Fairbanks' Changing Climate

In March of 1973, Nature magazine published a short report on research on global climate changes during the past 20 years or so. It stated that climatologists generally accept the fact that the earth's climate is tending toward an ice age of some sort and that a new North American ice sheet may be forming.

Since we are talking bout the relatively near future, with is the implication for Alaska? Probably not much. Although one tends to think of ice sheets occurring when the weather is very cold everywhere, this is not necessarily true. Even at the height of the last ice age, temperatures around Fairbanks were probably much as they are now. Of course, then as now, one could say that an ice age descends upon Fairbanks every winter.

But a changing climate affects weather patterns also and here Fairbanks shows some effect. Precipitation records for the last 20 years show a steady decrease in rainfall. (1967 was a spectacular exception.) The average annual rainfall in Fairbanks 20 years ago was 11.9 inches; since that time it has dropped to 10.7 inches. Local weather reports now show that the summer of 1976 was the sixth driest on record.

Records for Anchorage also show a decrease. It is not as noticeable in that area because the climate tends to be a damper to begin with. Records for the rest of Alaska have not yet been examined.