(AP) — Alaska has been America’s canary in the coal mine for climate warming, and the yellow bird is swooning. July was Alaska’s warmest month ever, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Sea ice melted. Bering Sea fish swam in above-normal temperatures. So did children in the coastal town of Nome. Wildfire season started early and stayed late. Thousands of walruses thronged to shore. Unusual weather events like this could become more common with climate warming, said Brian Brettschneider, an associate climate researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ International

Arctic Research Center. Alaska has seen “multiple decades-long increases” in temperature, he said. “It becomes easier to have these unusual sets of conditions that now lead to records,” Brettschneider said. Alaska’s average temperature in July was 58.1 degrees (14.5 Celsius). That’s 5.4 degrees (3 Celsius) above average and 0.8 degrees (0.4 Celsius) higher than the previous warmest month of July 2004, NOAA said. The effects were felt from the Arctic Ocean to the world’s largest temperate rainforest on Alaska’s Panhandle. READ MORE