Utqiagvik, formerly known as Barrow, hit 40 degrees on Monday. The mercury was 6 degrees higher than the next warmest December reading in more than a century. Temperatures in the upper 30s and lower 40s were widespread across Alaska’s North Slope. December is off to an atypically warm start across much of the Arctic. Temperatures over Greenland, Iceland and Alaska are 11.5 degrees above normal. A recent study showed that the Arctic is warming up to four times faster than the rest of the globe.
