Scientists fear the global climate crisis is accelerating faster than predicted after permafrost at outposts in the Canadian Arctic melted 70 years earlier than expected.
A professor of geophysics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Vladimir Romanovsky, says the melted permafrost indicates the climate is now warmer than at any point in the past 5000 years.
The executive director of Greenpeace International, Jennifer Morgan, says the premature thawing is a clear signal economies must be immediately decarbonised.