The head of a panel of United Nations climate scientists said yesterday he would not resign despite a recent admission that a panel report warning Himalayan glaciers could be gone by 2035 was hundreds of years off. The claim, made in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's voluminous, Nobel-winning report, came in a paragraph with several errors. Data indicates the ice could melt by 2350. The assertion went virtually unnoticed until a newspaper said the projection seemed to be based on a news report.

The scientists are investigating how the forecast got into the report and apologised for the mistakes, adding that they were not intentional. But the errors have opened the door for attacks from climate change sceptics. But Rajendra Pachauri, who heads the panel, said no action would be taken against the authors of the report and he would not resign.