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.

This set of files includes downscaled future projections of vapor pressure (units=hPa) at a 1km spatial scale. This data has been prepared as model input for the Integrated Ecosystem Model (IEM). There can be errors or serious limitations to the application of this data to other analyses. The data constitute the result of a downscaling procedure using 2 General Circulation Models (GCM) from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 (CMIP5) for RCP 8.5 scenario (2006-2100) monthly time series and Climatic Research Unit (CRU) TS2.0 (1961-1990,10 min spatial resolution) global climatology data. 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. RCPs: 8.5 Centers, Model Names, Versions, and Acronyms: National Center for Atmospheric Research,Community Earth System Model 4,NCAR-CCSM4 Meteorological Research Institute,Coupled General Circulation Model v3.0,MRI-CGCM3 Methods of creating downscaled relative humidity data: 1. The GCM input data are distributed as relative humidity along with the CRU CL 2.0, therefore no conversion procedure was necessary before beginning the downscaling procedure. 2. Proportional Anomalies generated using the 20c3m Historical relative humidity data 1961-1990 climatology and the projected relative humidity data (2006-2100). 3. These proportional anomalies are interpolated using a spline interpolation to a 10min resolution grid for downscaling with the CRU CL 2.0 Relative Humidity Data. 4. The GCM proportional anomalies are multiplied by month to the baseline CRU CL 2.0 10min relative humidity climatology for the period 1961-1990. Creating a downscaled relative humidity projected time series 2006-2100. 5. Due to the conversion procedure and the low quality of the input data to begin with, there were values that fell well outside of the range of acceptable relative humidity (meaning that there were values >100 percent), these values were re-set to a relative humidity of 95 at the suggestion of the researchers involved in the project. It is well known that the CRU data is spotty for Alaska and the Circumpolar North, due to a lack of weather stations and poor temporal coverage for those stations that exist. 6. The desired output resolution for the AIEM modeling project is 1km, so the newly created downscaled time series is resampled to this resolution using a standard bilinear interpolation resampling procedure. 7. The final step was to convert the downscaled relative humidity data to vapor pressure using the calculation below, which uses a downscaled temperature data set created utilizing the same downscaling procedure. EQUATION: saturated vapor pressure = 6.112 x exp(17.62 x temperature/(243.12+temperature)) vapor pressure = (relative humidity x saturated vapor pressure)/100

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 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.

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 at 771 x 771 meter spatial resolution. Each file represents a decadal mean of an annual mean calculated from mean monthly data.

This set of files includes downscaled historical estimates of monthly totals, and derived annual, seasonal, and decadal means of monthly total precipitation (in millimeters, no unit conversion necessary) from 1901 - 2006 (CRU TS 3.0) or 2009 (CRU TS 3.1) at 771 x 771 meter spatial resolution.

These files include climatological summaries of downscaled historical and projected decadal average monthly snowfall (i.e. snow-water) equivalent (SWE) in millimeters, the ratio of snowfall equivalent to precipitation, and future change in snowfall for October-March at 771-meter spatial resolution across the state of Alaska. Data are for summary October to March Alaska climatologies for: 1) historical and future snowfall equivalent (SWE), produced by multiplying snow-day fraction by decadal average monthly precipitation and summing over 6 months from October to March to estimate the total SWE on April 1. 2) historical and future ratio of SWE to precipitation (SFEtoP), SFEtoP is the ratio of October to March total SWE to October to March total precipitation is calculated as total SWE / total precipitation (expressed as percent, 0-100). 3) future change in snowfall equivalent relative to historical ("dSWE"), calculated as (SWE future – SWE historical) / SWE historical (no units, multiply by 100 to obtain percent). The historical reference period is 1970-1999, (file name “H70.99”), calculated from downscaled CRU TS 3.1 data Future climatologies (both RCP 4.5 and 8.5) are for: - 2020s (2010-2039) - 2050s (2040-2069) - 2080s (2070-2099) across 5 GCMs: NCAR-CCSM4, GFDL-CM3, GISS-E2-R, IPSL-CM5, and MRI-CGCM3 as well as a 5-model mean (“5MM”). Following Elsner et al. (2010), <0.1 is rain dominated, 0.1 < SFE:P < 0.4 is transitional, and >0.4 is snow dominated. Only calculated for historical reference climatology 1970-1999 and three future climatologies: 2010-2039, 2040-2069, and 2070-2090, with each climatology representing the mean of three decadal averages from the available decadal grids. Snow fraction data used can be found here: http://ckan.snap.uaf.edu/dataset/projected-decadal-averages-of-monthly-snow-day-fraction-771m-cmip5-ar5 http://ckan.snap.uaf.edu/dataset/historical-decadal-averages-of-monthly-snow-day-fraction-771m-cru-ts3-0-3-1 Precipitation data used can be found here: http://ckan.snap.uaf.edu/dataset/projected-monthly-and-derived-precipitation-products-771m-cmip5-ar5 http://ckan.snap.uaf.edu/dataset/historical-monthly-and-derived-precipitation-products-771m-cru-ts * Note: In Littell et al. 2018, "SWE" is referred to as "SFE", and "SFEtoP" as "SFE:P"

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 sea ice indicators for the Arctic based on daily sea ice concentrations derived from satellite passive microwave measurements. The four indicators available are day of break-up start, day of break-up end, day of freeze-up start, and day of freeze-up end. These “day of year” values indicate the ordinal day of the ice-year on which the event occurred. The ice-year is defined as September 1 through August of the following year. Locally defined indicators can serve as key links between pan-Arctic or global indicators such as sea-ice extent or volume and local uses of sea ice, with the potential to inform community-scale adaptation and response.

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.