It is due to anthropogenic global warming and the climate crisis.

Yes, yes, yes, Alaska is warmer today than the lower 48.

Alaska is the largest state in the United States, (click here) accounting for about 20% of the total area of the United States and more than twice the land area of Texas. Alaska includes lands on both sides of the Arctic Circle, which makes the United States an Arctic nation. The state spans a wide range of climatic and ecological conditions that include rainforests, glaciers, boreal forest, tundra, peatlands, and meadows....

...Over the past 60 years, the average temperature across Alaska has increased by approximately 3°F. This increase is more than twice the warming seen in the rest of the United States. Warming in the winter has increased by an average of 6°F and has led to changes in ecosystems, such as earlier breakup of river ice in the spring. As the climate continues to warm, average annual temperatures in Alaska are projected to increase an additional 2 to 4°F by the middle of this century. Precipitation in Alaska is projected to increase during all seasons by the end of this century. Despite increased precipitation, the state is likely to become drier due to greater evaporation caused by warming temperatures and longer growing seasons....

But, we already know why. It is well documented and it is documented by far more than the USA EPA.

The reason Alaska is gaining ground on Florida as far as temperature goes is because of anthropogenic climate crisis.

Here is what makes Alaska so interesting to that fact: As of 2014, the population of Alaska was 736,732 Americans and Native Americans. It has the longest coastline of any state. Alaska is 663,300 square miles of which are high quality wilderness. That means Alaska has a very healthy carbon load for the people per square mile. It not only has the help of vast wildness, Alaska has a neighbor in Canada that helps protect that wilderness and values winter and it's economy and it is within the Arctic Circle.

By every measure, Alaska should not be warming. At all. If anything with all the concrete jungles in the lower 48 there should be vast more warming than Alaska. But, Alaska is warming, it is losing ice mass everywhere and it is actually a canary in the coal mine.

Alaska because of it's long and abundant coastlines have ice fields that are "Temperate" icefields. What does that mean? Temperate icefields are those closest to the oceans. Oceans are warming. Oceans do not lose their heat quickly. Water is the moderator to climate. Temperate icefields and glaciers are the ones that actually melt at 32 degrees or 0 Celsius. Temperate icefields are effected by warm ocean air before high ice in Antarctica.

So, yes, Alaska is warmer than the lower 48, especially since the frigid temperatures of the Arctic OCEAN have grown smaller and smaller in diameter. This year scientists in Europe made their annual trip to the ice of the Arctic Circle and found it to be first year ice instead of at least half a decade old. The ice was not only young ice, it was fragile. The Arctic Ocean is coming closer and closer to being ice free and that is why the USA is receiving more and more severe winter storms. The Arctic Ocean was the place where the Arctic Vortex had stability. There is nothing maintaining it's presence anymore in one cold place.

Why is that important? Because the Arctic Vortex is part of that thermostat to maintain Earth biologically viable. With a chronic source of greenhouse gases, there is no limit to the warming and Earth obviously cannot compensate. The danger to every form of life on Earth is a homogenized climate that ends the thermostat and simply warms more and more without abatement.

You can say I am wrong, but, when it comes to climate I haven't been wrong yet!