In all the uproar about the typographical error, and poor research citation, about terminally melting Himalayan glaciers in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, the facts have been overlooked.
Indian Scientists are reporting that Himalayan glaciers lost 16% in the last 50 years :-
““Investigations on glacial retreat were estimated for 1,317 glaciers in 10 sub-basins from 1962. This has shown an overall reduction in glacial area from 5,866 sqkm to 4,921 sqkm since 1962, showing an overall de-glaciation of 16%”, says the latest annual report of Isro. Snow cover monitoring of all basin has been completed, it said. Atlases for three years are ready and one for the fourth year is being prepared. Modeling response of Himalayan cryosphere to climate change has been initiated, Isro added. Meanwhile, a study on the impact of temperature and carbon dioxide (CO2) rise on the productivity of the four major cereal food crops — wheat, rice, maize and pearl millet — revealed that yield of all of them showed reduction with increasing temperature…”
Now, I don’t know about you, but I think that’s pretty serious, and should merit a barrel-load of news articles. People still need to be made aware that melting snow and ice pack around the world is a serious and permanent problem.
And they might just be bothered to care if they realise that Global Warming can affect their own future food and water supplies.