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  • This set of files includes downscaled projections of decadal means of annual day of freeze or thaw (ordinal day of the year), and length of growing season (numbers of days, 0-365) for each decade from 2010 - 2100 at 2km x 2km meter spatial resolution. Each file represents a decadal mean of an annual mean calculated from mean monthly data. ---- The spatial extent includes Alaska, the Yukon Territory, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. Each set of files originates from one of five top ranked global circulation models from the CMIP5/AR5 models and RPCs, or is calculated as a 5 Model Average. Day of Freeze, Day of Thaw, Length of Growing Season calculations: Estimated ordinal days of freeze and thaw are calculated by assuming a linear change in temperature between consecutive months. Mean monthly temperatures are used to represent daily temperature on the 15th day of each month. When consecutive monthly midpoints have opposite sign temperatures, the day of transition (freeze or thaw) is the day between them on which temperature crosses zero degrees C. The length of growing season refers to the number of days between the days of thaw and freeze. This amounts to connecting temperature values (y-axis) for each month (x-axis) by line segments and solving for the x-intercepts. Calculating a day of freeze or thaw is simple. However, transitions may occur several times in a year, or not at all. The choice of transition points to use as the thaw and freeze dates which best represent realistic bounds on a growing season is more complex. Rather than iteratively looping over months one at a time, searching from January forward to determine thaw day and from December backward to determine freeze day, stopping as soon as a sign change between two months is identified, the algorithm looks at a snapshot of the signs of all twelve mean monthly temperatures at once, which enables identification of multiple discrete periods of positive and negative temperatures. As a result more realistic days of freeze and thaw and length of growing season can be calculated when there are idiosyncrasies in the data. Please note that these maps represent climatic estimates only. While we have based our work on scientifically accepted data and methods, uncertainty is always present . Uncertainty in model outputs tends to increase for more distant climatic estimates from present day for both historical summaries and future projections.

  • This set of files includes downscaled projections of decadal means of annual day of freeze or thaw (ordinal day of the year), and length of growing season (numbers of days, 0-365) for each decade from 2010 - 2100 at 771x771 meter spatial resolution. Each file represents a decadal mean of an annual mean calculated from mean monthly data. ---- The spatial extent includes Alaska. Each set of files originates from one of five top ranked global circulation models from the CMIP5/AR5 models and RPCs, or is calculated as a 5 Model Average. Day of Freeze, Day of Thaw, Length of Growing Season calculations: Estimated ordinal days of freeze and thaw are calculated by assuming a linear change in temperature between consecutive months. Mean monthly temperatures are used to represent daily temperature on the 15th day of each month. When consecutive monthly midpoints have opposite sign temperatures, the day of transition (freeze or thaw) is the day between them on which temperature crosses zero degrees C. The length of growing season refers to the number of days between the days of thaw and freeze. This amounts to connecting temperature values (y-axis) for each month (x-axis) by line segments and solving for the x-intercepts. Calculating a day of freeze or thaw is simple. However, transitions may occur several times in a year, or not at all. The choice of transition points to use as the thaw and freeze dates which best represent realistic bounds on a growing season is more complex. Rather than iteratively looping over months one at a time, searching from January forward to determine thaw day and from December backward to determine freeze day, stopping as soon as a sign change between two months is identified, the algorithm looks at a snapshot of the signs of all twelve mean monthly temperatures at once, which enables identification of multiple discrete periods of positive and negative temperatures. As a result more realistic days of freeze and thaw and length of growing season can be calculated when there are idiosyncrasies in the data.

  • These data contain historical and future projections of percent land cover from 1950 to 2100, as simulated by the Alaska Thermokarst Model for the boreal region. The data are 1km spatial resolution. The climate data used to drive the model simulations are from the Climate Research Unit, Time Series 4.0 (CRU_TS40) for the historical period (1950 to 2015), and from RCP 8.5 and global circulation models NCAR-CCSM4 and MRI-CGCM3 for the projected period (2016 to 2100). Datasets from the years 1950, 2000, 2050, and 2100 are provided. Annual maps are available upon request. Please note that this data is used to fill in a gap in available data for the Integrated Ecosystem Model (IEM) and does not constitute a complete or precise measurement of this variable in all locations. If used for publication, these data should be cited as the following: Genet H., Lara M., McGuire A.D., Jorgenson T.M., Euskirchen E.S., Clein J., Carman T., Rutter R., Rupp S., Breen A., Kurkowski T., Bennett A., Torgenson B., Romanovski V., Marchenko S. 2018. Land cover dynamic in the Tanana Flats from 1950 to 2100 driven by thermokarst activity.

  • This 1km land cover dataset represent highly modified output originating from the Alaska portion of the North American Land Change Monitoring System (NALCMS) 2005 dataset as well as the National Land Cover Dataset 2001. This model input dataset was developed solely for use in the ALFRESCO, TEM, GIPL and the combined Integrated Ecosystem Model landscape scale modeling studies and is not representative of any ground based observations. Use of this dataset in studies needing generalized land cover information are advised to utilize newer versions of original input datasets (2005 NALCMS 2.0, NLCD), as methods of classification have improved, including the correction of NALCMS classification errors. Original landcover data, including legends: NALCMS http://www.cec.org/north-american-land-change-monitoring-system/ NLCD 2001 https://www.mrlc.gov/data?f%5B0%5D=region%3Aalaska Final Legend: value | class name 0 | Not Modeled 1 | Black Spruce Forest 2 | White Spruce Forest 3 | Deciduous Forest 4 | Shrub Tundra 5 | Graminoid Tundra 6 | Wetland Tundra 7 | Barren lichen-moss 8 | Heath 9 | Maritime Upland Forest 10 | Maritime Forested Wetland 11 | Maritime Fen 12 | Maritime Alder Shrubland** Methods of production: Due to specific models' land cover input requirements, including the fact that each model is primarily focused on different descriptive aspects of land cover (i.e. ALFRESCO considers land cover in respect to how it burns, TEM considers land cover in respect to how it cycles carbon through the system, and GIPL considers land cover with respect to its influence on the insulative qualities of the soil).

  • This set of files includes downscaled projections of monthly totals, and derived annual, seasonal, and decadal means of monthly total precipitation (in millimeters, no unit conversion necessary) from Jan 2006 - Dec 2100 at 2km x 2km spatial resolution. Each set of files originates from one of five top ranked global circulation models from the CMIP5/AR5 models and RPCs, or is calculated as a 5 Model Average. The downscaling process utilizes PRISM climatological datasets from 1961-1990. **Brief descriptions of the datasets:** Monthly precipitation totals: The total precipitation, in mm, for the month. For Decadal outputs: 1. Decadal Average Total Monthly Precipitation: 10 year average of total monthly precipitation. Example: All January precipitation files for a decade are added together and divided by ten. 2. Decadal Average Seasonal Precipitation Totals: 10 year average of seasonal precipitation totals. Example: MAM seasonal totals for every year in a decade are added together and divided by ten. 3. Decadal Average Annual Precipitation Totals: 10 year average of annual cumulative precipitation. For seasonal means, the four seasons are referred to by the first letter of 3 months making up that season: * `JJA`: summer (June, July, August) * `SON`: fall (September, October, November) * `DJF`: winter (December, January, February) * `MAM`: spring (March, April, May) Please note that these maps represent climatic estimates only. While we have based our work on scientifically accepted data and methods, uncertainty is always present. Uncertainty in model outputs tends to increase for more distant climatic estimates from present day for both historical summaries and future projections.