Warm Weather, Its Effects on Us and the Iditarod

17 February 2012
6:24 PM

Sunrise at	8:44 AM	in direction	117°	East-southeast
Sunset at	5:27 PM	in direction	243°	West-southwest

Duration of day: 8 hours, 43 minutes (6 minutes, 49 seconds longer than yesterday)

We have twelve remaining days in February and I am half expecting the 4th coldest January recorded for Fairbanks to be followed by the 4th warmest February.  To say it has been unseasonably warm is an understatement in the magnitude of 6.5 on the Richter scale.  This is not just unseasonable, it is dang scary.

I was not living in Fairbanks in 2003, the year the Iditarod restart took place here instead of Willow.   The reason cited was lack of snow.  I have frustrated myself trying to find official records of average low and high temperatures and cumulative snowfall around Willow, AK, where the the restart occurs.  If one record is correct, that year, like this year, was quite warm, but there was 66+ inches of snow in February.  Yet the discussion about the restart began as early as February 9, 2003, "Iditarod organizers weigh Fairbanks restart".  I assume the conditions around Willow were not the full deciding factor.

Just recently, I heard via my son that the trails around Willow are wet and sloppy.  Since no such talk has been publicized, we are left to assume that despite sloshy trail, it will start in Willow.  Hopefully that means the trail over the mountains is still good.

The Iditarod is not the only facet of our lives affected by the unseasonably warm weather, but it is one of the really big events here in Alaska that gets national attention.  Yet, I see signs of abnormally warm February everywhere.  Early today, a thick layer of soil/gravel was strewn along all of the walks at UAF (University of Fairbanks), where I work (later on we watched the maintenance crew use the sidewalk cat brush the soil out of the way while polishing the ice up nicely, but oh well).

Similar to our sidewalk maintenance equipment

The rapidly melting snow has created unusually icy conditions throughout the city.  I can say with complete certainty, the roads are not as bad as Anchorage, but we have a lot of foot traffic around UAF. The mud tracked into the hallways was something we usually see in spring rather than February.

I see the suggestion of buds on the trees.  I hate to see bud casings start before March at the earliest.  What if it does get cold again?   On the other hand, what if it stays warm and we go into spring with no more snow?  The trees rely on deep snow, melting slowly through March and part of April to feed them through the spring.  Most of the summer rains, if we have them, is run-off.  We could be looking at tinder dry conditions for a region that has already been beset by more than its fair share of large scale forest fires during the early summer in the last decade.

Wells can be depleted.  In the hills, most folks don't have a deep enough water table to have a well.  They are already carrying water in from the city water sources.  However, we do have a well which we share with a neighbor.  We could possibly run out .. yikes, what a thought.

Houses collapse as the permafrost melts.  It's true.  I have seen it.  My first visit was in 2000.  I visited my daughter the week of Spring Equinox.  It was very cold when I arrived, and began to warm up slightly by the time I left, just after the Equinox.  At that time there were two 4-plexes on Farmer's Loop.  I look at everything; to observe seems to be an intricate part of my nature, so I carefully looked at the apartments and noted the people living in them.  It looked cosy and conveniently close to campus.

I came back a year later and it looked much the same, but the next year it seemed there was a dip in the middle of the building.  I wondered if that could be true.  The following year it was clearly so.  In 2004 the house bowed in the middle.   2005 and 2006 saw the situation worsening.  By 2007 one side of the house was no longer livable and by 2008 it had been removed.  There is nothing on the lot where the building had been.

I saw new construction occur along Farmer's Loop, but didn't remember what was there since it was farther to the East than where I normally traveled when visiting my daughter.  When they built, they carefully laid several layers of gravel before building upon pilings above the ground in the fashion of houses built over permafrost.   Later I found out that this was not the first time that section had held a home.  It had been removed sometime before due to the same conditions I saw nearer the University on Farmer's Loop.

Those who think the climate is not changing more rapidly than normal are simply not looking.