Northern Europe: Climate change makes un • Table.Briefings

A cold snap in Sweden and neighboring countries at the beginning of January caused traffic disruptions, school closures, power outages and infrastructure damage.

Does man-made global warming favor cold snaps like the one in January? In an initial analysis for Northern Europe, a team of researchers comes to the opposite conclusion: Without climate change, temperatures would probably have dropped even further.

Northern Europe experienced unusually cold snaps at the beginning of January caused by cold Arctic air. In Vittangi, Sweden, the temperature fell to -44.6 degrees on January 5. This was the lowest temperature recorded in Finland, Sweden and Norway since the turn of the century. North America also recorded unusually low temperatures in January. Is there a connection to global warming? An international team of 19 climate scientists has investigated this for Finland, Sweden and Norway in a first analysis.

Northern Europe: Climate change makes unusual cold less frequent

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