In the high glare of a summer evening in Fairbanks, Alaska, Ciara Santiago watched the mercury climb. A meteorologist at the National Weather Service office, she had the dubious honor of issuing the state’s first-ever official heat advisory as temperatures were expected to hit the mid-80s.
It’s the kind of bureaucratic alert that rarely makes national headlines. But in a city where permafrost thaw buckles roads, homes lack air conditioning, and the high at this time of year is generally in the low 70s, the warning comes as a sign of rapidly shifting climate. Alaska is warming more than twice as fast as the global average.
In Alaska, where hazardous cold is historically more of a concern, weather offices in Fairbanks — just 120 miles south of the Arctic Circle as the raven flies — didn’t have the option of issuing heat advisories until the beginning of this month, when it was added to a list of possible public alerts. “It gives us a more direct way of communicating these kinds of hazards when they occur,” Santiago said.
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