Baked Alaska

There's been an incredible heatwave in Alaska.  Again.

Before the heatwave, the Washington Post reported the prognostications of the weather boffins:

All-time heat records are at risk in Alaska in coming days as a massive and abnormally intense area of high pressure locks in and strengthens over the region.

This heat dome is expected to produce temperatures near and above the highest values ever recorded for multiple days, particularly in southern parts of the state. It’s the latest in a slew of record-shattering heat events in Alaska.

Anchorage is predicted to test or best its highest-temperature ever recorded of 85 degrees (set in 1969) on five straight days between July 4 and 8. It could even flirt with 90 degrees.

The National Weather Service in Anchorage wrote that most of southern Alaska will be “downright hot with many locations in the 80s and even low 90s.”

Anchorage’s nighttime lows may settle only in the mid-60s during this hot stretch, which is close to its average high at this time of year.

“This 7-day forecast contains the warmest 1-day, warmest 2-day, warmest 3-day, warmest 4-day, warmest 5-day, warmest 6-day, and warmest 7-day period on record for Anchorage,” tweeted Alaska climatologist Brian Brettschneider.

This heat wave is the latest in a nonstop barrage of warm weather for the northernmost state. It comes right on the heels of a June that was well above average and filled with wildfires that are persisting and/or growing into July. Spring was disturbingly warm before that, and so was winter.

It also follows a historic heat wave in Europe, which shattered records.

Alaska’s temperatures have shifted abruptly higher in the past few years, and it’s a similar story across the Arctic more broadly because of climate change.

[Read more here]

Alaska: forecast high pressure and temperature.  Source: The Washington Post

Alaskan sea temperatures 5 degrees C above normal.  Source: Rick Thoman

Annual average temperatures in Fairbanks used to be below freezing.
This year, the average is above freezing.  The last time was the El Niño of 2016.
The last six years have been among the 10 hottest ever.
Source: Rick Thoman

The BBC reported what actually happened.  And it was hotter than expected.

The US state of Alaska, part of which lies inside the Arctic Circle, is sweltering under a heatwave, with record temperatures recorded in several areas, including its largest city.

Temperatures reached 90F (32C) in Anchorage on Thursday, shattering the city's previous record of 85F.

Several other places in southern Alaska also set all-time or daily records.

Anchorage's record temperature of 90F was recorded at its airport at 17:00 on Thursday (01:00 Friday GMT), according to the National Weather Service. The previous all-time record for the city was in 1969.

Other areas in Alaska also reached similar temperatures amid the heatwave, and several recorded daily and all-time records.

[Read more here]


What sort of evidence will it take to convince the denialists that global heating is happening and that our emissions of greenhouse gases is responsible?  There was a time when the Right was cautious, evidence-based, pro-science,  and well, conservative—keen to preserve the status quo.  Now the Right has degenerated into swivel-eyed loons, unwilling to face up to the greatest crisis our civilisation faces, convinced that global heating is some sort of socialist plot.  Sad.