The Alaskan Arctic region is really the Arctic drainage, and includes all stations north of the Brooks Range. Near the west coast, the boundary curves southward to include those areas draining into the Arctic Ocean north of Bering Strait. Thus the Arctic climate division includes some areas south of the Arctic Circle (northern Seward Peninsula), while some areas that are technically Arctic (e.g., Bettles) are in the Interior division.
Most of the Arctic division is tundra, often wet tundra, though the mean
annual precipitation is generally of the order of 10 inches or less. Permafrost
is continuous except for exceptional local anomalies such as deep lakes.
Trees do exist, but are confined to alder thickets in sheltered valleys
on the north side of the Brooks Range and spruce-birch woodland inland from
Kotzebue. Climatic stations are sparse, and with very few exceptions located
along the coast. None of these exceptions have long enough or complete enough
summaries to be included in this listing, but Umiat and Anaktuvik Pass should
probably be given some attention if the climate of the whole region is considered.
The difference between the inland and coastal climates is clearly demonstrated
by the fact that on rare summer days Umiat has been known to record the
highest temperature in the state. Roads are essentially limited to local
streets in the larger towns and the Dalton Highway, the gravel haul road
that serves the Alaska Pipeline.
Of the three stations listed here for the Arctic Division, Barter Island has the shortest and poorest record, though its loss as an upper air station is still to be deplored. Barrow and Kotzebue both have long and relatively complete records, though both are located right on the coast and are potentially subject to major station move errors.
Comparison of the three stations shows that the two north coast stations are significantly cooler than Kotzebue, which is located on the Chuckchi coast just north of the Seward Peninsula.
A regional temperature chart was constructed by using the time period for
which data were available for all three stations to construct normal mean
annual temperatures for each of the three stations. Anomaly series were
then constructed for each station, and the three anomaly series were averaged.
This average anomaly series in turn was added to the three-station mean
from the overlap period, giving a regional mean corrected as far as possible
for the effect of dropping and adding stations. Note that this regional
temperature series is still based entirely on coastal stations, and that
systematic errors from station moves may still be present.
Individual years in the plot are shown as red circles; the blue line is
a binomially weighted 5-year running mean.
Note that none of the 3 Arctic stations discussed here has ever recorded
a mean annual temperature above freezing or even near freezing.
