Arctic warming accelerates.

The Arctic is now warming at nearly twice the rate of the rest of the globe, according to a new report. The warming is accelerating ice melt at the North Pole and has serious implications for the region's wildlife and people, global sea levels, and overall planetary warming.

The eight-nation Arctic Climate Impact Assessment reports that average winter temperatures in Alaska and western Canada have risen by as much as 4 degrees Celsius in the past 50 years and attributes the warming largely to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions during the past century. Arctic temperatures could rise an additional 4-7 degrees Celsius by 2100, accelerating melting of the region's sea ice and the vast Greenland Ice Sheet. Arctic summer sea ice has already shrunk by 15-20 percent in area on average over the past 30 years and thinned by up to 40 percent since the late 1960s. The ice could disappear almost entirely over this century, creating a feedback loop that accelerates overall planetary warming by replacing the ice with darker water surfaces that absorb the sun's heat.

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The study also warns that melting of Greenland's ice sheet and glaciers in Alaska and Canada is increasingly contributing to global sea-level rise. The area of the Greenland sheet undergoing surface melting increased by 16 percent between 1979 and 2002, breaking all previous records in 2002. Loss of the entire sheet, while not likely for centuries, would raise sea levels by about 7 meters and inundate most of the world's coastal areas.

Seals, seabirds, and other animals that depend on food found at the ice edge are also beginning to suffer from the changing Arctic climate. In northern Canada, changes in ice cover have led to hunger and weight loss among polar bears, and scientists project that some regions could become uninhabitable for the bears within 20 years. The melting of ice and permafrost is also disrupting life in native villages of the far North, shortening the traditional hunting and fishing season and causing serious coastal erosion, flooding, and the destabilization of buildings.