Weather radar recorded decades of North American bird migrations. "That's everything from the toilet to the runway, and everything between that," he explained. That's on top of the $254 million the Defense Department already has budgeted for maintenance and improvement projects over five years.Those costs do not fall solely on the Pentagon. Consequently, monthly, seasonal and annual rainfall data are available for many more sites than for daily rainfall.The pan evaporation dataset contains homogenised observations from a network of 60 stations. "So hopefully everyone will be good. Download reports and publications.Dedicated datasets, carefully curated from weather station sites with long-records and subjected to complex quality control to address inconsistencies and errors, have been developed for this purpose. As of 2016, the Pentagon is required to incorporate climate considerations in its planning for operations and infrastructure. "Currently, three of the long-range radar stations operating in Alaska are grappling with climate-driven threats to infrastructure. The long-range radar station sits on a bluff 2,275 feet above the Bering Strait, 48 miles from the Russian mainland.

When the society was set up, St Pierre was also working on a degree, studying sustainability and environmental management. Climate change debate. According to Lemon, at the Cape Lisburne site more than 200 miles north near the community of Point Hope, waves from the encroaching Chukchi Sea were washing over the airstrip. Tin City is only 48 miles from the Russian mainland, though on this particular day clouds obscured the view.
Others will have to figure out how to deal with thawing permafrost.While the military acknowledges the problem, so far it has confronted the threat by emphasizing collaborative planning with other stakeholders. Data are available at a monthly timescale, commencing from 1970.Homogenised total cloud amount data are available at a monthly timescale for a network of 165 stations. Cape Lisburne was, in several ways, low-hanging fruit: A runway close to the ocean, with a quarry on-site to gather rocks for the seawall.
Instead, he maintains the sites' facilities. A That evaluation did not factor in smaller facilities like the one at Tin City, many of which are poised to see destructive impacts from coastal erosion and thawing permafrost in the near future.It's happening more rapidly than Pentagon officials predicted. ACORN-SAT employs sophisticated analysis techniques and takes advantage of newly digitised observational data to provide a temporally homogenised daily temperature record. Radar technician Jeff Boulds at the Tin City radar site.Driving the machine was our guide, Jeff Boulds, a mustachioed Montanan with graying hair trickling down to his shoulders. Zachariah Hughes/Alaska Public Media Zachariah Hughes/Alaska Public Media

Already, the Pentagon is spending big to slow down impacts from climate change at other radar sites. He was aiming at humility; Lemon doesn't believe his position or background in complex logistics gives him authority to talk about climate science.But Lemon is unequivocal about the diminishing stability of the Arctic environment. Climate Change On Navy's Radar. Even with decades of technological advances, the radar system is still the military's primary way of monitoring airspace over a huge swath of the continent.Now, though, this system is confronting a new hazard: climate change.When the radar sites were selected in the 1950s, along Alaska's coastlines and deep in the interior, melting permafrost and coastal erosion were not yet long-term strategic concerns for Defense Department planners.Now, they are a matter of statute. "That's the radar turning up there," he said, pointing to a dark hole in the ceiling.The military's plans for adapting to a warming Arctic while maintaining this capability are far from clear.Already, the Pentagon is spending big to slow down impacts from climate change at other radar sites. "We just don't have any information about that at all, yet it's so essential for predicting severe weather and even how rains will change in a future climate." In the decades since the end of the Cold War, more information is passed along to civilian agencies, which in turn split costs for the costly installations.In spite of the comparatively mild winter, the radar building looked like it had just weathered a terrible storm, with ice and wind-strafed piles of snow hanging on every metal surface at improbable angles. Zachariah Hughes/Alaska Public Media When not in Tin City he lives with his wife in southwest Wyoming.Running these radar stations has never been easy, but now, it's getting even less manageable, as coastal erosion nibbles away the land around vital infrastructure supporting the sites.Air Force Col. Daniel Lemon is in charge of remote radar stations stretching from the Pacific to the high Arctic. The installation at Tin City is not immediately imperiled by this issue. Climate change tracker uses the Australian Climate Observations Reference Network – Surface Air Temperature (ACORN-SAT) dataset (temperature) and other high-quality datasets (rainfall, cloud amount and pan evaporation). Until recently, workers made the ascent in a tram-car, the metal cables routinely hampered by thick ice.

A homogeneous climate record is one in which all observed climate variations are due to the behaviour of the atmosphere, not other influences, such as changes in location, exposure of the observation site, instrumentation type or measuring procedure. However, during our visit in early winter, the Bering Strait was completely free of sea ice, a month later than freeze-up used to get underway.After a quick lunch of cheeseburgers and coffee, a small crew of visitors and techs headed to "top camp," 2,275 feet up a steep mountainside where the actual radar sits.