Something is in the air...

Breaking Records

    A couple of days ago Fairbanks broke yet another record. This Year is really turning out to be some kind of new record year when it comes to long-term monitoring. On May 2nd Fairbanks measured birch pollen at 4290 grains per cubic meter of air. Tanana Valley Clinic has this neat webpage where you can se the daily counts of all the different pollen counts. Now, to put that number in perspective, 175 grains per cubic meter of air is considered high...

    I for once didn't actually notice that there was a big pollen day, and I figured that I am probably more sensitive to one of the other pollen contributors. Today Birch, Spruce and Alder has been high so my guess is that I am either sensitive to Spruce or Alder. 

Science

    When I was googling away I came across an old article about tree pollen, and it showed the general order of the different tree species and their pollen in the Boreal Forest, which I thought was pretty neat. 

    I really wanted to take a picture of the pollen I saw flying around in the air yesterday evening, but didn't really succeed, so I took a picture of my car instead.

    How is the pollen where you guys are at? Some webpages says that Fairbanks broke the world record for birch pollen on May 2nd, but then one page is saying that Denmark had the previous record and another one says Sweden, so I am not sure about that. What I do know is that we did at least break the record for Fairbanks itself. 

Spring Sprung?

Did Spring really arrive? These past years I feel like spring is coming earlier and earlier, but you can't create a pattern from only a few years. We have been breaking several records this past winter season and spring. The longest without any snowfall (105 days) (Fairbanks), one of the lowest recorded snow depth on April 9th (last time was 1965) (Fairbanks), warmest January, February and March (Fairbanks), the least snow during the winter season...ever...I mean since they started measuring (Anchorage). This might be the new normal unfortunately. Time will tell how this will affect the nature, right now we can only estimate and try to predict what will happen. I went to Creamers field the other weekend, to see all the swans that the whole town was talking about. Apparently there was a record or something, hundreds of swans. When I came there the day after I saw 2, and then 4 more arrived. Needless to say I got very very disappointed. I had a nice bike ride though, and the weather was really nice!

Har våren verkligen kommit? De senaste åren har det känts som att våren kommit tidigare och tidigare, men man kan ju inte riktigt se ett mönster på så få år. Denna säsong har vi satt nya rekord dock, dom har kommit en efter en. Den längsta tiden utan något snöfall (105 dagar, Fairbanks), en av de lägst rapporterade snödjupen för 9e April (Senaste gången var 1965, Fairbanks), varmaste Januari, Februari och Mars (Fairbanks), minsta snöackumulationen , alltså sedan de började mäta (Anchorage). Tyvärr så är kanske det här det nya normala. Det är svårt att kunna säga hur saker och ting kommer att se ut i framtiden , men man kan spekulera och forskarna kan modellera. Det är ju inte direkt någon nyhet att det blivit varmare på vissa ställen av jordklotet de senaste femtio åren. Jag cyklade till Creamers Field häromdagen, för att se alla svanar som det verkade om hela stan pratade om, tydligen så var det rekordmånga, flera hundra svanar rapporterades. När jag kom dit så var det bara två förstås, och sedan kom fyra till.