Baked Alaska: December seeing unusual warmth across most of the Arctic

Waves from the Bering Sea splash up on a jetty in Nome, Alaska. Much of the Arctic is in a burst of freak December 2022 warming. (Peggy Fagerstrom / AP)

Much of the Arctic is in a burst of freak December warming.

Utqiagvik, Alaska’s northernmost community, formerly known as Barrow, hit 40 degrees Monday — a record by six degrees that also wass the warmest that region has seen on record from late October to late April, according to Rick Thoman, a climate specialist with the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.