Climate Warming in Fairbanks Region, Alaska

1
Climate Warming in Fairbanks Region, Alaska

• Remi CANDAELE
• GIS 394K.3
• 12/07/2006

2
Initial Objectives

• Preoccupation for climate warming evolution of
  climatic and hydrologic parameters
• Climatic parameters precipitation, snowfall,
  thickness of snow layer, temperature
• Hydrologic parameters flow rates of principal
  basin rivers
• Use GIS to create maps of these evolutions

3
Fairbanks Region

• Fairbanks North Star Borough County
• Central to East-Central Alaska
• Geo. Coordinates
• Fairbanks 2nd largest city in Alaska
• Why this region ?
• Close to the Artic Circle
• No dams built on rivers between 1992 2004
• Population 30,000 inhabitants
• No interactions with the sea temperature

4
Preliminary Study

• Period 1992 2004 Evolution of temperature

No overall trend
Extent to the maximum period of available data
7 Stations in county with data before 1976
5
Outline

• Climate Data downloaded from NCDC monthly
  precipitation, temperature, snowfall thickness
  of snow layer
• Data Processing with PivotChart and Macro VB
  under Excel
• Trendlines of parameters
• Raster

6
Localization
Urban Area
7
Mean Temperature Evolution
Over 6 stations Increase of 0.06F per Year
8
Mean Temperature Evolution
Industry, Factories
9
Mean Temperature Evolution
Increase of 0.07F per Year
10
Annual Snowfall Evolution
No significant evolution
11
Annual Snowfall Evolution
Homogeneous
12
Annual Precipitation Evolution Echec
Dams constructed on Chena and Tanana Rivers No
comparison possible
Homogenization
13
Conclusion

• Stay optimistic !!!
• Northern lights