Native forests should be part of the solution

The Greens leader Bob Brown says lifting Australia's reserves of native forests should be part of the Federal Government's solution to climate change.

The Government's climate change adviser, Ross Garnaut, has suggested the concept known as biosequestration be boosted in Australia.

Professor Garnaut will release the next stage of his economic modelling into climate change tomorrow.

Senator Brown says ending the destruction of Australia's native forests and woodlands could reduce greenhouse output by 24 per cent.

"It is hugely prospective. Probably much more cost efficient and also has potential excellent job and economic spin-offs in Australia," he said.

"Our job is to get some of the old thinking in the old parties seeing the advantage that there is."

Arctic melt heralds more cyclones and floods: expert

There are more signs of rapid climate change in the Arctic.

Researchers say five ice shelves along Ellesmere Island in Canada's far-north have shrunk by 23 per cent this summer alone.

The shelves once covered an area of more than 5,000 square kilometres but now they are barely 10 per cent of that.

Warwick Vincent of the centre for northern studies at Quebec's Laval University describes the impact of the melting this year as staggering.

He says climate models suggest the most severe changes will take place in the highest northern latitudes, as a starting point for more substantial changes throughout the rest of the planet.

That means more hurricanes, cyclones and floods.