Island created by global warming

A new island has appeared off the coast of Greenland in what is being seen as an alarming sign of global warming.

Several miles long, the island was once thought to be the tip of a peninsula halfway up the east coast of Greenland - the second-largest ice sheet in the world after Antartica.

But after the glacier joining it to the mainland completely melted away it has been left surrounded by sea.

Shaped like a three-fingered hand the island is 400 miles within the Arctic circle and was discovered by veteran US explorer, Dennis Schmitt, who has named it Warming Island or Uunartoq Qeqertoq in Inuit.

The dramatic melting of Greenland ice is a major concern to climate change scientists with 80 cubic miles of ice being lost ever year. That is three times the amount of ice in all the glaciers within the Alps.

Greenland has 630,000 cubic miles of ice in total - enough water to raise global sea levels by 23 feet. Even as little as five to ten per cent could have a devastating effect with low-lying coastlines facing the threat of serious flooding.

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