The North polar ice cap is essentially gone. We cannot save it, only watch it go. The problem there is if the Greenland ice goes, and we just don't know about that one. The South Pole is a different story. Many would have you believe it is growing, but it is shrinking overall. However, given there is a continent at the South Pole, the Southern ice cap will last quite a while, although it will be shrunken considerably. And there are only 2 possibilities for us to attempt to slow or reverse this process - artificial global dimming and/or bulk removal of CO2 from atmosphere. Neither is practical at this time.

It will take an awful lot of warming and a long time to permanently melt all the polar ice,

Plus there have been many times in Earths history when we didn't have them, no problem then so I don't see a problem in the future.

Anyway man will probably have wiped himself out by then, War, disease, toxic poisoning, starvation through over population is much more likely to occur first.

Edit, can I ask where this figure of 7ft/m sea rise comes from (doesn't sound much to me) and has anyone calculated how much land area will be lost to the sea, compared to land area gained by loss of ice sheets and too cold area's becoming habitable, I have feeling that we would actually gain, I might like living on a green Greenland/Antarctica.

Polar ice caps will take 1000s of years to melt if climate conditions allow them to.

Are you like all the other rabid alarmists who believe the polar ice caps are going to disappear in a couple decades or less?

A study published just today used satellites to estimate Arctic ice volume and confirmed previous studies: Permanent Arctic ice is 80% gone. There is only 20% left of what was there just 30 years ago.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.10...

The volume of Antarctic ice is also declining. The claim that ice is not declining in the Arctic is based on the same mistake that uneducated deniers made for years about the Arctic: they confuse extent with volume, ie, the pretend that if the old ice is thawing but new temporary and thin ice is expanding surface area that everything is ok.

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n1...

The Arctic ice cap is essentially gone and weather patters are already significantly affected. (Super-storm Sandy would likely have been a mere tropical storm when it hit the U.S. shores were the Arctic ice cap still in place.) The questions now are whether the Greenland and Antarctic caps continue to thaw and/or accelerate, which would lead to the worst case scenario of 7-foot sea level rise.

Before I have my tea , I'll have to answer: Or we could try to save the MILLIONS of children lost to the sex slave/human trade industry. Well take care Mark.

They didn't have any ice caps in the Garden of Eden, and it was perfect.

No, there isn't a reason to be worried.

Well they certainly can't be save at or near the present levels and they will be unlikely to increase for a very long time.

Global warming is the problem and CO2 the primary culprit SO we nee to reduce our carbon footprint and move rapidly to wind and solar power as well as alternative fuels. We can't stop GW in it's tracks, but we can stop the rise of CO2 so GW will not increase significantly

On whether to save them or how to save them ?

Or we could try to save the MILLIONS of children lost to the sex slave/human trade industry.

Or we could try to get electricity to the BILLIONS of people who live in dire poverty.

There's no reason to worry about them.

The south pole has building ice, the north had decidedly less ice under normal conditions than most people think. (just a few feet thick.)

Killer whales don't get trapped in what isn't there... (Just in case someone has to point out the obvious.)

http://abcnews.go.com/International/kill...

Obviously some... don't like the obvious to be pointed out....

yeah i lost my virginity on one so they mean a lot to me