NOAA chief backs UN climate panel

A top Obama administration climate official on Monday defended the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has come under fire over flaws in a landmark 2007 report on the threat of global warming.

Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said inclusion of unsubstantiated claims in the IPCC report that Himalayan glaciers would vanish in 2035 is “atypical” of otherwise robust work.

She noted that the IPCC has recognized that the finding slipped through its vetting procedures. “I think the vast majority of the conclusions in the IPCC are credible, have been through the very rigorous process and are absolutely state of the science, state of the art in terms of what we know about the climate system,” she said on a conference call with reporters, calling the IPCC’s work “very strong, very credible.”

The IPCC’s credibility is important because its work helps form the basis for numerous climate change policies and proposals. It is among the major sources the Environmental Protection Agency relied on in crafting its late 2009 “endangerment finding” that greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare. The EPA finding is a precursor to planned emissions regulations.

Climate skeptics and opponents of climate legislation have pounced on the IPCC glacier error and other alleged flaws in the vast 2007 report. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), a leading Senate opponent of climate change legislation, this month called for the resignation of IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri.