Credibility issues continue to dog the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The UN climate change body is now being charged that its claim on disappearing Amazonian forests is based on a report by environmental activists while that on disappearing ice from the world’s mountain peaks is based on a doctoral student’s essay and an article in a mountaineering magazine.

The IPCC report stated reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and Africa was caused by global warming. It had cited two scientific papers as its primary source of information. However, according to the UK’s Sunday Telegraph, the two sources were actually an article published in a magazine for mountaineers and a geography student’s master’s dissertation. The article in the mountaineering magazine — Climbing News — was based on anecdotal evidence about the changes the authors were witnessing during climbs. While the dissertation by a student from the University of Bern in Switzerland reportedly quoted interviews with mountain guides in the Alps.

To back its claims that the large tracts of Amazonian forests will disappear because of diminishing rainfall, the IPCC has cited a report by the environment group WWF. The Sunday Telegraph has questioned the IPCC’s decision to cite a WWF report to support its claim that 40% of Amazon forests could disappear due to declining rainfall and even be replaced by tropical savannah.

UK’s secretary of state for energy and climate change Ed Miliband said that it would be “profoundly irresponsible” to allow recent controversies over scientific data to undermine the fight against climate change. “Yes, it was bad a mistake that was made. Yes, the IPCC needs to reform its procedures so these kind of mistakes don’t happen again. But the truth is, it doesn’t undermine decades of climate research,” Mr Miliband said.

The pressure is be on the IPCC to improve its procedures. “The goof ups that are being reported are all from Working Group II. Clearly, evangelism has overtaken science. I am told that there are many things in the summary for policymakers that are not there in the Working Group reports. There is a clear need to distinguish science from advocacy, and the IPCC should stick with science,” environment minister Jairam Ramesh said.