An international scientific panel overseen by the United Nations had estimated the glaciers in the Himalayas to disappear by 2035. The estimate was included in a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The group has now expressed “regret” (IPPC statement in PDF) for publishing an unsupported estimate of the speed at which Himalayan glaciers were melting.
It is surprising that none of the 2,500 scientists who contributed to its 2007 report spotted the error that appeared in a sentence on page 493.
It is told that the figure was taken from an interview with an Indian glacier scientist who later denied talking about it. Most glaciologists believe that the melting would take hundreds of years or more. Some others even doubt about disappearance of glaciers.
Such estimate are rough for sure, but 25 years is too short a duration in glaciology in general.
Interesting that a blog with so many typos would make such a big deal over one. Nepali NGO reports are also riddled with such inaccuracies. With that said, it was an unfortunate mistake but I doubt anyone really believed the statement anyway. However, the entire review process of the IPCC needs to be overhauled and the way they do business needs to be changed, to include more peer reviews before publishing. Cheers!