Local and regional variability in snow conditions in northern Finland: A reindeer herding perspective

Rasmus, Sirpa; Kivinen, Sonja; Bavay, Mathias; Heiskanen, Janne

doi:10.1007/s13280-015-0762-5

Cited by 22 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…Hansen et al (2014) show that the warm weather this winter led to a similar situation as in 2006 with numerous ROS events, ground-ice accumulation, and starvation-induced mortality in all monitored populations of wild reindeer by blocking access to the winter food source. Similar population crashes to semidomesticated reindeer caused by ground ice are also known from other northern regions and years (Riseth et al 2011;Vikhamar-Schuler et al 2013;Rasmus et al 2016). Ground ice has a negative impact on vegetation encased in ice (Gudleifsson 2009;Bjerke et al 2011;Preece et al 2012).…”

Section: B Winter Warming Trends In the Twenty-first Centurymentioning

confidence: 57%

“…Warmer wetter winters will affect human societies in various ways. Extreme winters have proven that ROS events followed by ground-ice accumulation lead to more road icings, airport closures, bone fractures, damage to buildings due to burst from frozen pipes, and reduced profits from nature-based industries due to winterkill of reindeer and agricultural grasslands (Helle and Säntii 1982;Riseth et al 2011;Vikhamar-Schuler et al 2013;Hansen et al 2014;Bjerke et al 2014Bjerke et al , 2015Rasmus et al 2016;Bokhorst et al 2016). Higher atmospheric humidity at near-zero temperatures may also lead to increased icing formation, which can be hazardous to high seas fishery, forestry, and manmade infrastructure (Bulygina et al 2015).…”

Section: B Winter Warming Trends In the Twenty-first Centurymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…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). This has triggered extensive international environmental research, where many studies document the ecological effects of winter warming events and ROS in the NAR (e.g., Kohler and Aanes 2004;Hansen et al 2013Hansen et al , 2014Stien et al 2010Stien et al , 2012Hansen and Aanes 2012;Cooper 2014;Bjerke et al 2014Bjerke et al , 2015Vikhamar-Schuler et al 2013;Kivinen and Rasmus 2015;Rasmus et al 2016), and provides the motivation in this study for analyzing both the past and future projected trends of such extreme events.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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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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Section: B Winter Warming Trends In the Twenty-first Centurymentioning

confidence: 57%

Section: B Winter Warming Trends In the Twenty-first Centurymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Changes in Winter Warming Events in the Nordic Arctic Region

et al. 2016

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“…The formation of the snow cover during the autumn is considered crucial for all winter conditions. During unstable early winter with several 0-degree days, there is a high probability of icy snow cover or ground ice formation that prevents reindeer access to lichens [33][34][35]38]. Warmer and wetter winters have been reported to decrease reindeer condition and productivity and increase their mortality in Nordic countries and Russia.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-Term Climate Trends and Extreme Events in Northern Fennoscandia (1914–2013)

Kivinen

Rasmus

Jylhä

et al. 2017

Climate

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Abstract:We studied climate trends and the occurrence of rare and extreme temperature and precipitation events in northern Fennoscandia in 1914Fennoscandia in -2013. Weather data were derived from nine observation stations located in Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia. The results showed that spring and autumn temperatures and to a lesser extent summer temperatures increased significantly in the study region, the observed changes being the greatest for daily minimum temperatures. The number of frost days declined both in spring and autumn. Rarely cold winter, spring, summer and autumn seasons had a low occurrence and rarely warm spring and autumn seasons a high occurrence during the last 20-year interval (1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013), compared to the other 20-year intervals. That period was also characterized by a low number of days with extremely low temperature in all seasons (4%-9% of all extremely cold days) and a high number of April and October days with extremely high temperature (36%-42% of all extremely warm days). A tendency of exceptionally high daily precipitation sums to grow even higher towards the end of the study period was also observed. To summarize, the results indicate a shortening of the cold season in northern Fennoscandia. Furthermore, the results suggest significant declines in extremely cold climate events in all seasons and increases in extremely warm climate events particularly in spring and autumn seasons.

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“…Intense snowfall may cause severe problems for traffic and electricity supply (Andreescu and Frost, ; Andersson, ; Juga et al, ; Vajda et al, ; Lehtonen, ), and maintaining sufficient snow removal equipment requires financial resources (Keskinen, ; Lehtonen, ). Snow cover conditions and the changes in them also impact reindeer herding (Hansen et al, , ; Rasmus et al, , ; Turunen et al, ) and boreal agriculture and vegetation, especially in spring (Bjerke et al, ; Peltonen‐Sainio et al, ). On the other hand, the presence of snow in the winter season is essential for recreation and wintertime tourism (Tervo‐Kankare et al, ; Hall, ; Neuvonen et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

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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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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Local and regional variability in snow conditions in northern Finland: A reindeer herding perspective

Cited by 22 publications

References 46 publications

Changes in Winter Warming Events in the Nordic Arctic Region

Changes in Winter Warming Events in the Nordic Arctic Region

Long-Term Climate Trends and Extreme Events in Northern Fennoscandia (1914–2013)

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

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