The UN's top climate official, who is at the heart of a controversy over incorrect global warming data, has penned a racy novel which dishes up sex, reincarnation and a real-life Hollywood actress.

The debut fiction work is in contrast to the dry academic tomes that 69-year-old Rajendra Pachauri, head of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has previously written.

"Return to Almora," which has recently hit bookshops, is laced with steamy references to the sexual urges of the protagonist Sanjay Nath who, like Pachauri, studied engineering.

The book also weaves in lectures on the environment and the fate of Himalayan glaciers -- the issue which has triggered calls for Pachauri's resignation.

Pachauri has refused to step down over an error in which an IPCC report forecast Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035.

His novel charts the life of Sanjay who, as a young child in India, stuns his parents with the news he was a merchant in a past life and that his wife is still alive.

Several passages from the book may interest the judges of London's Bad Sex awards, an annual celebration of the worst bedroom scenes in literature.

After university, Sanjay travels to the United States, has dinner with Oscar-winning actress Shirley MacLaine and teaches meditation -- when he finds himself distracted by the "heaving breasts" of his students.

"You are absolutely superb after meditation," Sanjay's girlfriend tells him. "Why don't we make love every time immediately after you have meditated?"

The author, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 on behalf of the IPCC, has hinted parts of the book are autobiographical.

"Sometimes Id be so overwhelmed trying to capture an incident of my life for the book that I would be moved to tears," the father-of-three told the Indian Express.

Pachauri, whose previous 20 books include titles such as "Business unusual: championing corporate social responsibility", says he wrote the romp while on international business flights.