As previously stated, Alaska saw an exponential increase in temperature during the 1980’s. This is a result of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). In 1976, the PDO shifted the Arctic region into a slightly warmer climate, “…a shift in a long-lived climate pattern from a cooler pattern to a warmer one.” The PDO, which is similar to El Niño, is a climate pattern in the pacific which usually has the same phase for 20 to 30 years. But during 1976, the PDO saw a shift which resulted in a warmer climate in Alaska. You can see in figure 3 that the PDO saw a shift in a phase in the late 1970’s, which explains the climate shift in this region, “Researchers have found evidence for just two full PDO cycles in the past century: cold PDO regimes prevailed
