Wednesday, March 7, 2012


Bellingham, Washington is located on the Pacific Ocean in northwestern Washington state, just south of the Canadian border. It is a maritime climate positioned between the Pacific Ocean and the Cascade Mountains. The average temperatures range from in the 30s to the 70s (degrees F) throughout the year where August is the warmest month and December is the coldest month. . The town’s average yearly precipitation is 35.32 in and its average snowfall is 13.7 in. November seems to be the wettest month for Bellingham while July seems to be the driest month.  The record high for Bellingham was in 1990 with a temperature of 91 degrees F and the lowest temperature on record was in 1985 with a temperature of four degrees F.  Because Bellingham is located in a maritime climate, its estimated Bowen Ratio is going to be around 1/10 (the ratio being  BR=H/LE, H being the sensible heat flux and LE being the Latent heat flux).




The above graphs show the  average temperature, precipitation and snow fall per month in Bellingham.


Period of Record Monthly Climate Summary

Period of Record : 12/1/1949 to 12/31/2005

Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Annual
Average Max. Temperature (F)
43.4
47.8
51.1
56.5
62.3
66.8
71.2
71.4
67.0
58.3
49.7
44.6
57.5
Average Min. Temperature (F)
31.6
33.9
36.0
39.9
45.3
50.4
53.2
53.2
48.1
42.0
36.8
33.3
42.0
Average Total Precipitation (in.)
4.58
3.37
3.01
2.61
2.17
1.76
1.18
1.40
1.85
3.51
5.08
4.80
35.32
Average Total SnowFall (in.)
5.1
1.7
1.8
0.1
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.1
0.9
4.0
13.7
Average Snow Depth (in.)
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

When looking at the Global Equilibrium Energy Balance Interactive Tinker Toy (GEEBIT), the Earth currently has an average surface temperature of 58.9 degrees F. If the albedo of the planet is changed from 0.306 to 0.206, the temperature changes to 76.7 degrees F. With an albedo of 0.406 the temp drops to 39.1 degrees F. If the greenhouse gas levels change just 10% from 1 to 1.1 the temp goes up to 63.9 degrees F and if lowered to 0.9 then the temp drops to 53.8 degrees F.  This of course is a global model so the results will likely vary from location to location but one could assume that the overall increase of decrease in temperature would affect Bellingham similarly. http://icp.giss.nasa.gov/education/geebitt/




References:

City-data.com (2011). Bellingham, Washington. http://www.city-data.com/city/Bellingham-Washington.html

The Weather Channel (2012). Monthly Averages for Bellingham, WA. http://www.weather.com/weather/wxclimatology/monthly/USWA0028

Desert Research Institute (2005).  BELLINGHAM FCWOS AP, WASHINGTON (450574). http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMAIN.pl?wabell