Mountaineers get first-hand experience of the changing conditions of snow, ice and glaciers in the mountains. Perhaps that is why the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change cited an article from Climbing in its report on the decreasing amount of mountain ice.
The IPCC has been under heat lately, after predicting Himalayan glaciers will melt in 25 years based off a single quote from a glaciologist in an article published in 1999. Now, it’s latest report, published in 2007, is facing criticism for citing a climbing magazine.
The ICPP report states that mountains in the Andes, Alps and Africa are seeing reductions in ice due to global warming. In support of the observation, the panel of United Nations experts drew on alpine climbing anecdotes from Mark Bowen’s 2002 article on the global loss of glaciers, “Canaries In a Coal Mine.” The article tells of mountaineers who’ve seen changes to the mountains and an overall loss of particular ice climbs.
Citing a boorish, dirtbag climber (who’s written two books on climate change) has got critics up in arms. Professor Richard Tol of the Economic and Social Research Institute of Dublin says, “There is no way current climbers and mountain guides can give anecdotal evidence back to the 1900s, so what they claim is complete nonsense.”
Even Bowen was surprised by the ICPP’s use of a climbing article, but he doesn’t see a lack of credibility from the climber’s perspective.
“There is no reason why anecdotal evidence from climbers should be disregarded, as they are spending a great deal of time in places that other people rarely go and so notice the changes.”
While most climbers don’t carry a PhD in environmental science, they do possess a strong connection with the mountain environment. Though their anecdotes are not nearly substantial enough to stand alone in an argument, their innate relationship to the mountains provides an important human perspective to the issue.
[via: National Post]
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