Heat Advisories Come to Alaska

This isn’t to say that hot temperatures have never graced Alaska before, but in the past the NWS would only issue special weather statements. But with hot weather increasingly the norm, they’ve changed their tune.

Fairbanks is expected to see temperatures in the mid-80s for the next few days, peaking on Sunday but lasting into next week — clearly not the sort of 100-plus-degree heat waves that can cause serious problems in other parts of the country and the world, but in a place where the average in June is more like mid-60s it can still be hard to handle. “Individuals and pets not accustomed to these unusually hot temperatures for this region may experience heat related concerns,” the NWS advisory reads.

It won’t be the last of these. Alaska, like the rest of the far north, is warming two to four times as fast as the rest of the planet. Statewide, the average temperature has risen by more than three degrees Fahrenheit over the past half-century; six of its ten warmest years since 1900 have occurred in the past 15. (Regional variations make warmest-year records noisier at the state level, whereas all of the past 10 years are the warmest 10 on record for the globe in total. Still, it hasn’t had a year crack the top ten coldest since 1975.) Its 27,000 glaciers are on their way out, thinning by an average of three feet between 2000 and 2019; melting permafrost is helping erode coastlines, pushing people out of their homes and towns.

This particular heat wave doesn’t seem like it will be all that devastating, but it it’s at least useful to consider as a marker for the new era. Hotter, everywhere.