"U.N. Panel's Glacier Warning Is Criticized as Exaggerated"

"A much-publicized estimate from a United Nations panel about the rapid melting of Himalayan glaciers from climate change is coming under fire as a gross exaggeration.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in 2007 -- the same year it shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore -- that it was 'very likely' that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035 if current warming trends continued.

That date has been much quoted and a cause for enormous consternation, since hundreds of millions of people in Asia rely on ice and snow melt from these glaciers for their water supply."

Elisabeth Rosenthal reports for the New York Times January 18, 2010.