Researchers say higher temperatures have given Alaska a longer growing season.
According to the Alaska Climate Research Center, Fairbanks is 2 1/2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer and 11 percent drier than it was 100 years ago.
The changes have stretched the growing season from 85 days in the early 20th century to 123 days.
Gerd Wendler, director of the University of Alaska Fairbanks research center, says every change in climate will have positive effects and negative ones.
For example, warming might produce more pumpkins and potatoes, but it also could wipe out tree populations.
Agriculture is one beneficiary, but a discrepancy existed among growing seasons in the just past five years. In 2006, the last hard freeze struck June 6, while last spring, the final frost came May 15, according to the National Weather Service.
"The thing about agriculture is we can have really high temperatures or long seasons, but if you have a hard frost in the middle of August that wipes out everything, you can have another month that's really good but you can't take advantage of it because the crops are dead," said Meriam Karlsson, professor of horticulture at UAF.
This past summer was the longest growing season in the 37 years that Michelle Hebert, horticulture specialist at the Cooperative Extension Service, has gardened in the north.
"Within the last few years, especially last summer, I had, in my garden, 120 days," she said. "We just had that Indian summer that went on forever."
Of course, this -again- brings up the subject of “Global Warming”. Not to get into a lengthy discussion about it now, but let me just say , as I have said before, there is a big difference between global warming and man-made warming! My believe if yes, we have global warming, some amount of climate change taking place. That is tough to dispute. But, man-made? In my humble opinion, not really, or at least not as much as some folks make it out to be. What do you think.
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