Wintertime climate factors controlling snow resource decline in Finland

Irannezhad, Masoud; Ronkanen, Anna‐Kaisa; Kløve, Bjørn

doi:10.1002/joc.4332

Cited by 37 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 99 publications

(161 reference statements)

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“…An option is also to apply a snowpack model to simulate SWE, as undertaken by Irannezhad et al . () for three stations in Finland. They found that during a recent century‐long period, the simulated annual peak SWE decreased and shifted in time to earlier dates and the continuous snow cover duration shortened at three weather stations located in southern, central and northern parts of the country.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 63%

“…Some datasets of SWE do exist, such as the SYKE snow survey data (Reuna, 1994) and the GlobSnow SWE product (Luojus et al, 2013), but they typically cover a shorter time range or are of coarser temporal or spatial resolution than the FMIClimGrid dataset utilized in this paper. An option is also to apply a snowpack model to simulate SWE, as undertaken by Irannezhad et al (2016) for three stations in Finland. They found that during a recent centurylong period, the simulated annual peak SWE decreased and shifted in time to earlier dates and the continuous snow cover duration shortened at three weather stations located in southern, central and northern parts of the country.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Snow cover trends in Finland over 1961–2014 based on gridded snow depth observations

Luomaranta

Aalto

Jylhä

2019

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Snow conditions in high‐latitude regions are changing in response to climate warming, and these changes are likely to accelerate as the warming proceeds. Here, we analyse daily gridded snow depth, temperature and precipitation data from Finland over the period 1961–2014 to discover the ongoing changes in monthly average snow depths (SN) and several snow‐related indices. Our results indicate that regional differences of changes in snow conditions can be relatively large, even within such a small district as Finland. Moreover, the interannual variation of the various snow indices was found to be larger in southern Finland than in northern Finland. The largest decrease in snow depth occurred in the southern, western and central parts of Finland in late winter and early spring. This decrease was driven by increasing mixed and liquid precipitation and, especially in spring, increasing temperature. In northern Finland, the decreasing trend of snow depth was most evident in spring, but no change occurred during winter months, although the amount of solid precipitation was found to increase in December–February. In the same months, temperature and the amount of mixed and liquid precipitation increased, likely counteracting the effects of the increasing solid precipitation on snow depth. The annual maximum snow depth that typically occurs in March was found to decrease in over 85% of Finland's area, most strongly in western coastal areas. In almost half of Finland's area, this decrease occurred despite increasing solid precipitation. Our findings highlight the complexity of the responses of snow conditions to climatic variability in northern Europe.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 63%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Snow cover trends in Finland over 1961–2014 based on gridded snow depth observations

Luomaranta

Aalto

Jylhä

2019

Intl Journal of Climatology

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“…A number of long-term continuous climatic monitoring series are available in the NAR (e.g., Kohler et al 2006;Nordli et al 2014), comprising a unique record for studies related to Arctic climate change and variability during winter. The region is a primary pathway for the transport of atmospheric energy into the Arctic (Serreze et al 2007) and is situated in a projected hot spot area with increased heat fluxes from the Atlantic water masses (e.g., Årthun et al 2012), the retreat of winter sea ice (Onarheim et al 2014), and a decrease in snow cover (e.g., Irannezhad et al 2015). These processes are connected with a relatively large transition to more frequent temperatures above 08C (e.g., Førland et al 2011) and an increase in precipitation (e.g., Fleig et al 2015) and heavy rainfalls during winter (e.g., Hansen et al 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in Winter Warming Events in the Nordic Arctic Region

et al. 2016

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In recent years extreme winter warming events have been reported in arctic areas. These events are characterized as extraordinarily warm weather episodes, occasionally combined with intense rainfall, causing ecological disturbance and challenges for arctic societies and infrastructure. Ground-ice formation due to winter rain or melting prevents ungulates from grazing, leads to vegetation browning, and impacts soil temperatures. The authors analyze changes in frequency and intensity of winter warming events in the Nordic arctic region-northern Norway, Sweden, and Finland, including the arctic islands Svalbard and Jan Mayen. This study identifies events in the longest available records of daily temperature and precipitation, as well as in future climate scenarios, and performs analyses of long-term trends for climate indices aimed to capture these individual events. Results show high frequencies of warm weather events during the 1920s-30s and the past 15 years , causing weak positive trends over the past 90 years . In contrast, strong positive trends in occurrence and intensity for all climate indices are found for the past 50 years with, for example, increased rates for number of melt days of up to 9.2 days decade 21 for the arctic islands and 3-7 days decade 21 for the arctic mainland. Regional projections for the twenty-first century indicate a significant enhancement of the frequency and intensity of winter warming events. For northern Scandinavia, the simulations indicate a doubling in the number of warming events, compared to 1985-2014, while the projected frequencies for the arctic islands are up to 3 times higher.

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“…It affects spring floods, low flows in early summer, groundwater recharge and soil moisture conditions (Kinar and Pomeroy, 2015;Okkonen and Kløve, 2011). Recent climate projections (IPCC, 2014) and studies (Irannezhad et al, 2016;Räisänen and Eklund, 2012;Sturm et al, 2009) indicate drastic future changes in snow cover properties and the timing of snowmelt in boreal and arctic regions. Precipitation in circumpolar areas is projected to increase (IPCC, 2014), but snowfall is indicated to decrease (Irannezhad…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%