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Norway

Climate change

Air temperature changes until now

For the period 1900-2008 as a whole, the annual mean temperature in Norway has increased by about 0.9°C. Dependent on geographical region, the increase in an­nual temperature varies from 0.5 to 1.1°C. The largest increase is found during spring, where the mean tem­perature has increased by 0.7-1.4°C. Also in Svalbard, observations from the last hundred years tend to show a positive trend in temperature. A composite series of temperature from 1912 to 2008 shows a linear trend of 2.3°C per century (1).

In Oslo, the annual mean temperature has increased by 1.5°C in the period 1838 – 2012. The temperature has increased significantly in all seasons; however, the temperature increase in summer was less than half of that in winter and spring, which were the seasons with largest increase. In addition the monthly mean temperature of the coldest month in each year has increased two times faster than the warmest one (19).

In Scandinavia, a heatwave event associated with a 100-year return period in 1981 is estimated to happen once in 20–40 years in 2022 (27).

Urban heat island

The urban heat island effect has been studied for Fennoscandia, the northern half of Norway, Sweden and Finland, and including the adjacent part of Russia. This study includes all 57 cities located above 64° N in this region. Data covering the period 2001-2017 show that the mean urban heat island intensity is found in the range 0-5°C. The intensity is larger for the largest cities of Murmansk and Oulu (3-5°C) (25).  

Precipitation changes until now

Because of prevailing westerly winds, moist air masses flow regularly in from the ocean giving abundant pre­cipitation over most of Norway. Areas just inside the coast of western Norway get most precipitation. This zone of maximum precipitation is one of the wettest in Europe, and several sites in this region have normal annual precipitation of more than 3500 mm. On the leeward side of the mountain ranges the annual precipitation is much lower, and a few sheltered stations in south-eastern Norway and Finnmarksvidda have normal annual precipitation less than 300 mm (1).


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Glacier changes until now

The Norwegian coastal glaciers, which were expanding and gaining mass due to increased snowfall in winter up to the end of the 1990s, are also now retreating, as a result of less winter precipitation and more summer melting (12, 13). Nearly all the smaller Norwegian glaciers are likely to disappear and overall glacier area as well as volume may be reduced by about one third by 2100 (14).

Wind climate changes until now

A northward shift in mean storm track position since about 1950 is consistent in studies on wind climate in northwestern Europe over the last decades (22). This northeast shift together with the trend pattern of decreasing cyclone activity for southern mid- latitudes and increasing trends north of 55 - 60°N after around 1950 seems consistent with scenario simulations to 2100 under increasing greenhouse gas concentrations (23).

Air temperature changes in the 21st century

Projections of climate change for Nor­way have been presented with respect to the present climate (period 1961-1990) and two sce­nario periods (2021-2050 and 2071-2100) (5). These projections are based on statistical and dynamical downscaling of glo­bal climate model results from IPCC (2001, 2007). The projections indicate a warming in all parts of Nor­way and during all seasons from 1961-1990 to 2071-2100. The annual mean tempera­ture for Norway is estimated to increase by 3.4ºC (2.3-4.6ºC). For the Norwegian mainland, the largest annual temperature increase 4.2ºC (3.0 – 5.4ºC) is estimated for the northernmost county (Finnmark) and the smallest 3.1ºC (1.9-4.2ºC) for Western Norway (5).


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Air temperature changes in the Arctic in the 21st century

Global climate model simulations (8) indicate that up to the end of the 21st century, Arctic tempera­ture is projected to increase by 7ºC and 5ºC for the A2 and B2 emission scenarios, respectively. The strong­est warming will occur during autumn and winter. The Multi-Model Dataset used in the regional climate pro­jections for IPCC (2007) projected an annual warming of the Arctic of 5ºC at the end of the 21st century.


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Changes in summer and winter length in the 21st century

For northern Europe, season lengths have been quantified for the period 2040-2069, under a moderate scenario of climate change (the RCP4.5 scenario) and based on a large number of global climate models. Changes have been compared with the seasons in 1971-2000 for reference. This scenario corresponds to 2°C global warming in 2040-2069 relative to the preindustrial climate. In northern Europe, warming exceeds this global mean substantially, however (24).


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Precipitation changes in the 21st century

Projections for 2025

For 2025 projections have been calculated for changes in temperature and precipitation compared to the reference period 1961-1990, based on several simulations with a large number of regional models. The results for precipitation are (15):


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Precipitation changes in the Arctic in the 21st century

Climate change simulations up to year 2050 indicate an in­crease in annual precipitation from 1981-2010 to 2021-2050 of 20-30%, while for north-eastern parts of Spitsbergen the increase is up to 40%. The seasonal precipitation is projected to in­crease over the whole region during all seasons, with the largest increase during winter and spring. It should however be stressed that precipitation is quite scarce in this region during the winter season, implying that despite the large percentage increase the absolute in­crease in precipitation may be just a few millimetres (7).

Wind climate changes in the 21st century

Climate change projections give small or no changes for average wind speed in the year 2100 with respect to 1961-1990 (5). Recently, a study has been carried out where mean and extreme geostrophic wind speeds in Northern Europe were projected for the future periods 2046–2065 and 2081–2100, and compared with the baseline 1971–2000 (based on nine global climate models and the SRES A1B, A2 and B1 scenarios) (16). The geostrophic wind speed is a theoretical, calculated wind speed indicative of true surface wind speed. The results show:

  • Mean geostrophic wind speeds: During the windiest time of the year, the monthly mean wind speeds will start to increase in the Baltic Sea already in 2046–2065. In Finland, increases are largest (5–7%) in November and January by 2081–2100. In November–February 2081–2100, a positive shift of 5–10% is projected to materialize in the Baltic Sea.
  • Extreme geostrophic wind speeds: The extreme wind speeds (10-year return level estimates) will increase on average by 2–4% in the southern and eastern parts of Northern Europe, whereas a decrease of 2–6% dominates over the Norwegian Sea. These results agree with results on the future projections of 20-year return level estimates of gust winds that showed that the increase in winds is dominant in a zone stretching from northern parts of France over the Baltic Sea towards northeast (17).

A review of recent scientific literature shows that the projected changes in wind extremes (speed and direction) for the North Sea region are typically within the range of natural variability and can even have opposite signs for different scenarios either simulated by different climate models or for different future periods (21). 

Sea water temperature changes in the 21st century

Thickness and area of the Arctic ice cover will continue the present tendency of reduction. The Arctic may be ice-free during sum­mertime in the middle of this century, but a substantial variability is expected both on annual and decadal time-scales (1).

References

The references below are cited in full in a separate map 'References'. Please click here if you are looking for the full references for Norway.

  1. Ministry of the Environment of Norway (2009)
  2. Lemke et al. (2007), in: Bache Stranden and Skaugen (2009)
  3. Hyvärinen (2003), in: Bache Stranden and Skaugen (2009)
  4. Dyrrdal (2008), in: Bache Stranden and Skaugen (2009)
  5. Hanssen-Bauer et al. (2009), in: Ministry of the Environment of Norway (2009)
  6. presented by Gjershaug et al. (2009)
  7. Førland et al. (2009), in: Ministry of the Environment of Norway (2009)
  8. ACIA (2005),in: Ministry of the Environment of Norway (2009)
  9. Vikhamar-Schuler and Førland (2006), in: Gjershaug et al. (2009)
  10. Bache Stranden and Skaugen (2009)
  11. Skaugen et al. (2003)
  12. Nesje et al. (2008), in: EEA, JRC and WHO (2008)
  13. Andreassen et al. (2005), in: EEA, JRC and WHO (2008)
  14. Nesje et al. (2007), in: EEA, JRC and WHO (2008)
  15. Sorteberg and Andersen
  16. Gregow et al. (2011)
  17. Nikulin et al. (2011), in: Gregow et al. (2011)
  18. Dyrrdal et al. (2012)
  19. Nordli et al. (2015)
  20. Räisänen (2016)
  21. May et al. (2016)
  22. Feser et al. (2015a), in: Stendel et al. (2016)
  23. Ulbrich et al. (2009); Feser et al. (2015a), both in: Stendel et al. (2016) 
  24. Ruosteenoja et al (2020)
  25. Miles and Esau (2020)
  26. Lind et al. (2023)
  27. Berghald et al. (2024)

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