RAFscience: Time for Climate

Given that Alaska has a high location latitude, the territory is familiar to severe seasonal variability. This environment leads to the warmer weather in the summer and frigid cold winters to keep ‘Frosty the Snowman’ around longer than here in Denver. These conditions occur when Fairbanks has clear skies and unruffled winds—especially due to the prime location in the valley. Fairbanks sitting in the Tanana Valley surrounded on by the Alaska, Kuskokwim, and the Yukon-Tanana Uplands mountain Ranges. “Almost nowhere on Earth are surface-based temperature inversions stronger than in the Interior of Alaska.”[1]

http://www.greatlandofalaska.com/reference/ranges.html#alaska

The cold continental polar air mass troughs down the slopes to the valley base, where it gets trapped. Once this air is trapped in the valley base it circulates around the residing community with freezing temperatures—burr. In the winters, the mean temperature average is slightly below freezing. Also, during the winter because of this inverse created by being in the valley produces ice fog. The ice fog is a dense layer of suspended ice crystals, caused by gases being emitted from the surrounding urban island.[2]

*(Web Cams can be seen through the links at the top of RAFscience blog)

Under the Köppen-Geiger, Fairbanks, is considered part of the subarctic climate.[3] This climate covers an extensive area; western Alaska to the Newfoundland, and Norway to the Pacific coast of Russia. The subartic climate may also be referred by as the taiga. In the taiga, coniferous trees are native, but, not too many other plants. In the summer the residents will encounter millions of insects though, and birds migrate there every year.[4]

http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/taiga.htm

[1]Shulski, Martha , and Michael Mogil. "Alaska's Climate and Weather."Weatherwise Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2011. <hhttp://www.weatherwise.org/Archives/Back%20Issues/2009/January-February%202009/full-shulski-mogil.html>.

[2] "The Interior." Alaska Climate Research Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2011. <http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/Stations/I

[3]Lutgens, Frederick K., Edward J. Tarbuck, and Dennis Tasa. "World Climate" The Atmosphere: an Introduction to Meteorology. 11th ed. New York: Prentice Hall, 2010. 441. Print.

[4]"Taiga Biomes." Blue Planet Biomes. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2011. <http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/taiga.htm>.