tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4572286363399496963.post4706045213229962324..comments2024-03-27T04:17:21.221-08:00Comments on Deep Cold: Alaska Weather & Climate: Persistent Alaska WarmthRickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03946704894714514716noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4572286363399496963.post-35550741093603362472018-10-14T18:09:08.966-08:002018-10-14T18:09:08.966-08:00Thanks Rick - this index is a great piece of work:...Thanks Rick - this index is a great piece of work: simple yet very meaningful. It perfectly answers the question, "how unusual is the temperature" because it levels the playing field both geographically and seasonally. The only possible refinement I can think of would be to account for the skewness of the temperature distribution, which is significant in some places/seasons. Here are a couple of old posts on the subject:<br /><br />https://ak-wx.blogspot.com/2014/03/skewed-winter-temperatures.html<br /><br />https://ak-wx.blogspot.com/2014/03/temperature-skewness-maps.html<br /><br />One other comment, I suppose the argument could be made that absolute departures from normal are more meaningful than standardized departures for physical systems and perhaps for biological systems as well. (Although I imagine that biological ecosystems respond to and reflect the typical climatic variance as well as simply climatic averages - e.g. first/last freeze dates. In other words +5F may well be more biologically significant in Juneau than in Fairbanks.) But in any case, a parallel index using absolute anomalies would also be valuable for some applications. Of course most of the variability would occur in the cold season and would be dominated by the interior and north of the state.<br />Richard Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08313902028896263276noreply@blogger.com