When it rains, it pours and when it snows, it snows a lot. On average unusually warm weather is interrupted by sudden cold spells, taking people by surprise. Both Stockholm and Göteborg have had major traffic problems with so much snow falling in such a short time period. City regions struggle to keep subways, trains and highways up and running while smaller municipalities seem to be doing fine.
First round of snow in November.
Then again, people who live out in the countryside are better prepared to deal with such events because they are used to having to manage by themselves. Better planning, checking forecasts, not rushing, having more supplies at home and friendly neighbours who will help in a pinch are some of the characteristics that come to mind. I have had a farmer help pull my car from a snowdrift with his tractor.
Second round of snow in December
The good thing about the cold and snow is that it kills of annoying parasites like ticks, mosquitos and elk flies. It also makes the surrounding landscape brighter during the day, keeping us humans more sane.
Out on the mire with my dog
And many native species are well adapted to this type of climate. Birds and squirrels eat nuts they stored in the bark of trees, elks eat lichen and fir sprouts and wolves eat elks.
Images of the snow cover in the Sierra Nevada in California and Nevada showing average winter snowfall, 2010 compared with 2015. Credit: NASA/MODIS
Getting drier and drier
California cannot catch a break from the massive climate disruption that now plagues the exceptionally dry region. New measurements from the University of Arizona show that 2015 has experienced the lowest level of snowpack in California's Sierra Nevada mountains in the past 500 years.The winter of 2014/15 was extreme and the low levels have contributed to the three year ongoing drought in California, which has also experienced extreme wild fires this summer. Researchers say that climate change is making the situation worse as higher temperatures lead to more severe drought.
In April the governor declared the first-ever mandatory water restrictions throughout the state. The lack of snow in 2015 stems from extremely low winter precipitation combined with record high temperatures in California in January. Right now, more than 100,000 acres of northern California are on fire while thousands flee their homes. The governor has called a state of emergency. Below is a stunning video of a man fleeing Anderson Springs.
Swedens climate is usually defined as temperate in the southern and middle region of the country and polar in the north. Despite being located so far north Sweden has a warmer climate than Canada has on the same latitude, mainly because of the Golf Stream bringing warmer waters that pass by the west coast. As global warming continues unabated most experts expect a higher temperature increase in the northern hemisphere than for the global average. This is due to polar amplification which refers to the phenomenon that changes in Earth's radiation balance tends to produce a larger change in temperature near the poles than the planetary average. When reflective snow and ice melts it gives way to darker marine and terrestial surfaces which absorb more heat from the sun, in turn melting more snow, which causes more warming (i.e. reinforcing feedback loop). Winter temperatures, especially, is set to increase significantly.
Winter in Europe
In 2006 SMHI established that the mean temperature in Sweden had increased with about +1C degree since the beginning of the 1990s, a very high increase over such a short time span. Beyond rising temperatures concrete signs in nature of a warmer climate has been observed in form of longer plant seasons, less snow cover etc. The Winter of 2007/2008 was extremely mild in Sweden and record warming was measured, since observations first began in 1880. This year, 2014, is set to brake the 2007 record and become the warmest year ever recorded in Sweden. According to the World Meterological Organization's regional centre for Europe 2014 will likely also become the warmest year on record for entire Europe. The marginal increase is about +0.3 degrees Celsius, from the 6.7C record in 2007 to 7C in 2014. Warm periods have dominated the entire year. The Spring in Europe was the warmest on record and Winter was the second warmest on record. Around 20 countries from Italy in the south to Norway in the north have experienced record warming this year. And 9 out of 10 of the warmest years ever recorded ocurred during the 21st century. Looking at the Winter anomaly chart below we can see that the Nordic countries and central Europe have recorded above average temperatures this winter. It doesn't look like we will have a white Christmas this year, at least not in southern Sweden.
The role of Climate Change
Global warming significantly contributed to the high 2014 temperatures, according to new research from three independent climate science teams from the UK, the Netherlands, and Australia. "In the early 1900s, before global warming played a significant role in our climate, the chances of getting a year as warm as 2014 were less than 1 in 10,000. In fact, the number is so low that we could not compute it with confidence" - Geert Jan van Oldenborgh. The analysis by van Oldenborgh concluded that global warming has made a temperature anomaly like the one observed in 2014 in Europe at least 80 times more likely. In other words, warmer climate can be due to natural variability but climate change increases the likelihood of warmer weather.
Media Reporting
In a opinion piece, on SVT Opinion published today, meteorologist Per Holmgren wonders why Swedish mainstream media has not picked up on this piece of important news and what it would take to raise public debate on climate change and sustainable development running up to the Swedish re-election in March 2015. He suggest that crop failures in Europe and the US might wake people up to the dangers we face. In other words, as long as its only the poor who feel the impacts of climate change the rich world is not motivated to action. Many climate scientists have stuggled a long time with trying to communicate the dangers of climate change but without much success. This probably says more about human nature than it does climate scientists. As i noted in my previous post, emotion = action. We humans need a strong narrative, a story, compelling us to act. Data and information is not enough. Here journalism plays a crucial role. But leadership is also necessary. To bad we lack both good journalism and leadership, at least in the area of climate action.
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