Last month was extreme: Temperatures in parts of the Arctic spiked 36 degrees Fahrenheit, or 20 Celsius, above normal. By the end of the month, sea ice was at its lowest level ever recorded for February, marking the third straight month of record lows. This follows a year of concerning signs from the region, including intense wildfires and thawing permafrost pumping out planet-heating pollution. It's a problem with global consequences. The Arctic plays a vital role in global temperatures and weather systems. It's "sort of like our planetary air conditioning system," said Twila Moon, deputy lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Its decline accelerates global warming, increases sea level rise and helps to drive more extreme weather. The Arctic is the early warning system for climate change and the loss of sea ice is a clear sign it's in trouble, scientists say. It should be reaching its annual maximum levels of ice at this time of year, but instead it's experiencing record lows. The Arctic will be ice-free in the summer at some point by 2050, even if humans stop pumping out climate pollution, according to a report co-authored by Dirk Notz, head of sea ice at the University of Hamburg. "It's basically too late to prevent that," he told CNN. The first ice-free day could even happen before the end of this decade, according to a separate study published in December. Sea ice loss is not only damaging to wildlife, plants and the roughly 4 million people who live in the Arctic — it has global consequences. Sea ice acts like a giant mirror, reflecting the sunlight away from the Earth and back into space. As it shrinks, more of the sun's energy is absorbed by the dark ocean, which accelerates global heating. The Arctic landscape is changing too, said the NSIDC's Twila Moon. Tap the link in bio for more. 📸 : Sean Gallup/Getty Images, Zachary Labe, Sean Gallup/Getty Images