Glub glub blub berbble bubble....

The Greenland ice sheet is losing its mass faster than in previous years and making an increasing contribution to sea level rise, a study has confirmed.

Published in the journal Science, it has also given scientists a clearer view of why the sheet is shrinking.

The team used weather data, satellite readings and models of ice sheet behaviour to analyse the annual loss of 273 thousand million tonnes of ice.

Melting of the entire sheet would raise sea levels globally by about 7m (20ft).

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Another analysis of satellite data, published in September, showed that of 111 fast-moving Greenland glaciers studied, 81 were thinning at twice the rate of the slow-moving ice beside them.

This indicates that the glaciers are accelerating and taking more ice into the surrounding sea.

Melting on the ice sheet's surface acts as a feedback mechanism, Dr van den Broeke explained, because the liquid water absorbs more and reflects less of the incoming solar radiation - resulting in a heating of the ice.

"Over the last 10 years, it's quite simple; warming over Greenland has caused the melting to increase, and that's set off this albedo feedback process," he told BBC News.

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GENEVA – Antarctic glaciers are melting faster across a much wider area than previously thought, scientists said Wednesday — a development that could lead to an unprecedented rise in sea levels.

A report by thousands of scientists for the 2007-2008 International Polar Year concluded that the western part of the continent is warming up, not just the Antarctic Peninsula.

Previously most of the warming was thought to occur on the narrow stretch pointing toward South America, said Colin Summerhayes, executive director of the Britain-based Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research and a member of International Polar Year's steering committee.

But satellite data and automated weather stations indicate otherwise.

"The warming we see in the peninsula also extends all the way down to what is called west Antarctica," Summerhayes told The Associated Press. "That's unusual and unexpected."

Greenland is melting

Time to sell your coastline property...

Greenland has long been seen as an important canary in the coalmine when it comes to global warming. As the Earth's climate heats up, the ice sheet which covers the mega-island melts faster and faster. Already, according to scientists measuring the glacier's melting rates, Greenland sheds enough ice every day to supply New York City with water -- 30 times over.

But according to a new report in the scientific journal Current Biology, melt-water isn't the only clue Greenland provides the world when it comes to climate change. Scientists from Denmark's National Environmental Research Institute, affiliated with the University of Aarhus, have found that spring in Greenland now starts much earlier than it did just a decade ago with some plant, animal and insect species welcoming the warm season up to 30 days prematurely.

That's a lot of ice....

Canada is attacking

"A giant ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields has snapped free from Canada's Arctic, scientists said. The mass of ice broke clear 16 months ago from the coast of Ellesmere Island, about 497 miles south of the North Pole, but no one was present to see it in Canada's remote north. Scientists using satellite images later noticed that it became a newly formed ice island in just an hour and left a trail of icy boulders floating in its wake."