Pop quiz: Which area is colder, the North Pole or southern California?
The more obvious answer to this question, North Pole, has become incorrect.
In fact, in the last days of December 2015 the temperature in the High Arctic, known for its freezing cold and intense blizzards, became even higher compared to some areas in the United States such as Oklahoma City, El Paso, and southern California.
On Wednesday, the North Pole was about 40 degrees above the seasonal average high, according to the Washington Post. The Post's Capital Weather Gang examined buoy data from near the North Pole and reported a record high temperature of 33 degrees Fahrenheit.
It was substantially warmer than the usual late-December highs of minus 10 degrees F.
Meteorologist Bob Henson from The Weather Underground explained to Discovery News that while large temperature fluctuations may be relatively common in the High Arctic during this period, such warm weather in the North Pole is extremely rare.
In fact, Henson recalled that there have only been three instances since 1948 when the temperature at the North Pole reached or exceeded the freezing mark during the month of December.
Meteorologist Eric Holthaus expressed alarm over this bizarre weather condition.
"That's absolutely terrifying and incredibly rare," Holthaus told Slate.
What exactly is causing this unusual warming of the North Pole? It is the deep low pressure area in the North Atlantic, which was expected to reach maximum intensity off the coast of Iceland on Thursday, New Year's Eve.
The low pressure area, which has already brought strong winds and heavy rainfall over the United Kingdom, is pushing warm temperatures ahead of it and drawing high winds behind it.
The unusually high temperature at the North Pole may affect the formation of winter sea ice, further exacerbating the sea level rise caused by man-made climate change.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported earlier that ice formation at the North Pole is poised to reach a record low this year.
"Arctic sea ice set a new record unlike anything previously observed. The 2015 low is 350,000 square miles below that. In fact, the nine lowest Arctic sea ice extents in the satellite record have all occurred in the last nine years," the agency earlier said.
