Sloppy Mistake on Glacier Disappearance Chills U.N. Climate Panel

Jan. 21, 2010— -- A sloppy mistake in one paragraph of a 938-page U.N. climate report issued in 2007 has alerted the panel responsible for it to the high standard the world now demands of them.

Not surprising, since the U.N. climate reports, due every four years, are the most comprehensive and authoritative texts for understanding the human-induced global warming which, if left unchecked, scientists say, will become a global catastrophe.

The faulty paragraph stated that Himalayan glaciers providing water to hundreds of millions of people could "disappear" in the rising heat as soon as the year 2035.

Indian government scientists and others have shown this estimate to be based at best on flimsy evidence and at worst on a misread Internet article -- possibly even involving a typo confusing the year 2350 with 2035.

Attention to this blunder by the IPCC has grown in recent days after complaints by the Indian scientists were reported first in the London Times and then picked up by other news organizations around the world.

At the end of a new brief statement responding to the discovery of its mistake, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change now says,"The Chairs, Vice-Chairs, and Co-Chairs of the IPCC regret the poor application of well-established IPCC procedures in this instance."

The new IPCC statement opens by re-asserting that the 2007 report's general warning about disappearing glaciers is "robust, appropriate, and entirely consistent with underlying science."

Nor does the mistake's discovery appear to do anything to diminish the overall gravity of the climate crisis.

"Even Hall of Fame quarterbacks fumble the snap a few times a year," Stanford University climatologist Stephen Schneider told ABC News. "You don't trade your Pro Bowl quarterback because of it; it's part of the game."

"The key is how few of these (mistakes) actually happen relative to the junk in blogs and op-eds where it is more likely than not to be deliberately spun," Schneider said. "This was not deliberate, but was a failure of process by not properly following guidance on uncertainties.