Like it is affecting a lot of things in the north, our warming climate is affecting the Last Great Race. There are some nuances, however, and to suss it all out, we brought in our resident climatologist, Brian Brettschneider with the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who we hear from regularly on a segment on Alaska Public Media called Ask a Climatologist. Brettschneider says mushers and others on Alaska's western coast are seeing open water because a confluence of factors has caused historic low sea ice in the Bering Sea this spring.