Importance to Fairbanks Alaska
Author
Isabelle Jacobson
PHYS F212X F02, Spring 2019
Professor David Newman
University of Alaska Fairbanks

Fairbanks, Alaska

Fairbanks Pollution
 3
The Fairbanks North Star Borough in Alaska encompasses the city of Fairbanks and a handful of outlying towns and neighborhoods, located at various altitudes in a large valley. Thermal inversions in Fairbanks can cause substantial temperature differences between the altitudes, where the difference between the surface area temperature and the highest point of the thermal inversion layer might be around 30ºC or 86ºF.4 The layer of any thermal inversion globally usually vary from 100m to 1km in thickness, but in Fairbanks and comparable sub-arctic cities, the inversion can be much thicker and result in more significant changes to surface conditions.5 Fairbanks, Alaska has recorded an inversion approximately 7 miles thick in 2007, and because it was so thick, the temperature changes were less drastic because the air was less dense, but the difference between the surface temperature and the uppermost inversion temperature was approximately 46ºF, and just outside of Fairbanks in the smaller town of Minto, there was a recorded difference of approximately 48ºF.6 Interior Alaska is an area of interest for meteorologists and other atmospheric scientists because of the unusual environment we create in the basin of the city, and the sub-arctic in general is an area of interest for scientists concerned with climate change, thermal inversions, pollution, and subsequent health risks.
Scientists Baumgardner, Gallagher, Gultepe, Heymsfield, and Ickes studied the properties of ice fog published in 2017, which included the relationship between ice fog and thermal inversion. In this study, they found that ice fog was trapped under the thermal inversion layer at certain temperatures, which logically made sense since the inversion acts as a barrier in the atmosphere.5 Ice fog is isolated in Fairbanks, whereas other particles, such as PM2.5, can be found anywhere in Fairbanks, and is currently being debated in most public safety meetings. In a study done by Bailey et. al. (2010), they stated that temperature inversions impact air quality but “little is known about their variability in frequency and intensity with time or sensitivity to dynamical changes with climate.”9Although this study was done in Southwest US, this statement remains true for inversions in Pacific Northwestern US.