Think Alaska has been warmer than normal? You just might be right.

But whether that wee simmer offers regional evidence for global warming is a complicated issue, hinging on semantics, starting dates and one somewhat inconvenient question: Warmer than what? 

First, a quick primer: The "normal temperature" or precipitation for a given weather station isn't based on some tobacco-spat hunch by a grizzled meteorologist in Carhartts. Whether measured in degrees of heat or inches of snow, "normal" derives from scientifically rigorous data recorded over a specific 30-year period. 

Until last summer, the official "normals" for Alaska were the averages seen between 1971 and 2000. But every decade or so, we jump to an updated set of 30-year "normals." On July 1, the National Climatic Data Center recalibrated new normals for the United States and Alaska based on the temperature, precipitation and other natural events recorded at some 8,000 stations between 1981 and 2010. 

In other words, weather patterns during the 1970s no longer apply, with the first decade of the 21st century taking its place. (For more information on the process, check out this slide show webcast put out by the NCDC in June.) 

Among other things, the NCDC reported that the new normals were warmer in every one of the lower 48 states. Alaska followed the same trend. 

"Overall, the updated normals in Alaska are somewhat warmer," explained Corey Bogel and Rick Thoman of the National Weather Service in Fairbanks in the winter edition of the Alaska Climate Dispatch, a quarterly publication by the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment & Policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

"By far the greatest absolute warming is in the winter, while most locations show no significant change in mid and late summer."

At seven major stations -- Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, Kodiak, Bethel, Nome and Barrow -- June warmed between 0.5 to 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit, while winter increases were higher, as much as 2 to 3 degrees. The increase in overall average annual temperatures for the new normal period ranged from a tiny .3 degree increase at Nome to 1.3 degrees at Barrow. Anchorage simmered in the middle with a .8 degree rise.

The meteorologists found the summer rise more intriguing. "Because the potential range of temperatures is so much smaller in June than in the winter, the warming in June is, at most locations, the most statistically significant change of any month," the report explained.

Precipitation also increased at these seven major stations, ranging from 2 percent more inches of rain and snow at Nome to 15 percent more at Bethel. Anchorage's new 30-year average for 1981 to 2010 clocked in at 16.58 inches of precipitation, an increase of about 3 percent over the rain and snow seen during the 30 years between 1971 and 2000.

So what explains the slightly wetter and barely warmer averages we experienced when we drop the 1970s and add the 2000s to our climate measuring stick? To a large extent, look no further than the North Pacific Ocean.