Inger Hanssen-Bauer

Norwegian Meteorological Institute · Department of Meteorology and Climate

Rapid warming due to human-caused climate change is reshaping the Arctic, enhanced by physical processes that cause the Arctic to warm more quickly than the global average, collectively called Arctic amplification. Observations over the past 40+ years show a transition to a wetter Arctic, with seasonal shifts and widespread disturbances influencing...

Meteorologiens samfunnsbetydning er økende, ikke bare gjennom værvarslene, men også grunnet energiomstillingen og tilpasningen til klimaendringene. Høstingen av energi fra fossile reserver under bakken må erstattes av vind-, sol- og vannkraft på jordens overflate. Denne omstillingen vil kreve store arealressurser, og de lokale meteorologiske forhol...

Meteorologiens samfunnsbetydning er økende, ikke bare gjennom værvarslene, men også grunnet energiomstillingen og tilpasningen til klimaendringene. Høstingen av energi fra fossile reserver under bakken må erstattes av vind-, sol- og vannkraft på jordens overflate. Denne omstillingen vil kreve store arealressurser, og de lokale meteorologiske forhol...

In Finnmark, average winter (Dec-Jan-Feb) temperatures in the period 1961–1990 were about −5 °C at the coast, slightly lower in the fjords, and typically 10 °C lower inland. In the Yamal Nenets Autonomous Okrug (YNAO) average winter temperatures were even lower, ranging from −20 to −25 °C. Temperatures are presently increasing in the area, and towa...

In recent decades, surface air temperature (SAT) data from Global reanalyses points to maximum warming over the northern Barents area. However, a scarcity of observations hampers the confidence of reanalyses in this Arctic hotspot region. Here, we study the warming over the past 20–40 years based on new available SAT observations and a quality cont...

The Norwegian Centre for Climate Services (NCCS) has developed a production chain for climate information with the aim of delivering a knowledge base for climate change adaptation suitable for use by planners at various administrative levels in Norway. This process consists of two main steps: First, climate and hydrological projections are produced...

The productive performance of large ungulates in extensive pastoral grazing systems is modulated simultaneously by the effects of climate change and human intervention independent of climate change. The latter includes the expansion of private, civil and military activity and infrastructure and the erosion of land rights. We used Saami reindeer hus...

This paper describes annual and seasonal changes in the number of days with 0°C crossings, comparing projections (2071–2100) based upon regional climate model (RCM) results under the medium and high emission scenarios with the period 1971–2000. A trend analysis of historical observations of days with zero‐crossings (DZCs) for the period 1971–2016 s...

Precipitation plays an important role in the Arctic hydrological cycle, affecting different areas like the surface energy budget and the mass balance of glaciers. Thus, accurate measurements of precipitation are crucial for physical process studies; but gauge measurements in the Arctic are sparse and subject to relocations and several gauge issues....

The Arctic region is considered to be most sensitive to climate change, with warming in the Arctic occurring considerably faster than the global average due to several positive feedback mechanisms contributing to the “Arctic amplification”. Also the maritime and mountainous climate of Svalbard has undergone changes during the last decades. Here, th...

This report was commissioned by the Norwegian Environment Agency in order to provide basic information for use in climate change adaptation in Svalbard. It includes descriptions of historical, as well as projections for the future climate development in the atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere and ocean, and it includes effects on the physical natur...

Indigenous reindeer herding in the circumpolar North is threatened by multiple drivers of environmental and social changes that affect the sustainability of traditional family-based nomadic use of pastures. These impacts are exacerbated by indigenous peoples’ lack of voice in governance strategies, management and adaptation responses.

Cambridge Core - Climatology and Climate Change - Indigenous Knowledge for Climate Change Assessment and Adaptation - edited by Douglas Nakashima

Ch 7. Regional Climates: f. Europe and the Middle East

Geographic variations in air and soil temperatures are dependent on several biotic and abiotic factors. Air temperature has mostly been used to characterize thermal conditions for plant life, and studies of bioclimatic gradients. From a biological point of view, it is also essential to know to what extent soil temperature is coupled with air temper...

Freezing rain and freezing drizzle events represent a critical feature of many regions of the world. Even at low intensities, these events often result in natural hazards that cause damage to housing, communication lines, and other man-made infrastructure. These events usually occur near the 0 °C isotherm. In a changing climate, this isotherm will...

This chapter describes observed changes in atmospheric conditions in the Baltic Sea drainage basin over the past 200–300 years. The Baltic Sea area is relatively unique with a dense observational network covering an extended time period. Data analysis covers an early period with sparse and relatively uncertain measurements, a period with well-devel...

This paper assesses the communication and the use of climate scenarios at the science–science and science–policy interface in Finland, Sweden and Norway. It is based on document analysis and stakeholder questionnaires. The questionnaires targeted three stakeholder groups, all engaged in the communication and the use of climate scenario information:...

This study evaluates the effects of climate change on agriculture in Northern Norway. It is based on downscaled climate projections for six differentmunicipalities combinedwith interviews with farmers, advisors and administrative personnel in these municipalities. The projections document large climatic differences both between and within the diffe...

High-density snow layers deteriorate grazing conditions for reindeer during winter. We compare two different methods for identifying past winters with difficult grazing conditions for reindeer in Kautokeino, northern Norway. A long-term climate analysis based on monthly values of precipitation and temperature (1900–2011) demonstrated that the repor...

Substantial variations in temperature and precipitation have been observed since the first permanent weather station was established in the Svalbard region in 1911. Temperature and precipitation development are analysed for the longest observational series, and periods with positive and negative trends are identified. For all temperature series, po...

Hard snow layers deteriorate the grazing situation for reindeers during winter. By modelling the snowpack evolution in Kautokeino over the period 1966-2009, we analyse the weather situations that favor the formation of high-density snow. This work is part of the IPY project EALAT (http://icr.arcticportal.org/en/ealat). We used daily meteorological...

Wind and temperature profiles in the constant flux layer obtained by tethersonde were used to compute the total aerodynamic drag on an area of 60% pack ice in the Fram Strait (79°20′N, 1−3°W). The boundary layer appeared adiabatic to heights greater than 150 m, and there were only minor air/water temperature differences. Drag coefficients of 4.9 an...

In this study trends and variability of temperature, precipitation and snow at four stations of theYamalo-Nenets AO, Russia (Mare-Sale, Tarko-Sale, Salekhard and Nadym) were examined along asimulated migration gradient used by nomadic reindeer herders where Mare-Sale represents pasturesused in summer and the Nadym region is used during winter. Migr...

The Arctic land areas have over the latest 2–3 decades experienced more warming than any other region on earth, and the sea-ice cover has decreased in the order of 10% in the same period. The Arctic climate conditions show large variability, both from year-to-year, but also on a decadal scale. A warm period, almost as warm as the present, was obser...

Downscaling Strategies Predictors and Pre-processing Linear Techniques Non-linear Techniques Predictions and Diagnostics Shortcomings and Limitations Reducing Uncertainties Downscaling Extremes and PDFs Weather Generator Implementing ESD.

The new normal values for the period 1961–1990 will be used as a reference for weather conditions in years to come. There has been a drop in temperature in most parts of Norway since the previous normal period 1931–1960. Annual precipitation has increased in most parts of the country. Moving averages indicate that a 30-year period is too short a ti...

Empirical-statistial downcaling,which is a range of analysis techniques for infering theeffect of a global warming on the local climate.

A generalized vulnerability framework was used to structure an interdisciplinary and intercultural examination of factors that influence the ways in which reindeer pastoralism in Finnmark (northern Norway) may be affected by climate change. Regional and local (downscaled) climate projections included scenarios that can potentially influence foragin...

Significant climatic changes over Northern Eurasia during the 20th century have been reflected in numerous variables of economic, social, and ecological interest, including the natural frequency of forest fires. For the former USSR, we are now using the Global Daily Climatology Network and a new Global Synoptic Data Network archive, GSDN, created j...

Large-scale changes in the sea-level pressure do not necessary reflect changes in the atmospheric moisture budget, and hence may not give a good representation of changes in precipitation as a result of a global warming. Statistical models that use both sea-level pressure and large-scale precipitation as predictors are evaluated for a number of loc...

Global climate models typically indicate that increased concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases will lead to a larger temperature increase at high northern latitudes than anywhere else in the world (Cubasch et al. 2001, Räisänen 2003). On the other hand, a majority of the models indicate an area of minimum temperature response around souther...

Studies from recent years involving development and application of statistical downscaling models for Scandinavia (mainly Norway and Sweden) are reviewed. In most of the studies linear techniques were applied. Local temperature and/or precipitation were predictands in a majority of the studies. Large-scale temperature fields, either from 2 m or 850...

Observational series and downscaled scenarios of air temperature are used to describe long-term variations 1900–2050 in different climatic indices that are important for the living conditions in the Nordic Arctic (Northern Fennoscandia, Svalbard, Faeroe Islands, and the Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian Sea regions). In addition to air temperature; indic...

Empirically downscaled climate scenarios are presented for the Svalbard region, based on mixed 2‐meter temperature and sea level pressure fields. The scenarios are derived using the large‐scale fields from the ECHAM4‐GSDIO, HadCM3, and NCAR‐CSM climate change experiments, and utilizing common empirical orthogonal functions. There are substantial di...

Sparse stations and serious measuring problems hamper analyses of climatic conditions in the Arctic. This paper presents a discussion of measuring problems in the Arctic and gives an overview of observed past and projected future climate variations in Svalbard and Jan Mayen. Novel analyses of temperature conditions during precipitation and trends i...

Sparse stations and serious measuring problems hamper analyses of climatic conditions in the Arctic. This paper presents a discussion of measuring problems in the Arctic and gives an overview of observed past and projected future climate variations in Svalbard and Jan Mayen. Novel analyses of temperature conditions during precipitation and trends i...

A scenario from the coupled atmosphere-ocean climate model ECHAM4/OPYC3 was downscaled by empirical and dynamical methods to show projected changes in temperature (T) and precipitation (R) in Norway under global warming. In the empirical models, large-scale T was applied as a predictor for T. For R, both T and sea-level pressure (SLP) were applied...

The first part of the paper gives a review of recent and projected climatic variations in the Norwegian Arctic. The annual temperature has increased in the Svalbard region and at Jan Mayen during the latest decades, but the present level is still lower than in the 1930s. Measured annual precipitation has increased by more than 2.5% per decade durin...

In a joint Nordic effort, a high-quality climate data set for the Nordic Arctic is established. The data set consists of monthly values from 20 stations in Greenland, Iceland, the Faeroes, and the Norwegian Arctic. The data set is made available on the web. Ten climate elements are included, and most of the series covers the period 1890–2000. The d...

Temperature and precipitation series from Svalbard for the period 1912–2000 were analysed. There was a statistically significant warming from 1912 to the 1930s, a cooling from the 1930s to the 1960s and a warming from the 1960s to present. There was a positive trend in the annual mean temperature during the period 1912–2000, but it was not statisti...

The role of sea-ice for the local climate in the Svalbard region is investigated using observed temperature records from Arctic climate stations and gridded sea-ice data. The coupling between sea-ice and sea level pressure as well as 2-meter temperature is also examined. The quality of the sea-ice product from the HadISST1.1 project is evaluated in...

A continuous spatial representation of temperature improves the possibility topro- duce maps of temperature-dependent variables. A temperature scenario for the period 2021-2050 is obtained for Norway from the Max-Planck-Institute? AOGCM, GSDIO ECHAM4/OPEC 3. This is done by an ?empirical downscaling method? which in- volves the use of empirical lin...

The monthly mean 2 m temperature and sea-level pressure (SLP) fields from the most recent integration (GSDIO) with the Max Planck Institute's global coupled climate model ECHAM4/OPYC3 are compared to historical data over Norway including Svalbard. For temperature, observations from selected stations are directly compared to values at grid points ne...

Monthly mean 2m temperatures (T) and sea level pressure (SLP) fields from the “GSDIO-integration” with the Max-Planck-Institute’s global coupled climate model ECHAM4/OPYC3 are compared to similar observed quantities over Norway and Svalbard. For temperature, values from selected grid-points are compared directly to values from selected stations. Fo...

The mean annual temperature in the Norwegian Arctic (Svalbard and Jan Mayen) has undergone large fluctuations during the 20th century. Temperature increases before the 1930s, and decreases from the 1940s to the 1960s are larger than on the Norwegian mainland and stations farther south in continental Europe. Despite increasing temperatures during re...

The main aim of the present study was to identify to what degree decadal scale variability and long-term trends in temperature and precipitation in Norway can be attributed to variations in the dominating atmospheric circulation patterns. Empirical models were developed and tested on monthly series of temperature and precipitation in different regi...

Results from the WMO Solid Precipitation MeasurementIntercomparison and parallel precipitationmeasurements from Svalbard are used to evaluate andadjust models for estimating true precipitation underArctic conditions. The conclusion is that trueprecipitation in the Arctic may be estimatedreasonably well when the wind speed at gauge height isless tha...

Long-term in situ observations are widely used in a variety of climate analyses. Unfortunately, most decade- to century-scale time series of atmospheric data have been adversely impacted by inhomogeneities caused by, for example, changes in instrumentation, station moves, changes in the local environment such as urbanization, or the introduction of...

Observations from the Norwegian Arctic show positive trends in annual mean temperatures from 1912 to the 1930s and from the 1960s to 1996. Between these periods there was a negative trend, and there is no statistically significant trend in the record as a whole. The present temperature is approximately the same as in the 1920s, and lower than durin...

Two different methods were applied to estimate long-term precipitation trends representative for regions in Norway. A new method, comparative trend analysis (CTA), was applied on 142 homogeneous precipitation series of 70-100 years. In this way 12 precipitation trend regions were identified. Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied on a subse...

The standard normal homogeneity test has been applied to 165 Norwegian precipitation series of 75 years or more. Of these series, 50 were found to be homogeneous, while 79 became homogeneous after being adjusted for a single inhomogeneity. Almost 50% of the inhomogeneities were caused by relocation of the precipitation gauge. Other reasons for inho...

Wind and temperature profiles in the constant flux layer obtained by tethersonde were used to compute the total aerodynamic drag on an area of 60% pack ice in the Fram Strait (79°20′N, 1−3°W). The boundary layer appeared adiabatic to heights greater than 150 m, and there were only minor air/water temperature differences. Drag coefficients of 4.9 an...

A model for computing daily mean SO2 concentrations in Bergen, Norway, is developed and tested using SO2 measurements from seven winter seasons during the 1970s. The meteorological predictors used are daily mean temperature, wind speed and temperature at two levels. Source strength is estimated from daily mean temperature. Correlations between obse...

The 2m temperature field from the ECHAM4/OPYC3 GSDIO integration (which includes effects of greenhouse-gases and tropospheric ozon, as well as direct and indirect effects of sulphur aeroseols) was used as predictor for empirical downscaling of local monthly mean temperature over Norway during the period 1870-2050. The reason for using temperature a...

Analyses of SO^<2->_4, Na^+，Cl^-，Mg^<2+> and Ca^<2+>in ice core samples of multiyear sea ice in the Fram Strait show strong correlations between the concentrations of Mg^<2+>，Na^+，Cl^- and Ca^<2+>（r=0・99）while the correlation coefficients between these ions and SO^<2->_4 were less than O．9．Most samples had a deficit of sulfate relative to sea water...