Arctic ice melting faster than anticipated - WWF

By Laura MacInnis

GENEVA (Reuters) - Arctic ice may be melting faster than most climate change science has concluded, the conservation group WWF said in a report published on Thursday.

It found that ice in Greenland and across the Arctic region was retreating "at rates significantly faster than predicted in previous expert assessments".

The Greenland Ice Sheet -- with an ice volume of about 2.9 million cubic kilometres -- is shrinking at a fast pace and "could contribute much more than previously estimated to global sea-level rise during the 21st century," the WWF said.

It also said that Arctic warming has reduced both the area and thickness of the northern region's multi-year sea ice, making it more prone to summer thaw.

Many climate change scientists have inadequately considered the drivers of such trends, such as interactions between sea ice thickness and water temperature, according to WWF.

"The recent acceleration in sea-ice retreat is not captured by most models," it said in the study reviewing global warming research from 2005, including the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports issued last year.

"Our understanding of climate impacts lags behind the changes we are already seeing in the Arctic," said Martin Sommerkorn, a climate change adviser with WWF International's Arctic Programme.

"This is extremely dangerous, as some of these Arctic changes have the potential to substantially warm the Earth beyond what models currently forecast," he said.