Himalayan glaciers: gone by 2035?

Back in 2007, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its Fourth Assessment Report, which contained an extraordinary claim:

Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world ... and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate. Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 km² by the year 2035 (WWF, 2005)

Two years later, this doomsday scenario was questioned in a report by an Indian geologist, supported by India's environment minister. The report was met with scorn by IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri:

"We have a very clear idea of what is happening. I don't know why the minister is supporting this unsubstantiated research. It is an extremely arrogant statement."

"With the greatest of respect this guy retired years ago and I find it totally baffling that he comes out and throws out everything that has been established years ago."

According to The Guardian

Pachauri dismissed the report saying it was not "peer reviewed" and had few "scientific citations".

According to the BBC

Mr Pachauri dismissed the study as "voodoo science" and said the IPCC was a "sober body" whose work was verified by governments.

The truth about this "sober body" is now starting to emerge. According to The Register

It now turns out the 2035 claim has no scientific basis at all - but was an off-the-cuff remark by an obscure Indian scientist who now disowns the prediction. It was made not in the scientific literature, but a telephone interview with a pro-warming journalist Fred Pearce of the New Scientist for a news item in the magazine in 1999. The IPCC picked up the spurious factoid after it was cited in a propaganda publication by eco-group the World Wildlife Fund. (WWF).

And now the IPCC editor responsible for the chapter sheepishly admits he doesn't know anything about glaciers.

The BBC article highlights another possible source for the 2035 claim:

Professor Cogley has found a 1996 document by a leading hydrologist, VM Kotlyakov, that mentions 2350 as the year by which there will be massive and precipitate melting of glaciers.

"The extrapolar glaciation of the Earth will be decaying at rapid, catastrophic rates - its total area will shrink from 500,000 to 100,000 square kilometres by the year 2350," Mr Kotlyakov's report said.

Mr Cogley says it is astonishing that none of the 10 authors of the 2007 IPCC report could spot the error and "misread 2350 as 2035".

Astonishing indeed.