'This is unprecedented': Alert, Nunavut, is warmer than Victoria

Weather watchers are focused on the world's most northerly community, which is in the middle of a record-breaking heat wave.

"It's really quite spectacular," said David Phillips, Environment Canada's chief climatologist. "This is unprecedented."

The weather agency confirmed that Canadian Forces Station Alerthit a record of 21 C on Sunday. On Monday, the military listeningpost on the top of Ellesmere Island had reached 20 C by noon and inched slightly higher later in the day.

Alert was warmer both days than Victoria, B.C., a Canadian go-tofor balmy climes.

The average July high for Alert is 7 C. Phillips said that means the heat wave at the top of the world is the equivalent of Torontoregistering a daytime high of 42 C.

"It's nothing that you would have ever seen."

Our models for the rest of the summer are saying, 'Get used to it.'- David Phillips, Environment Canada

A military spokesman said nobody at the high-security station, which monitors electronic signals and communications, was available to say if soldiers had swapped parkas for flip-flops.

Phillips said it's the latest anomaly in what's been a long, hotsummer across the Arctic.

Iqaluit saw the mercury rise to 23.5 C on July 9, Nunavut Day the highest ever for that day. Alaska had its second-warmest June on record.

Records have been falling not by fractions, but by largemargins.

"That's what we're seeing more often," Phillips said. "It's not just half a degree or a 10th of a millimetre. It's like hitting a ball out of the ballpark. It is so different thanwhat the previous record was."

More is to come, he predicted.

"Our models for the rest of the summer are saying, 'Get used to it."'

In Alert's case, the source of the Arctic beach weather is alarge current of air that somehow found its way north from the U.S.southeast, Phillips said.

It could be related to changes in the jet stream, a fast-moving, high-altitude river of air that moves west to east. That current hasslowed in recent years and has become more unstable, sometimeslooping much farther north or south than normal.

Many scientists believe the changes are at least partly theresult of melting sea ice.

"It's almost as if you're seeing these extremes more oftenbecause of the jet stream that has a different look and a differentpattern," Phillips said. "That's what we saw when we had those 20-degree temperatures in Iqaluit."

It's part of a pattern, he said. He's cautious about attributingspecific events to any one cause, but not about naming one of the main drivers.

"With temperatures you've never seen before, you can't dismissit as not having a climate change component."