Modelling future climate change in the Baltic region

Ole B Christensen, DMI

Anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are believed to increase the
greenhouse effect of the Earth's atmosphere. The total anthropogenic forcing at
present is about 1.46 W/m^2. Due to the increase of greenhouse gas
concentrations, numerical climate models show a projected global warming of
around 4 degrees within one hundred years. In Europe this warming will be
accomanied by a drying of Southern Europe during summer, and by an increase of
winter precipitation in Northern Europe.

Regional climate models confirm these findings and furthermore enables an
investigation of changes in precipitation statistics. It is seen that high
percentiles of summer precipitation intensity show a tendency to increase in large
parts of Europe, even in areas that show a marked decrease in average
precipitation. This tendency is more marked the higher the percentile in
question.

Average wind speed in a regional model shows increases in the sea surrounding
Denmark both in winter and summer.