Snowy winters are becoming a thing of the past in Southern Finland

Nature is doing better than for ages, fresh report reveals

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There may be snow on the ground now, but "proper" winters with plenty of snow are becoming a thing of the past in Southern Finland, predicts Finland’s environmental administration SYKE.
      Greenhouse gases are the undoing of snow in the south of the country.
      Climate change is predicted to raise Finland’s average temperature by 3-7°C by the end of the century.
      Relatively speaking, winters will warm up more than summers. There will also be an increase in the amount of precipitation, and again it will be mostly in the winter.
      Hence winters in Southern Finland are going to become snowless for the most part, but considerably more rainy.
     
The black and singularly damp prediction for southerners emerges from an online report “The State of the Environment in Finland 2008” published yesterday by SYKE and Finland’s Ministry of the Environment.
      Besides the warming winters, the report’s easy-to-grasp text contains information on many other subjects as well, such as urban structure, the state of surface and ground waters, the biodiversity of nature, and so on.
     
The report’s basic message is in fact quite optimistic. Nature is doing better than for ages, and though climate change is inevitably advancing, there are still ways to slow it down.
      Humour has not been forgotten either: the section talking about the disappearance of snowy winters has been accompanied by a photomanipulation depicting a summer (!) ice-fishing event in Pudasjärvi.
      In addition to the national report, 13 regional summaries are also available on the Net at www.ymparisto.fi. The reports are in Finnish.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Winter brings both annoyance and delight to Helsinki (25.11.2008)
  Climate change will bring recurring winter floods to Finland (11.12.2007)

Links:
  The State of the Environment in Finland 2008 (Report in Finnish)

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