Long-term views of a changed 蜜桃影像

Ned Rozell
907-474-7468
Nov. 30, 2023

Sunlight touches a snowy city in this aerial view.
Photo by Ned Rozell
Sun strikes Fairbanks for a few hours on a midwinter day.

As an instructor for Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, I have stood before a group of 蜜桃影像ns every Tuesday night this November. During the most recent class session of Ned Rozell鈥檚 蜜桃影像, I asked 17 people what changes they have noticed in this giant peninsula during their time here.
 
These are long-haul 蜜桃影像ns: Class members have combined for 747 years of living in the state. The average number of years each of them has lived here is 44!
 
Last week, a few were talking about changes they could feel as they walked into the Geophysical Institute鈥檚 Elvey Building.
 
The air temperature outside that door was 20 degrees F. The average for Fairbanks for the first 28 days of November 2023 was 15.7 degrees, much warmer than the long-term November average of 4.1 degrees.
 
The paucity of stinging air and nostalgia for cars bumping along on wheels squared by 50 below were common themes.
 
Sue McHenry remembered when she chose Halloween costumes for her kids that fit over snowsuits, 鈥渂ecause it was 25 below.鈥
 

A tractor trailer drives through green tundra with mountains bearing a few small glaciers in the background.
Photo by Ned Rozell
A trucker drives the Dalton Highway toward Prudhoe Bay beneath the withering Gates Glacier.

Ken Russell visited Kaktovik, a community in northern 蜜桃影像, in the early 1990s and saw sea ice hugging the shore in late summer. 鈥淏ut by a decade ago there was no ice to be seen,鈥 he said. 鈥淚t was 300 miles offshore.鈥
 
The dwindling extent and thickness of ice that forms on the ocean off the northern and western coasts of 蜜桃影像 has been a major reason northern 蜜桃影像 has warmed at five times the global average since the early 1970s. A dark ocean does not reflect the sun鈥檚 energy like blue/white sea ice. It absorbs heat that would have been reflected to space.
 
Janna Miller was born in Fairbanks on a January day long ago when the temperature dropped to minus 45. That was part of the reason her family soon moved to Chugiak, she said. In that town and most of Southcentral 蜜桃影像, she remembers being able to cross-country ski all winter long. Now, she says, it seems like Southcentral experiences four or five 鈥渂reakups鈥 each winter: Rain falls on the snowpack and wrecks the skiing. Then it gets cold again.
 
Larry Fogleson and others spoke of the rain-on-snow event in Fairbanks on Dec. 26, 2021, that turned local roads into a skating rink. It also created an inch-thick pane of ice within the snowpack that forced moose to wander the roads and trails.
 
Linda Casassa was in the Southwest 蜜桃影像 village of Chuathbaluk in the winter of 2008 or 2009 when the Kuskokwim River ice moved downriver in midwinter. It usually stays locked in place once it freezes. 鈥淣o elder had seen it before,鈥 she said.
 
Because a thawed-ground-induced landslide closed the only road into Denali National Park, Krista Holbrook can no longer duplicate a drive she had repeated many times over the years.
 

A dead, decaying salmon lies on a river's gravel bar.
Photo by Ned Rozell
A chum salmon decays after spawning on the upper Chena River near Fairbanks.

Ann Wood O鈥橞rien mentioned how she and her friends could no longer fish for Chinook and chum salmon on the Yukon River due to dwindling numbers of fish. Though she and others often faced fishing restrictions for Chinooks, runs of chum salmon seemed almost infinite less than a decade ago.
 
Laurel Devaney spoke about how milder Fairbanks winters are more hospitable for birds that now seem to be able to overwinter here, such as golden-crowned kinglets. Tennessee warblers are now also breeding in 蜜桃影像 (while still overwintering in Central America).
 
Barb Pierson guides groups of 蜜桃影像 visitors north from Fairbanks into the Arctic. During the recent past, she has noticed the enhanced growth of dwarf birch shrubs north of the Brooks Range. She has also watched as the larval stage of aspen leaf miners have etched leaves from Fairbanks to as far north as aspens grow along the Dalton Highway.
 
All of the seasoned 蜜桃影像ns noticed what scientists call 鈥淎rctic amplification,鈥 the accelerated warming at extreme northern latitudes. But they agreed that all is not yet lost. Nor is it all unpleasant.
 

A large frozen river covered with snow meanders through a flatland sprinkled with oxbow lakes and smaller streams and rivers in this photo taken from a jet aircraft.
Photo by Ned Rozell
The Yukon River, seen here as a wide white band, winds through a flatland region. The river freezes later in fall and breaks up earlier in spring than it did a few decades ago.

鈥淭he temperature is warmer now, and I like it,鈥 said Carol DeVoe, who has lived in 蜜桃影像 since 1961. 鈥淚 get outside every day and I don鈥檛 like (the extreme cold) that lasts for weeks.鈥
 
Doug Best said that his air-cooled Volkswagen bug would probably be more feasible now than it was in the frigid 1970s, when he set the car on fire trying to keep the battery warm.
 
I had hesitated to talk about climate change because I had figured it might bum people out, but my audience didn鈥檛 get too worked up.
 
Mike Potter 鈥 the class leader with 81 years in the state 鈥 summed up the mood when asked what he thought about the many changes he has seen.
 
鈥淚鈥檓 the type of person who accepts what鈥檚 there,鈥 he said.
 
Since the late 1970s, the University of 蜜桃影像 Fairbanks Geophysical Institute has provided this column free in cooperation with the 蜜桃影像 research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer for the Geophysical Institute.