Alaska saw its eighth hottest year on record in 2025 according to a new report, with temperatures coming in at 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the last three decades on average.
“This last year was a confirmation that, unfortunately, we are warming our planet faster than we hope,” said State Climatologist Martin Stuefer, who authored the 2025 annual report by the Alaska Climate Research Center.
“That has implications,” Stuefer added. “Ice melting, permafrost thawing, wildfires, changing of our environment.”
The report highlights dwindling sea ice as a top line issue. Alaska’s sea ice peaked in March at more than 5.5 million square miles – an area more than 1.5 times the entire United States — but that’s the lowest sea ice peak recorded in the last 47 years.
“It's a big area. But still, it was smaller than in any year observed before,” Stuefer said. “We are heading towards an ice-free Arctic later this century.”
The northern parts of the state are warming most rapidly, with the Interior and North Slope showing the largest increases from normal temperatures. Utqiaġvik recorded the highest relative temperatures – about 2.7 degrees above average.
Southeast Alaska, meanwhile, had a near average annual temperature last year, but the region had far less snow than is typical. Juneau specifically saw a warmer year and received near-normal levels of precipitation. But the area also saw just half its average snowfall due to frequent mid-winter rain, the report said.
Steufer emphasized that, while Alaska in general saw warmer temperatures, it also endured extreme weather events like wildfire activity, ex-typhoon Halong and an intense, widespread December cold snap.
“I had one person asking me, Are we heading into an ice age now?” he said. “Of course not. We are heading into a warmer phase on the global scale.”
That extreme variability across the state, he added, is becoming more common as temperatures rise with climate change.
