Publication Date March 15, 2016 | The Guardian

Record-breaking temperatures 'have robbed the Arctic of its winter'

Greenland
A lack of snow in south central Alaska forced race organisers to move the Iditarod dog sled race north. Photo: Loren Holmes,AP
A lack of snow in south central Alaska forced race organisers to move the Iditarod dog sled race north. Photo: Loren Holmes,AP

This year’s record-breaking temperatures have robbed the Arctic of its winter, sending snowmobilers plunging through thin ice into freezing rivers and forcing deliveries of snow to the starting line of Alaska’s legendary Iditarod dogsledding race. January and February obliterated global temperature records – and nowhere more so than in the Arctic which saw some locations 16C (29F) warmer than normal