Climate Watch

By Rick Thoman Alaska Climate Specialist Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy International Arctic Research Center, UAF

Very strong winds rocked the Seward Peninsula on Sunday January 9, with wind gusting over 55 mph in some areas. The strong winds were not the result of a nearby storm system, but rather due to the difference in pressure between the North Slope and southern Chukchi Sea and much lower pressure over the southern Bering Sea. Winds were especially fierce at Golovin, where the FAA weather station at the airstrip reported sustained winds above 60 mph for several hours Sunday and a peak gust of 76 mph, though amazingly there was no significant damage reported. Winds at Nome Airport peaked at 59 mph and Shaktoolik at 54 mph. Because of the ice crust from the late December rains and a solid wind crust, most areas did not experience low visibilities because there was no blowing snow. Unusually, winds through the Bering Strait and on St. Lawrence Island were not nearly as strong during this wind storm on Sunday compared to areas farther east.

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time, and as we know first-hand, no place is experiencing more extreme impacts than the Arctic.

The International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks is making it easy for people anywhere in the world to gain a basic understanding of climate change issues in the circumpolar North through a new massive open online course, MOOC for short. This MOOC, titled “Climate Change in Arctic Environments” went online in early November and already 800 people from 64 countries have registered for the course. We’ve brought together experts from around the Arctic: leading scientists and experts speak about modern climate science and the impacts of change across atmospheric, marine, terrestrial and human systems. It’s about much more than just temperatures or sea ice, even though these are in some ways the most obvious changes. The course is divided into a series of eight to 10-minute videos that provide an overview of the state of Arctic climate change as it relates to topics such as sea ice, glaciers, fish, birds, Indigenous knowledge, international policy and more. This is an online course that has both free and paid options and can be viewed whenever it is convenient and in small bits at a time. In short, we’ve worked to make this as accessible to people with varying amounts of time, interests and internet access. Paid participants gain permanent access to the course and can proceed at their own pace. Those accessing the course for free have four weeks after they register to take the course or download the videos. The course will be online until May 17, 2022.

The web address is https://www.edx.org/course/climatechange-in-arctic-environments or search for “IARC MOOC” and it will be at or near the top of the list.

A portion of this week’s Climate Watch was written with assistance from Heather McFarland at the International Arctic Research Center.