Projections for Temperature, Precipitation, Wind, and Snow in the Baltic Sea Region until 2100
Projections for Temperature, Precipitation, Wind, and Snow in the Baltic Sea Region until 2100
- Ole Bøssing ChristensenOle Bøssing ChristensenDanish Meteorological Institute, Climate Science
- , and Erik KjellströmErik KjellströmSwedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, Rossby Centre
Summary
The ecosystems and the societies of the Baltic Sea region are quite sensitive to fluctuations in climate, and therefore it is expected that anthropogenic climate change will affect the region considerably. With numerical climate models, a large amount of projections of meteorological variables affected by anthropogenic climate change have been performed in the Baltic Sea region for periods reaching the end of this century.
Existing global and regional climate model studies suggest that:
• The future Baltic climate will get warmer, mostly so in winter. Changes increase with time or increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. There is a large spread between different models, but they all project warming. In the northern part of the region, temperature change will be higher than the global average warming.
• Daily minimum temperatures will increase more than average temperature, particularly in winter.
• Future average precipitation amounts will be larger than today. The relative increase is largest in winter. In summer, increases in the far north and decreases in the south are seen in most simulations. In the intermediate region, the sign of change is uncertain.
• Precipitation extremes are expected to increase, though with a higher degree of uncertainty in magnitude compared to projected changes in temperature extremes.
• Future changes in wind speed are highly dependent on changes in the large-scale circulation simulated by global climate models (GCMs). The results do not all agree, and it is not possible to assess whether there will be a general increase or decrease in wind speed in the future.
• Only very small high-altitude mountain areas in a few simulations are projected to experience a reduction in winter snow amount of less than 50%. The southern half of the Baltic Sea region is projected to experience significant reductions in snow amount, with median reductions of around 75%.
Subjects
- Climate of the Baltic Sea Region