Gold rush-era logbooks help students track climate change

Students at Yukon College have found clues on climate change by mining Klondike Gold Rush-era information.

Math students at the college applied statistical analysis formulas to weather records inlogbooksjotted down bysteamboat captains and railway station managers.

"For Carmacks, every month is having a warming trend," said student Adam Mickey."Carmacks has had some very major increases. February is 11.86 degrees over a hundred years."

While studentsfound evidence of some surprising warming they also discovered cooling trends through some winter months and a shift towards longer spring and fall seasons.

Instructor Mark Shumelda says the student work is solid.

"The average temperatures of many months is clearly increasing and this was shown with a wide variety of data so there could be no mistake as to the overall trend."

The White Pass and Yukon Railway records and log books were made available to students through the Yukon Archives.