Over the past 60 years, Alaska has warmed more than twice as rapidly as the rest of the United States, with state - wide average annual air temperature increasing by 3 °F and average
winter temperature by 6 °F, with substantial year - to - year and regional variability.1 Most of the warming occurred around 1976 during a shift in a long - lived climate pattern (the Pacific
Decadal Oscillation [PDO]-RRB- from a cooler pattern to a warmer one.
However, one analysis that has attempted to explain both the very large
winter extents of 2012, 2013, and 2014, and the subsequent lower and near - average
winter maximums in 2015 and 2016 has suggested that the El Niño Southern
Oscillation and a Pacific trend called the Pacific
Decadal Oscillation (a residual tendency toward El Niño or La Niña in the Pacific that shifts on multi-
decadal timescales) may be linked to the change.