Record-high temperatures bake Deadhorse and other sites on Alaska’s North Slope

By Yereth Rosen, Alaska Beacon - August 9, 2024
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The sticker-covered wall outside the Prudhoe Bay General Store, a landmark in the community of Deadhorse, is seen on Aug. 22, 2018. Behind it is an oil equipment and oil-related facilities sited at Deadhorse, just outside of the Prudhoe Bay field. On Tuesday, temperatures reached 89 degrees at the industrial camp community, the highest ever recorded there and likely the highest ever recorded at this latitude anywhere in North America. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

A scorching hot day in Alaska’s Arctic set multiple records on Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.

At Deadhorse, the industrial camp community next to the Prudhoe Bay oil field, the temperature hit 89 degrees. It was not only an all-time high for Deadhorse but appears to be the highest temperature ever recorded at any site above 70 degrees latitude in North America, said Brian Brettschneider, a National Weather Service climatologist.

The 89-degree reading beat the previous Deadhorse record of 85 degrees, set on July 13, 2016. And it beats the previous Deadhorse August record of 84 degrees, set almost exactly a year ago.

It is possible that areas at similar latitudes in Russia have had higher temperatures than 89 degrees, but Russian information is not reliable, Brettschneider said.

The heat was the product of a combination of factors, including Chinook winds from the south, winds that prevented cooler air from seeping in from the sides and a variety of upper-atmospheric conditions, Brettschneider said. “If you would have asked me two weeks ago, ‘What would it take for Deadhorse to hit 90 degrees?’, I would have described what happened,” he said.

While extreme weather can emerge on any individual day, more such events can be expected on the North Slope and elsewhere because of climate change, Brettschneider said.

An arch made of whalebones, along with the frame of a traditional umiat, are displayed on the beach at Utqiagvik, the northernmost U.S. community. The cultural items, seen on Aug. 2, 2022, are at the edge of the Arctic Ocean. Tuesday’s high temperature of 74 degrees set a record for this time of year in Utqiagvik. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

“In a warming world, you can now set records when the conditions aren’t so extreme, and it’s easier to achieve extreme events,” he said.

Across the North Slope, average annual temperatures rose by 5.8 degrees Fahrenheit from 1969 to 2018, according to researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. While all of Alaska has warmed, the North Slope had the biggest increase in average temperature over that period, according to the UAF scientists.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, other high-temperature records were set elsewhere on the North Slope, according to the National Weather Service.

At Barter Island, which lies east of Deadhorse and is near the Canadian border, Tuesday’s temperature of 74 degrees was a new record for August, the service said. The temperature at Utqiagvik, the nation’s northernmost community, also hit 74 degrees, setting a similar record, according to the National Weather Service.

For people doing physical labor in that part of the state, especially those wearing heavy safety gear, the unusually warm conditions could be bothersome, Brettschneider noted.

ConocoPhillips, one of the main operators in the North Slope oil fields, has worker-safety procedures that include water supplies and regular water breaks that can be adjusted as needed, said Rebecca Boys, a company spokesperson. There also are medical services available and communications systems to relay information about any medical need, she said.