Climate Watch

The North Slope, and especially Utqiaġvik, often make headlines for how rapidly temperatures are warming in recent years. That’s understandable, as temperatures are rising rapidly there, especially in autumn and again late winter. And it helps that there has been a Weather Bureau/National Weather Service station at Utqiaġvik for more than a century. But it’s greatly underappreciated how rapidly it is warming in early winter in western Alaska, but especially in the climate Bering Using analysis Strait the and new, tool on fine from St. Lawrence. scale the

Barge European Union, caught we can readily

see this by comparing the December

loose average in temperature Bering in the ten years 2011-2020 against the average of the previous 30 years. As you can see, there is a large area extending from Wrangel Island in the northwest to St. Lawrence Island in the south where the past ten Decembers have averaged more than 6°F warmer than the 1981-2010 average. Of course, it’s no mystery why it’s warming so much in this region: loss of early winter sea ice. Another thing that strikes me with this graphic is how quickly the east warming or west. That’s drops no off surprise: moving the warming effect from the loss of ice is drifting most dramatic immediately adjacent to the ocean. We Strait see the same effect on the North Slope in the autumn. But in our region, because there are no easily available, real-time sources of climate information for Little Diomede, Gambell or Savoonga, we can guess that a common assumption is that what’s happening in Nome (where the climate data is reported) is representative of the entire region. And you know just how wrong that can be, whether it’s east to Unalakleet or west to the Bering Strait.