As the world’s temperatures go up, the Arctic keeps losing its ice. This winter, the area covered by sea ice was the second smallest on record — after last year. And many experts believe that this summer, the Arctic ice cap will shrink to record lows. Why should I care, you ask?

“The Arctic is a natural freezer,” says Michael Mann, a climatologist and director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, in an email to The Verge. “Just like you’d be concerned if all of the ice in your freezer melted, so should you be concerned about the loss of Arctic sea ice.”

The changes that are happening in the…