Polar ice caps melting

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Polar bears are facing a grim future as global warming melts their Arctic home. What problems are they up against and what's being done to save them?

The polar ice caps and the Greenland ice sheet are melting six times faster than they were in the 1990s. The high melt rate corresponds to the “worst case scenario” model for global warming set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and means that without sweeping curbs on greenhouse gas emissions, the planet will see a 17-centimetre rise in sea level in just 80 years, putting about 400 million people at risk of annual coastal flooding.

Greenland's ice sheet melted at its most rapid rate of the summer on Thursday.

An article in the Guardian reports that polar ice caps are melting six times faster than they were in the 1990s. Projections and estimates from previous years are now on track with worst-case scenarios.

Global warming and a huge storm are blamed for the fastest decrease in sea coverage ever seen

"We are already witnessing the effects of climate change in the Arctic."

COASTAL cities around the world are in danger of being submerged after it was revealed that Antarctica has lost three trillion tonnes of ice in the last 25 years – and the process is speeding up.