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  • This set of files includes downscaled historical estimates 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 1910 - 2006 (CRU TS 3.0) or 2009 (CRU TS 3.1) at 2x2 kilometer spatial resolution. Each file represents a decadal mean of an annual mean calculated from mean monthly data. **Day of freeze or thaw units are ordinal day 15-350 with the below special cases.** *Day of Freeze (DOF)* `0` = Primarily Frozen `365` = Rarely Freezes *Day of Thaw (DOT)* `0` = Rarely Freezes `365` = Primarily Frozen *Length of Growing Season (LOGS)* is simply the number of days between the DOT and DOF. ---- The spatial extent includes Alaska, the Yukon Territories, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. Each set of files originates from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU, http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/) TS 3.0 or 3.1 dataset. TS 3.0 extends through December 2006 while 3.1 extends to December 2009. **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.

  • This dataset consists of observed and modeled wind data at an hourly temporal resolution for 67 communities in Alaska. Hourly ASOS/AWOS wind data (speed and direction) available via the Iowa Environmental Mesonet AK ASOS network were accessed and assessed for completeness, and 67 of those stations were determined to be sufficiently complete for climatological analysis. Those data were cleaned to produce regular hourly data, and adjusted via a combination of changepoint analysis and quantile mapping to correct for potential changes in sensor location and height. Historical (ERA-Interim reanalysis) and projected (GFDL-CM3 and NCAR-CCSM4) outputs from a dynamical downscaling effort were extracted at pixels intersecting the chosen communities and were bias-corrected using the cleaned station data. This bias-corrected historical and projected data along with cleaned station data make up the entirety of this dataset as a collection of CSV files, for each combination of community and origin (station or model name).

  • This set of files includes downscaled historical estimates of monthly temperature (in degrees Celsius, no unit conversion necessary) from 1901 - 2013 (CRU TS 3.22) at 10 min x 10 min spatial resolution. The downscaling process utilizes CRU CL v. 2.1 climatological datasets from 1961-1990.

  • A landfast ice dataset along the Chukchi Sea continental shelf, spanning 1996-2023. Spatial resolution is 100 m. Each month of the ice season (October through July) is summarized over three 9-year periods (1996-2005, 2005-2014, 2014-2023) using the minimum, maximum, median, and mean distance of SLIE from the coastline. The minimum extent indicates the region that was always occupied by landfast ice during a particular calendar month. The median extent indicates where landfast occurred at least 50% of the time. The maximum extent represents regions that may only have been landfast ice on one occasion during the selected time period. The mean SLIE position for the each month and and time period is also included. The dataset is derived from three sources: seaward landfast ice images derived from synthetic aperture radar images from the RadarSAT and EnviSAT constellations (1996-2008), the Alaska Sea Ice Program (ASIP) ice charts (2008-2017, 2019-2022), and the G10013 SIGID-3 Arctic Ice Charts produced by the National Ice Center (NIC; 2017-2019, 2022-2023). Within each GeoTIFF file there are 8 different pixel values representing different characteristics: 0 - Ocean 1 - Maximum Landfast Ice Extent 2 - Median Landfast Ice Extent 3 - Minimum Landfast Ice Extent 4 - Mean Landfast Ice Edge 5 - Land 6 - Out of Domain 7 - Coast Vector Shadow The file naming convention is as follows: Chukchi_$month_$era_SLIE_MMM_summary.tif For example, the name Chukchi_05_2005-2014_SLIE_MMM_summary.tif indicates the file represents data for May 2005-2014. These data were updated on August 21, 2025 to rectify the omission of some NIC chart data sources for the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons.

  • This dataset includes 42,120 GeoTIFFs (spatial resolution: 12 km) that represent decadal (15 decades between 1950-2099) means of monthly summaries of the following variables (units, abbreviations and case match those used in the source daily resolution dataset). There are three distinct groups of variables: Meteorological, Water State, and Water Flux. Meteorological Variables - tmax (Maximum daily 2-m air temperature, °C) - tmin (Minimum daily 2-m air temperature, °C) - pcp (Daily precipitation, mm per day) Water State Variables - SWE (Snow water equivalent, mm) - IWE (Ice water equivalent, mm) - SM1 (Soil moisture layer 1: surface to 0.02 m depth, mm) - SM2 (Soil moisture layer 2: 0.02 m to 0.97 m depth, mm) - SM3 (Soil moisture layer 3: 0.97 m to 3.0 m depth, mm) Water Flux Variables - RUNOFF (Surface runoff, mm per day) - EVAP (Actual evapotranspiration, mm per day) - SNOW_MELT (Snow melt, mm per day) - GLACIER_MELT (Ice melt, mm per day) Monthly summary functions, or how the daily frequency source data are condensed into a single monthly value, are as follows: - Sum: pcp, SNOW_MELT, EVAP, GLACIER_MELT, RUNOFF - Mean: tmin, tmax, SM1, SM2, SM3 - Maximum: IWE, SWE The model-scenario combinations used to represent various plausible climate futures are: - ACCESS1-3, RCP 4.5 - ACCESS1-3, RCP 8.5 - CanESM2, RCP 4.5 - CanESM2, RCP 8.5 - CCSM4, RCP 4.5 - CCSM4, RCP 8.5 - CSIRO-Mk3-6-0, RCP 4.5 - CSIRO-Mk3-6-0, RCP 8.5 - GFDL-ESM2M, RCP 4.5 - GFDL-ESM2M, RCP 8.5 - HadGEM2-ES, RCP 4.5 - HadGEM2-ES, RCP 8.5 - inmcm4, RCP 4.5 - inmcm4, RCP 8.5 - MIROC5, RCP 4.5 - MIROC5, RCP 8.5 - MPI-ESM-MR, RCP 4.5 - MPI-ESM-MR, RCP 8.5 - MRI-CGCM3, RCP 4.5 - MRI-CGCM3, RCP 8.5 The .zip files that are available for download are organized by variable. One .zip file has all the models and scenarios and decades and months for that variable. Each GeoTIFF file has a naming convention like this: {climate variable}_{units}_{model}_{scenario}_{month abbreviation}_{summary function}_{decade start}-{decade end}_mean.tif Each GeoTIFF has a 12 km by 12 km pixel size, and is projected to EPSG:3338 (Alaska Albers).

  • 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.

  • This dataset consists of spatial representations of vegetation types produced through summarization of ALFRESCO model outputs. These specific outputs are from the Integrated Ecosystem Model (IEM) project, AR5/CMIP5 climate inputs (IEM Generation 2). ALFRESCO outputs were summarized over three future eras (2010-2039, 2040-269, 2070-2099) and a historical era (1950-2008). Both the proportions of all possible vegetation types and the modal vegetation type (most common type over a given era) are available as sub-datasets. Each are summarized over two future emissions scenarios for five CMIP5 models.

  • This set of files includes downscaled projected estimates of monthly temperature (in degrees Celsius, no unit conversion necessary) from 2006-2300* at 15km x 15km spatial resolution. They include data for Alaska and Western Canada. Each set of files originates from one of five top ranked global circulation models from the CMIP5/AR5 models and RCPs, or is calculated as a 5 Model Average. *Some datasets from the five models used in modeling work by SNAP only have data going out to 2100. This metadata record serves to describe all of these models outputs for the full length of future time available. The downscaling process utilizes CRU CL v. 2.1 climatological datasets from 1961-1990 as the baseline for the Delta Downscaling method.

  • These files include historical downscaled estimates of decadal average monthly snow-day fraction ("fs", units = percent probability from 1 – 100) for each month of the decades from 1900-1909 to 2000-2009 at 771 x 771 m spatial resolution. Each file represents a decadal average monthly mean. Version 1.0 was completed in 2015 using CMIP3. Version 2.0 was completed in 2018 using CMIP5. For more information on the methodology used to create this dataset, and guidelines for appropriate usage of the dataset, please see the data user's guide here: http://data.snap.uaf.edu/data/Base/AK_771m/historical/CRU_TS/snow_day_fraction/snow_fraction_data_users_guide.pdf

  • These annual fire history grids (0=no fire, 1=fire) were produced directly from the BLM Alaska Fire Service database and the Canadian National Fire Database. They are simply a 1x1km raster representation of their fire history polygon database that can be obtained from: http://fire.ak.blm.gov/predsvcs/maps.php http://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/datamart Note, fire history data is very unreliable before ~1950 in Alaska. Fires may have been recorded in a given year, but that does not mean all fires that occurred were successfully recorded. This data was assembled from every recorded fire that has been entered into Alaska and Canadian databases. This results in several years containing no fires at all.