Temperature
Hoonah has a temperate coastal climate, defined by a short cool summer and a long but relatively mild winter. Over the next century, temperatures are expected to get several degrees warmer which will have direct impacts on key species and lead to secondary impacts by changing the hydrological cycle. Community members have already remarked that the winters aren’t as bitterly cold as they once were, and that the sun seems hotter in the summer (including one resident who pointed out it’s easier for her to get a tan now).
THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE IS PREDICTED TO INCREASE BY 3 TO 10 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT BY THE END OF THE CENTURY.
The figure below shows the predicted temperature increases under a medium emissions scenario by the end of the century. The gray bars show the historical average, while the yellow, orange and red bars show the predictions for the decades starting in 2010, 2040 and 2090, respectively. Temperatures are predicted to rise in every month and every decade, with the winter months no longer experiencing much time below freezing by the end of the century[1] . This will lead to less snow in the winter and much warmer rivers in the spring and summer.
Figure 1 Average monthly temperature forecasts for Hoonah, AK under a medium emissions pathway until the end of the century. Figure from the Scenarios Planning for Alaska+Arctic Planning, University of Alaska Fairbanks.
THE AIR TEMPERATURE INCREASE WILL DECREASE SNOWPACK AND INCREASE GLACIAL MELT AND STREAM TEMPERATURES. [2]
Several community members remarked on the warmer winters that Hoonah has now compared to the way it was when they were younger (60+ years ago). Springtime on Chichagof means the melting of snowpack, which feeds and cools salmon streams across the island. With warmer temperatures bringing less snow, rivers will warm which negatively impacts salmon and other fish. Glaciers are also melting at an unprecedented rate, and when that process ends streams on the mainland will switch from glacially fed to rain dominated, which results in much warmer salmon habitat.
[3] WARMER AIR TEMPERATURES ARE WARMING UP THE OCEAN, DRASTICALLY CHANGING THE CONDITIONS FOR FISH. Many crab and fish species are directly threatened by warmer waters, and community members have already begun seeing changes in the availability, size, number and location of many of their favorite subsistence foods. One crabber reported that he has to set his pots deeper in order to find the same colder water that Dungeness prefer, while a local fisherman said he had a harder time getting halibut since they also head to deeper waters when it’s warmer out.
Maybe a sentence or two explaining what this actually means if one is looking at it from the perspective of being on the ground. And by “Hoonah”, what is the exact area? Is it just the town?
This is getting closer to what I was asking about above.
This is getting closer to what I was asking about above.