UN report warns Arctic summer sea ice disappearance within 30 years

A UN report warned that climate change is rapidly melting away the world's frozen regions, with summertime Arctic sea ice sure to vanish by 2050.

In just this year, rains fell on East Antarctica in March, as air temperatures were unusually warm. During the summer, the Alps lost 5% of their ice cover. And in September, Greenland set a new record for melting at that time of year, said the report by the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI) research network.

Following the planet's eight warmest years on record, there is growing evidence that the world's icy regions are melting at increasing rates - and far faster than scientists had expected.

The report's highlighted the "terminal diagnosis" for the ice that forms and floats atop the Arctic Ocean each summer, indicating that "Just as there's no longer a credible path to keeping warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, there's no credible path to avoiding an ice-free summer," adding that they are starting to see something that cant be saved.

Last year, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said summer sea ice would be lost even if warming peaked at 1.6 degrees above the preindustrial average. The world is currently on track for 2.8 degrees of warming by 2100.