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Alaska was one of the American canaries in the coal mine for global warming, and the yellow bird is turning pale.
July was the hottest month in Alaska, according to the National Ocean and Atmosphere Administration.
The sea ice has melted. Fish from the Bering Sea have been swimming at above normal temperatures. It was the same for the children of the coastal town of Nome. The forest fire season started early and stayed late. Thousands of walrus have rushed to the shore.
Unusual weather such as this could become more common with global warming, said Brian Brettschneider, research scientist at the Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Alaska has experienced "decades of" temperature increase, he said.
"It's getting easier to have these unusual conditions that now lead to recordings," Brettschneider said.
The average temperature of Alaska in July was 58.1 degrees (14.5 ° C). That's 5.4 degrees (3 degrees Celsius) above average and 0.8 degrees (0.4 Celsius) higher than the warmest month of July 2004, NOAA said.
The effects were felt from the Arctic Ocean to the world's largest temperate rainforest, the Alaska Panhandle.
Anchorage, the largest city in the state, reached for the first time on July 4, 90 degrees, 5 degrees higher than the previous record of 85.
Sea ice in northern and northwestern Alaska and other arctic regions of Alaska has returned to its lowest level ever recorded in July, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado.
July's Arctic sea ice reached a record 2.9 million square miles. It was a loss of 30,900 square miles in South Carolina, lower than the previous July record of 2012.
Sea ice is the main habitat for polar bears and a resting platform for female walrus and their young. Several thousand walruses arrived ashore on July 30, the first time they were seen in such numbers before August.
The effects were less evident in the Bering Sea off the west coast of Alaska. Lyle Britt, a NOAA biologist who oversees the agency's annual surveys of fish from the Bering Sea, was on board a trawler east of Saint Matthew Island during the first week of July .
"The ambient temperature was between 70 and 70," said Britt. "On these boats, everything is designed to keep the heat, not to evacuate the heat. It was incredibly hot inside the boat.
At the bottom of the ocean, Britt 's crew members found for the second consecutive year little evidence of a "cold pool", the east – west barrier of extremely cold waters and salty that traditionally concentrate Pacific cod and Pollock, the species used for fast food. fish sandwiches, in the southeast of the Bering Sea.
The forest fire season in Alaska began in April. The dry, hot July temperatures prolonged it. An expected rainy season, marked by southwesterly winds that drove moisture and soaking fires, did not manifest in time, said Tim Mowry, division spokesman. State forests.
"It extended the fire season until July," said Mowry.
In Alaska, by mid-July, crews are generally free to fight fires in other states, but about 15 people have left this year. The high fire danger around Anchorage, the Kenai Peninsula and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough has kept crews in Alaska.
"We have virtually kept all our resources in this state at this point," said Mowry.
A burning ban and restrictions on water sprinklers remain in place in Haines, just outside Tongass National Forest. July has prolonged the drought in the rainforest, said Rick Thoman, another climate expert at the International Center for Research on the Arctic.
Cities in the southern half of the rainforest have limited or no hydropower due to low water levels. This means that power must be generated by burning diesel fuel, said Thoman.
July was the hottest month measured on Earth since records began in 1880, NOAA reported on Thursday. And a UN report released earlier this month warned that global warming is threatening food supplies around the world.
But the recent heat of Alaska has had silver liners. Barley and other crops are ready to harvest, said Stephen Brown of the University of Alaska Cooperative Extension Service, Fairbanks.
The growing season has been extended for a month and if the extra days become the norm, they will expand what can be grown in the state. Brown used the heat radiated from his blacktop driveway to grow fruit that we generally do not see outside greenhouses.
"I had an exceptional harvest of tomatoes and jalapeños this summer," he said.
On the other hand, the weather stressed birch trees and made them vulnerable to leaf-eating insects.
"This gives leaf miners the opportunity to really hit them," he said. "I'm looking at my lawn right now, and I have to rake the leaves."
Brettschneider, researcher in climatology, mainly sees the negative effects of the hot July and global warming. Alaska looks like it does because of the temperature regime, he said, and in 50 years, Alaska could look like Idaho.
"We should expect changes. We should expect forests to be in different places. We should expect wildlife to move. We should expect plants to move. And in many cases, if they can not move fast enough, we should expect them to leave, "he said.
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