8221; he said. The study is being funded by the UN and the Council will present its findings to the Secretary-General and the secretariat of the IPCC by August this year.

8220;We have also been asked to analyze the overall IPCC process including the management,administration and the transparency of the IPCC and the way in which it handles possible errors and communicates them to policymakers and the public,8221; said Dijkgraaf.

Questions have been raised about consultancies held by IPCC chair Ranjendra Pachauri and there have been calls for his resignation. The present debacle was preceded by another controversy,referred to as Climate-gate,which surfaced at the same time as the Climate Change Conference kicked off at Copenhagen in December 2009.

Hackers gained access to the data of the climate research centre of the UK-based East Anglia University and leaked confidential data including thousands of e-mails and documents between British and US. 8220;In recent months we have seen some criticism. We are receptive and sensitive to that and we are doing something about it,8221; Pachauri said,adding 8220;It was in this context that last month the IPCC informed the governments that we would like to carry review of our processes and procedures.8221;

Dijkgraaf was not clear when asked if the review panel would look into the specific instances of East Anglia controversy and Pachauri8217;s consultancy agreements. 8220;We are being asked to indeed look forward and see how a certain types of errors and the way in which you deal with a variety of literature can be dealt with,8221; he said.

Noting,however,that the independent panel would be looking at management and organisation issues,he said,8221;Certain case studies maybe a part of these investigations.8221; Climate change skeptics have used these errors to challenge the veracity of the climate science and the claim that man is contributing to the change.