The change doesn’t reflect unprecedented temperatures, with Fairbanks having reached 90 degrees twice in 2024, Srinivasan said. It’s purely an administrative change by the weather service.
I think this is a bit disingenuous. Sure, it's not technically "unprecedented" because it has happened before, specifically last year, but the change is because they want to better help people, and better helping people means making this change because hotter temperatures are happening more because of climate change.
Thoman also clarified that the term swap doesn’t have anything to do with climate change.
They may not be directly citing climate change, but it's absolutely the root cause. I wonder if they're just trying to stay under Trump's radar so he doesn't make them roll it back because they said the C phrase. In bad political times doing good sometimes means speaking the party line while doing good works behind their backs.