If anything, the news from the Arctic is even more troubling. In November an international team of 300 scientists completed an unprecedented four-year study of the region that found it is warming at nearly twice the rate of the rest of the planet. Average winter temperatures in much of the region have increased by as much as four to seven degrees Fahrenheit in the past 50 years, and they are expected to warm by another seven to 13 degrees by the end of the century. During that time, the scientists predict that half of the Arctic’s summer sea ice will melt, along with much of the Greenland Ice Sheet, which contains enough ice to raise sea level by some 23 feet.