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    • Nenana Ice Classic: Tanana River Ice Annual Breakup Dates, Version 2

    Metadata Updated: July 9, 2024

    The Tanana river in the Interior of Alaska usually freezes over during October and November. The ice continues to grow throughout the winter accumulating an average maximum thickness of about 110 cm, depending upon winter weather conditions.

    The Nenana Ice Classic competition began in 1917 when railroad engineers bet a total of 800 dollars, winner takes all, guessing the exact time (month, day, hour, minute) ice on the Tanana River would break up. Each year since then, Alaska residents have guessed at the timing of the river breakup. A tripod, connected to an on-shore clock with a string, is planted in two feet of river ice during river freeze-up in October or November. The following spring, the clock automatically stops when the tripod moves as the ice breaks up. The time on the clock is used as the river ice breakup time.

    Many factors influence the river ice breakup, such as air temperature, ice thickness, snow cover, wind, water temperature, and depth of water below the ice. Generally, the Tanana river ice breaks up in late April or early May (historically, April 20 to May 20). The time series of Tanana river ice breakup dates can be used to indicate climate change in the region.

    Access & Use Information

    Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

    Downloads & Resources

    Dates

    Metadata Created Date November 12, 2020
    Metadata Updated Date July 9, 2024

    Metadata Source

    Harvested from NASA Data.json

    Other Data Resources

    Additional Metadata

    Resource Type Dataset
    Metadata Created Date November 12, 2020
    Metadata Updated Date July 9, 2024
    Publisher NASA NSIDC DAAC
    Maintainer
    Identifier C1923770664-NSIDCV0
    Data First Published 1917-04-01
    Language en-US
    Data Last Modified 2024-07-07
    Category geospatial
    Public Access Level public
    Bureau Code 026:00
    Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
    Metadata Catalog ID https://data.nasa.gov/data.json
    Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
    Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
    Citation Nenana Ice Classic: Tanana River Ice Annual Breakup Dates, Version 2. Version 2. Archived by National Aeronautics and Space Administration, U.S. Government, NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/CAQ58H42LQY2.
    Harvest Object Id 0471d989-c349-428b-b46e-1039523cb68a
    Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
    Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
    Homepage URL https://doi.org/10.5067/CAQ58H42LQY2
    Metadata Type geospatial
    Old Spatial -149.093 64.565 -149.093 64.565
    Program Code 026:001
    Source Datajson Identifier True
    Source Hash 4d68c50f57d0dfb517238a2ca5c7bbd831f5e09adfc078e755f18ea08a24dc44
    Source Schema Version 1.1
    Spatial
    Temporal 1917-04-01T00:00:00Z/2024-07-08T00:00:00Z

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