A heated response to glacier melt atlas

THE Times Atlas is embroiled in a climate change controversy over the rate at which it shows Greenland's glaciers melting.

THE Times Atlas has become embroiled in a climate change controversy over the rate at which it has shown Greenland's glaciers to be melting.

A group of leading climate scientists has accused the world's top map-maker of over-stating the ice melt by a factor of 10.

The Times Comprehensive Atlas of The World promoted its new edition with claims that Greenland had lost 15 per cent of its ice cover between the 10th edition published in 1999 and the 13th edition published this year.

Amid the controversy, The Times Atlas has stood by its depiction, saying the information came from data from the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Boulder, Colorado. The NSIDC is reportedly investigating the claims.

Critics have been quick to link the controversy to criticisms of the UN climate science body, which relied on non-peer reviewed literature to claim that Himalayan glaciers could melt away by 2035, a dramatic exaggeration of the agreed science.

The British Science Media Centre produced a round-up of criticism from experts.

According to Jeffrey Kargel, senior research scientist at the University of Arizona, "these maps are ridiculously off base".

Cartographer Graham Cogley of Trent University, Ontario, Canada, said: "In the aftermath of 'Himalayagate', we are hypersensitive to egregious errors in supposedly authoritative sources."

"The Greenland Ice Sheet is the second-biggest glacier of all and The Time Atlas's contention that it has lost 300,000 sq km in the past 12 years, that is a rate of 1.5 per cent a year, would be very surprising indeed if it could be validated," Professor Cogley said.

"The best measurements in Greenland, which cover only part of the ice sheet, suggest that 1.5 per cent a year is at least 10 times faster than reality."

Paul Christoffersen, a glaciologist at the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, said the institute believed the 15 per cent decrease in permanent ice cover was both incorrect and misleading.

"We compared recent satellite images of Greenland with the new map and found that there are in fact still numerous glaciers and permanent ice cover where the new Times Atlas shows ice-free conditions and the emergence of new lands," Dr Christoffersen said.