By Yereth Rosen

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - The shrunken Arctic ice pack could be to blame for the warm rains showering Alaska while typically milder Georgia and Florida freeze, experts said on Friday.

The phenomenon, called "reverse Arctic Oscillation," involves the exchange of heat from dark-surfaced open water to the atmosphere and the resulting north-south movement of weather patterns.

"You get a warm Arctic and you get cold outbreaks in the middle latitudes," Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, said Friday.

Arctic ice coverage this December was the lowest for any December since satellite records began in 1979, the center reported this week.

But the real issue is the wide extent of ice melt at the summer's end, Serreze said.

Arctic ice coverage in September was the third lowest since the center began keeping records, a condition that caused heat to linger in the Arctic, creating a lag effect probably still evident, he said.

While dramatic warming in the Arctic is well documented, the question of long-term weather changes over a wider area is "very cutting-edge stuff" and yet unproven, Serreze said.

"Could the annual decline of ice extent that we've seen actually be starting to alter weather patterns?' he said. "It's a real example of why we've got to realize the Arctic is important."

'ICEPOCALYPSE'

The eastern Arctic has been particularly warm this winter, especially around Canada's Baffin Island and Hudson Bay, according to the center. There, much of the water remains ice-free; it is usually completely frozen over by November, according to the center.

But Alaska has had its share of winter warmth.

Fairbanks residents are still recovering from November's "Icepocalypse," when rain fell on for a record 39 consecutive hours, coating the city in thick ice and closing schools and government offices.

"We still have ice from that storm on some of our less-traveled roads up here," said Chris Cox, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Fairbanks.

Any winter rain in that part of Alaska is highly unusual, Cox said. November's rain stretched all the way to Barrow, Alaska's northernmost community, according to National Weather Service records.

Since then, Alaska weather has fluctuated wildly.

December was bone chilling. Anchorage temperatures were about 6 degrees below average over the month, while in Fairbanks - where residents endured 27 days when thermometers failed to register above zero - temperatures were 12 degrees below average, according to the National Weather Service.

Balmy weather returned a week ago.

In Fairbanks, "We went from 41 below to 41 above in basically just around two weeks' time," Cox said.

In Anchorage, skating rinks and ski trails melted away, and a sled-dog race was canceled because the 48-degree temperature was too hot for the dogs.