BOULDER, Colorado, Dec. 19 -- The National Snow and Ice Data Center, a part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, issued the following news release: Climate change is warming the planet, and nowhere is the warming happening faster than the polar regions. Sea ice is dwindling, the ice sheets are losing mass to the oceans, and air and ocean temperatures are rising. Scientific researchers have made leaps and bounds in recent years gathering new data and insights on t  more