The meltdown in the Arctic is speeding up and as a result the North Pole could be ice-free by 2013 instead of in 60 years' time as earlier predicted, scientists have warned.

Their apprehensions are based on computer studies of satellite images that reveal that ice at North Pole melted at an unprecedented rate last week, the disappearance is said to have exceeded the record loss of more than a million square kilometres in 2007 as global warming tightened its grip.