The earth’s ability to soak up the gases causing global warming is beginning to fail because of rising temperatures, in a long-feared sign of “positive feedback,” new research reveals today.

Climate change itself is weakening one of the principal “sinks” absorbing carbon dioxide - the Southern Ocean around Antarctica - a new study has found.

As a result, atmospheric CO2 levels may rise faster and bring about rising temperatures more quickly than previously anticipated. Stabilising the CO2 level, which must be done to bring the warming under control, is likely to become much more difficult, even if the world community agrees to do it.

An area as large as the US state of California melted due to warmer temperatures in western Antarctica a satellite from the US space agency showed, according to a NASA analysis of the largest melt in recent decades. The data collected by the NASA satellite, QuickScat, between July 1999 and July 2005 captured the largest melting in 30 years during January 2005, scientists said late Tuesday.