UPDATE 1-Faster ice melt seen as spur to UN climate treaty

* Melting ice can spur new U.N. climate deal-Gore

* Arctic thaw mirrored in Andes glacier retreat

* Melt accelerating, worse than expected (Recasts, updates throughout)

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

TROMSOE, Norway, April 28 (Reuters) - A quickening melt of ice from the Himalayas to the Arctic is a wake up call for governments to agree a strong new treaty to fight global warming, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore said on Tuesday.

"The ice is melting faster than the worst-case projections of only a few years ago in the Arctic and in Greenland," Gore, who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the U.N. Climate Panel, told a conference about melting ice in north Norway.

"The ice is also melting in West Antarctica and in mountainous regions across the globe. Moreover, the permafrost is thawing," he said. That was beginning to release methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, trapped in places such as Siberia.

He said that the talks, focused on the Arctic Council nations, was a "global wake-up call" to governments preparing for a meeting in Denmark in December to agree a new U.N. climate treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.