Abstract
During the first decade of the 21st century most of Alaska experienced a cooling shift, modifying the long-term warming trend, which has been about twice the global change up to this time. All of Alaska cooled with the exception of Northern Regions. This trend was caused by a change in sign of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), which became dominantly negative, weakening the Aleutian Low. This weakening results in less relatively warm air being advected from the Northern Pacific. This transport is especially important in winter when the solar radiation is weak. It is during this period that the strongest cooling was observed. In addition, the cooling was especially pronounced in Western Alaska, closest to the area of the center of the Aleutian Low. The changes seen in the reanalyzed data were confirmed from surface observations, both in the decrease of the North-South atmospheric pressure gradient, as well as the decrease in the mean wind speeds for stations located in the Bering Sea area.
Highlights
We analyzed the temperature change of the first decade of the 21st century for Alaska, both for annual and seasonal values
For this study we used all first order meteorological stations in Alaska, which are operated by professional meteorologist of the National Weather Service (NOAA)
Stafford et al [2] analyzed 25 Alaskan stations for the time period from 19491998 and found a mean annual temperature increase for all stations in the range of 1.0°-2.2°C, with the greatest warming occurring in Interior and Southeastern Alaska
Summary
We analyzed the temperature change of the first decade of the 21st century for Alaska, both for annual and seasonal values. For this study we used all first order meteorological stations in Alaska, which are operated by professional meteorologist of the National Weather Service (NOAA). There are 20 such stations, fairly well distributed over the different climatic zones of Alaska [1]. (1) the location of these stations is given. There are many more climate stations operating in Alaska, run by different federal, state and local entities as well as by the industry and private individuals. The quality of these stations is mixed, but it should not be taken as an indication that all of these are of poor quality
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