Data gathered from military and weather satellites confirmed thatthe ice sheets over at Greenland has melted at a record rate. It's also the most significant recorded since rate measurements began in the '70s, said a report made by climate scientist Konrad Steffen of the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Aside from ubiquitous greenhouse effects caused by global warming, the record loss of ice sheets in Greenland was caused by the increased number of moulins in the ice: cylindrical shafts which act as drainage pipes for the melting ice, the formation of which hastens the ice sheet's melting process.

According to Steffen, the sheer amount of ice which receded from Greenland in the past year alone is equal to twice the amount of ice up in the Alps; enough ice that, in liquid form, is more than enough to cover Washington, DC!

For those of you who know that Greenland is just 1/4 the size of the United States, this might not be enough to worry about. But this is still alarming news since 1/20 the world's ice is in Greenland. According to scientists, if all of the ice in Greenland which covers 80% of it's land mass melted, it would cause a 21-foot rise in global sea level!

Occurrences like this sends a world wide message that things aren't looking good at all in terms of the climate, especially up in the Arctic. If proper actions aren't enacted, the long standing issue of melting polar ice caps might just get worse in mere 30 years time, said experts at the National Snow and Ice Center in Colorado.