Changes in frost, snow and Baltic sea ice by the end of the twenty-first century based on climate model projections for Europe

• Published in: Climatic change Vol. 86; no. 3-4; pp. 441 - 462
• Main Authors: Jylhä, Kirsti, Fronzek, Stefan, Tuomenvirta, Heikki, Carter, Timothy R, Ruosteenoja, Kimmo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Dordrecht : Springer Netherlands 01.02.2008; Springer Netherlands; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: 21st century; anthropogenic activities; Atmospheric Sciences; Baltic Sea; Boundary conditions; climate; Climate change; Climate Change/Climate Change Impacts; Climate models; Climate variability; Climatology. Bioclimatology. Climate change; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Earth, ocean, space; Emissions; Europe; Exact sciences and technology; Experiments; External geophysics; Frost; General Circulation Models; Global warming; Ice; Ice cover; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; Meteorology; Oceans; Physics of the oceans; Sea ice; Simulation; simulation models; Snow; Statistical models; Temperature; uncertainty; water temperature; Weather forecasting; winter; Europe; Baltic Sea; Northeast Atlantic; North Atlantic; Atlantic Ocean; ANE, Europe; ANE, Baltic Sea; Snow Cover; Atmospheric General Circulation Model; Climate Research Unit; General Circulation Model; Regional Climate Model; Century 21st; trend-surface analysis; atmospheric precipitation; Occurrence frequency; Regional scope; Climate models; Forecast model; Ice cover; Dynamical climatology; gels; algorithm performance; global change; snow; sea ice; climate change; glacial extent
• ISSN: 0165-0009; 1573-1480
• DOI: 10.1007/s10584-007-9310-z

Changes in indices related to frost and snow in Europe by the end of the twenty-first century were analyzed based on experiments performed with seven regional climate models (RCMs). All the RCMs regionalized information from the same general circulation model (GCM), applying the IPCC-SRES A2 radiative forcing scenario. In addition, some simulations used SRES B2 radiative forcing and/or boundary conditions provided by an alternative GCM. Ice cover over the Baltic Sea was examined using a statistical model that related the annual maximum extent of ice to wintertime coastal temperatures. Fewer days with frost and snow, shorter frost seasons, a smaller liquid water equivalent of snow, and milder sea ice conditions were produced by all model simulations, irrespective of the forcing scenario and the driving GCM. The projected changes have implications across a diverse range of human activities. Details of the projections were subject to differences in RCM design, deviations between the boundary conditions of the driving GCMs, uncertainties in future emissions and random effects due to internal climate variability. A larger number of GCMs as drivers of the RCMs would most likely have resulted in somewhat wider ranges in the frost, snow and sea ice estimates than those presented in this paper.