Greenup values for interior alaska 1976 - Present

Greenup, the frequent rapid transformation of Interior Alaska from Brown space to spring green as the leaves deciduous trees burst forth, is suddenly enough to allow assignment of a single date in a given area to this culmination of a key biological process. Greenup is important for more than just an aesthetic or biological perspective. For example, once Greenup has occurred, there is a rapid increase in evapotranspiration. Which in turn has important consequences in the areas mesoscale meteorology.

Here, dates for green around Fairbanks for more than 20 springs are correlated against several different temperature derived indices calculated entirely from routinely available climatological data. We examined a variety of degree day statistics and temperature thresholds. The relationships between these parameters and Greenup dates in Interior Alaska should be useful in projecting future greenup dates. They may also be useful to post analyze Greenup dates in years for which there is meteorological data but no surviving record of Greenup dates.