Norwegian Winters Getting Warmer

Norwegian glaciers melting Jostedal warmer wintersMany Norwegian glaciers are melting rapidly. This is from the Birksdal glacier. Photo: Wikimedia.org

Norwegian Winters Getting Warmer

The winters in Norway, during the months of December through February, are becoming warmer and less cold.


In a paper I published in Weatherwise Magazine last month, trends in the amount of warm, moist air masses have increased in the past four decades. Dry, cold air masses have been decreasing over this time period at the expense of the warm air masses.

Approximately 13 days of dry polar air, of a total of 90 wintertime days, have been lost to warmer and moister air masses in the past half-century. This is about a 14% change in fewer than 50 years.

The article is entitled Shifting Weather Patterns in a Warming Arctic: The Scandes Case

The reason for the warming trends and the decrease in the cold air masses is likely from a weakening jet stream. The Arctic is fast warming and the temperature difference between the high and low latitudes is getting smaller, which means the jet stream that controls movements of large air masses is getting more unpredictable on inter-seasonal timescales.

 

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“As cold, dry air has been decreasing at the expense of warm, moist air masses, weather fronts and days of changing weather patterns have decreased. Northern Europe is experiencing more days of air mass modification than there are changes in the type of air mass.”

Weather, landscapes, and ecosystems, such as the Arctic fox as well as humans, are going to have to adapt to a changing climate. The struggles of adapting to a changing climate are going to be ongoing, but a positive outlook can help all of us moving forward.

“We have the intelligence and capability to progress into the coming decades with a more positive viewpoint on combating climate change in an already altered world, one that we have created – so that all of Earth’s species have a chance to adapt to the new world.”

This article is written by Steven M. Battaglia for Norway Today. Steven is a freelance science writer in the United States.


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