Thursday, November 24, 2011

Impact of Clouds on Temperatures



The last 24 hours have featured a textbook example of the impact of clouds on valley temperatures in Interior Alaska in winter. Here is a plot of the hourly temperature at the Fairbanks Airport. Variations in temperature are completely related to changes in clouds cover: clears out for a few hours, the temperature drops 20 degrees. Clouds return, and the temperature pops right back up. In contrast, here on Keystone Ridge, the temperature has varied by 5 degrees in the same time, -1F to -5F
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3 comments:

  1. AnonymousNovember 24, 2011 at 6:22 PM

    Very interesting portrayal of the impact of clouds on temperatures. My question is what happened between 4am and 9am that it didn't cool off again.
    Matthew

    ReplyDelete
  2. RickNovember 24, 2011 at 6:34 PM

    Ahh....The lines somehow got off. I'll try and fix and repost later this evening.

    ReplyDelete
  3. RickNovember 24, 2011 at 11:06 PM

    Okay, fixed

    ReplyDelete