Scientists find bigger than expected polar ice melt

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http://www.khaleejtimes.ae/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/international/2009/February/international_February1907.xml§ion=international

25 February 2009

GENEVA - Icecaps around the North and South Poles are melting faster and in a more widespread manner than expected, raising the sea level and fuelling climate change, a scientific survey revealed on Wednesday.

Warming in the Antarctic was "much more widespread than was thought," while Arctic sea ice wass diminishing and the melting of Greenland's ice cover was accelerating, said the International Polar Year survey.

The frozen and often inaccessible polar regions have long been regarded as some of the most sensitive barometers of environmental change because of their influence on the world's oceans and atmosphere.

Preliminary findings from the on-site survey revealed new evidence that the ocean around the Antarctic has warmed more rapidly than the global average, the World Meteorological Organisation and the International Council for Science said in a joint statement.