Polar Meltdown

Both polar regions are warming faster than the global average, with cascading consequences:

• Arctic sea ice has shrunk by roughly 40% since satellite measurements began in 1979
• The Greenland ice sheet is losing hundreds of billions of tons of ice each year, raising sea levels worldwide
• Antarctic ice shelves are collapsing; the Larsen B shelf disintegrated in just 35 days in 2002

Melting ice threatens coastal cities, and warmer Arctic air disrupts the jet stream, pushing extreme weather into temperate regions. What happens at the poles affects everyone.