The melting of ice sheets in Greenland and western Antarctica are worse than previously thought, according to new satellite information.  Pictures show that some places are already in runaway melt mode. According to a paper published online Thursday in the journal Nature, in some parts of Antarctica, ice sheets have been losing 30 feet a year in thickness since 2003.

Moreover, the thickness of the ice is rapidly fading; in parts of Antarctica, the yearly rate of thinning from 2003 to 2007 is 50 percent higher than it was from 1995 to 2003.

“To some extent it’s a runaway effect. The question is how far will it run?” said Hamish Pritchard of the British Antarctic Survey. “It’s more widespread than we previously thought.”

Who’s ready for panic time? I know, I know, I’ve officially become part of the fear-mongering media but this one doesn’t sound like the type of story you’d want to ignore.

As we reported earlier the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder has satellite imagery showing a 5,282 square mile Antarctic ice shelf has started collapsing.

Now, geophysicists out of the University of Toronto have done research that indicates that the collapse of this Antarctic ice shelf could result in an actual shift in the Earth’s axis. Holy shift!

Their research, which will be published today in the journal Science, shows that when sea levels rise after the ice shelf collapse the Earth’s rotation could be affected.

A press release from the University of Toronto’s physics department goes on to state that, “The melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will actually cause the Earth´s rotation axis to shift rather dramatically — approximately 500 metres from its present position if the entire ice sheet melts.”

Geophysicist Jerry Mitrovica continues, saying previous analysis was likely too conservative and that many coastal regions will see water levels rise by 25 percent more than expected, for a total of six to seven meters.

“That’s a lot of additional water, particularly around such highly populated areas as Washington, D.C., New York City, and the California coastline,” Mitrovica stated.

A massive Antarctic ice shelf is on the brink of collapsing with just a thin sliver of ice holding it in place. The Wilkins Ice Shelf is one of the many victims of global warming which is now in the process of forever altering maps of the long-frozen continent.

“We’ve come to the Wilkins Ice Shelf to see its final death throes,” said David Vaughan, a glaciologist at the British Antarctic Survey after the last plane landed near the narrowest part of the ice.

The flat-top shelf has an area of thousands of square kilometers, jutting 65 ft out of the sea off the Antarctic Peninsula. But recently it is only held there by a thinning 25-mile strip of ice that has eroded to just 500 meters wide at its narrowest point.

In 1950, the strip was almost 100 km wide. The Wilkins Ice Shelf once covered 6,000 sq miles. It has lost a third of its area but is still about the size of Jamaica. Once the strip breaks up, the ocean will sweep away most of the remaining ice. In total, about 25,000 sq km of ice shelves have been lost, changing maps of Antarctica. Here’s a video of the Antarctic Wilkins Ice Shelf collapsing.

Satellite imagery from the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder reveals that a 13,680 square kilometer (5,282 square mile) ice shelf has begun to collapse because of rapid climate change in a fast-warming region of Antarctica.