The symposium "Living Planet 2016" of the European Space Agency (ESA, its acronym in English) was opened in Prague on Monday with a message warning about the effects of climate change that within fifteen years, can remove the polar ice during the summer.
"In fifteen years, the ice may disappear in the summer," he said in his inaugural speech Volker Liebig, Director of Programs Earth Observation of ESA.
ESA bases its predictions on observations of the ice made by explorers earth satellites "CryoSat".
"CryoSat" has found that between 1980 and 2015 the ice surface of the Earth has risen from 7 million square kilometers to just 3 million.
Without the ice, not reflected solar radiation and increases warming, she said meanwhile Wolfram Mauser, president of the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC).
"The loss of ice volume in Greenland is dramatic," Mauser said about a territory that takes an accumulated loss of 1,200 cubic kilometers of ice until 2015.
However, that loss is much greater in Antarctica than Greenland, also meant the German expert.
In this symposium, which takes place until 13 May at the Congress Centre of the Czech capital, 3,300 people from 85 countries participating.