Cutting greenhouse gases by 70 per cent this century would spare the planet the most traumatic effects of climate change, including the massive loss of Arctic sea ice, according to a study.

Warming in the Arctic would be almost halved, helping preserve fisheries, as well as sea birds and Arctic mammals like polar bears in some regions, including the northern Bering Sea, according to scientists at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research.

But the massive cuts of greenhouse gas emissions advocated by the researchers would only "stabilise the threat of climate change and avoid catastrophe," said NCAR scientist Warren Washington, the study's lead author.

The cuts would also prevent huge losses of permafrost and a significant rise in the sea level, said the study to be published next week in Geophysical Research Letters.

"This research indicates that we can no longer avoid significant warming during this century," said Dr Washington, who ran a series of global supercomputer studies.

The planet's average temperatures have warmed by nearly one degree Celsius since the pre-industrial era. Most of the warming is due to emissions from greenhouse gases, chief among them carbon dioxide, the study noted.

Those gases have increased from a pre-industrial level of about 284 parts per million in the atmosphere to more than 380 ppm today. Recent studies have found that temperatures would reach the threshold for dangerous climate change if they rise by an additional one degree Celsius.

If carbon dioxide emissions were to plateau and maintained at 450 ppm - cited as an attainable target by the US Climate Change Science Programme if dramatic emissions cuts are enacted - global temperatures would rise by 0.6 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, the study said.