Greenland's icy mountains and the island's entire ice cap could disappear in the next 1,000 years because of global warming, European scientists warn today. If the annual average increase in temperature reached 2.7C above the present rate, then melting of the icecap would begin.If that occurs sea levels will rise by seven metres, drowning low-level coastlines around the world. Greenland is covered by the biggest ice sheet in the northern hemisphere: almost 772,000 square miles of ice which is up to 1.9 miles thick, the base of which is below sea level.

The greater the warming, the faster the snow melts. The worst-case predictions for Greenland, made by an intergovernmental panel of scientists, involve an average warming of 8C (46F). There are already signs of consistent melting in Greenland. Researchers reported in 1999 that the ice sheet was thinning by about a metre a year.

The latest research confirms the picture of an increasingly mild polar world. Alaskan glaciers are in retreat. The Arctic Ocean icepack has thinned by more than 30% in the past three decades and has been shrinking by an area equivalent to the Netherlands each year during the same period. If warming continues by the end of the century the Arctic could be free of ice altogether during summer months, British scientists predict.

www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1188079,00.html