Collaborators at the Transit of Venus 2004:

Climate during the last 100 years

Mean temperature has increased by approximately 0.6 (C on a global scale. Due to large regional differences, the local changes in temperature are of different magnitude than the global change. Temperature change in Norway, since 1876, is 0.4 (C to 1.2 (C dependent on location. This change happened in two periods, the first 4 decades of the 20th century and the last two decades. Precipitation has on a yearly basis increased with 5 to 18 %, since the late 19th century, dependent on region.

Future temperature and precipitation increase in Norway

The results from a regionalized climate change scenario for Norway during the next 50 years indicate that for Norway as a whole, an increase of 0.25(C/decade in annual temperature is estimated. The warming is stronger in northern areas (0.5 (C/decade) compared to southern areas (0.2 (C/decade) and tends to be stronger inland than along the coast. The heating rate during the winter months is nearly twice that of the summer months. Annual precipitation is projected to increase in all regions by 10 % on the average with a relative increase in frequency of both heavy precipitation amounts and days without precipitation. The largest increase for this scenario is estimated in the western parts of the country during the autumn (25%) and the smallest increase is found in the inland part of the south-eastern areas in spring. Only a small increase is found for the average wind speed, but the frequency of events with strong wind is estimated to increase outside the coast of western Norway during the autumn and outside Troms and Finnmark in winter.