Title: Climate change is already affecting Alaska’s weather.
Headings: Baked Alaska
Baked Alaska
“What’s living in Alaska if it’s not cold and snowy?”

Content: In late February, National Weather Service employees spotted thundersnow in Nome—a city just 100 miles south of the Arctic Circle. “ As far as I know, that’s unprecedented,” Thoman told me. Thunderstorms of any kind require a level of atmospheric energy that’s rarely present in cold climates. To get that outside of the summer is incredibly rare everywhere, let alone in Alaska. Climate scientists are starting to link the combination of melting sea ice and warm ocean temperatures to shifts in the jet stream. For the past few winters, those shifts have brought surges of tropical moisture toward southern Alaska via potent atmospheric rivers. This weather pattern has endured so long it’s even earned its own name: the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge. The persistent area of high pressure stretching from Alaska to California has shunted wintertime warmth and moisture northward into the Arctic while the eastern half of the continent is plunged into the deep freeze, polar-vortex style. Map by Slate
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The warm water is making its way north into the Arctic Ocean, too, where as of early March, sea ice levels are at their record lowest for the date.