While much of the U.S. is frozen solid right now, Alaska is facing warmer-than-normal temperatures and organizers have been forced to change the route of the
Iditarod Dog Sled Race:
Recent helicopter surveys of the Alaska Range near Willow, the town just north of Anchorage where the roughly 1,000-mile (1,600 kilometer) race usually begins, revealed that "snow conditions were worse in critical areas than in 2014 and therefore not safe enough for the upcoming race," the Iditarod Trail Committee said in a statement.
It's not a one-time thing, it is part of a very troubling trend:
This year's poor snowfall fits with a trend of rising temperatures in Alaska, whose rate of warming was twice the national average in the past 50 years, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
But, but, but - there is so much snow in Boston! How can it be global warming?
Kevin Trenberth, an atmospheric scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, said by email that "we always experience some regions with below normal temperatures and others above normal, as comes naturally from weather patterns."
"But on top of that is a global warming component. Under the right circumstances it can boost snows, as in New England, but in other circumstances, the snow melts and some precipitation even falls as rain."