NO SNOW FOR IDITAROD
Climate change affects dogsled race
The start of the world’s most famous sled dog race is covered largely in barren gravel, forcing Iditarod organizers to move the start farther north where there is snow and ice.
A weather pattern that buried the eastern U.S. in snow has left Alaska fairly warm and relatively snow-free this winter, especially south of the Alaska Range.
The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race starts Saturday with a ceremonial run through Anchorage. But the official start two days later has been moved 360 kilometres north, over the Alaska Range, to Fairbanks to avoid the area that left many mushers bruised and bloodied last year.
One musher last year was taken out by a rescue helicopter after hitting his head on a tree stump in the Farewell Burn. Knocked unconscious for at least an hour, Scott Janssen got back on the trail after waking up. But shortly after, he suffered a broken ankle while walking on ice trying to corral a loose dog.
Iditarod officials said the conditions are worse this year. The race’s chief executive officer, Stan Hooley, called them “pretty miserable.”
This year’s race will feature 78 mushers, including six former champions and 20 rookies.
Alaskans can thank the jet stream, which has been delivering warm air from the Pacific, said Dave Snider, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
“That position of the jet has been pretty stagnant, or at least in the general same position for a long period of time. While that’s allowing a lot of cold air to flow out of the Arctic into the Midwest and the eastern seaboard, we’re locked into the warmer part of that pattern,” he said.
Anchorage gets about 150 centimetres of snow in a normal year; this year it has had only about 50 centimetres.
The new route, which puts mushers on river ice for about 960 kilometres, could level the playing field.
“Nobody has a plan,” race director Mark Nordman said. “You’re not going to be stopping and putting your snow hook into the same tree you had the last 20 years.”