Scientists used and re-used this information without ever checking it. I am guessing part of the reason for the lack of checking (especially since it was never published in a peer-reviewed journal which should have checked it) is that it matched what the scientists were expecting to find and so they accepted it.

The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders.

Doesn’t that tell you more about science being subjective than you wanted to know?

I found this on Watts Up With That. It includes several screen captures of British papers on the topic.