Impact of Climate Change on Northern Europe

In Denmark, January temperatures average between −2 °C and 4 °C. Denmark's coldest month, however, is February, where the mean temperature is 0 °C. The amount of hours of sunlight per day does increase during the month of February for Denmark, where they get seven to eight hours a day. Iceland winters are generally mild considering how high its latitude is. The coastal lowlands of Iceland have average January temperatures of about 0 °C, while the highlands of central Iceland generally stay below −10 °C. The lowest winter temperatures in Iceland are usually somewhere between −25 °C and −30 °C, although the lowest temperature ever recorded on Iceland was −39.7 °C. In Norway, the coastal regions have mild winters, while further inland winter is much colder. During midwinter, southern areas of Norway only get five to six hours of sunlight a day, while the north gets little to none. In January, the average temperature in Norway is somewhere in between −6 °C and 3 °C. Like neighboring Norway, Sweden averages −6 °C to 1 °C in the month of January. Swedish areas north of the Arctic Circle rarely see the sun rise, due to the natural phenomenon of the polar night. In January and February, temperatures in this area can drop to −15 °C. In February, Northern Sweden sees about four to six hours of daylight a day.

Denmark's warmest month is July, where the mean temperature is 17 °C. In Iceland, occasionally thunderstorms occur in the south in late summertime, due to warm air being deflected to northern latitudes from warm air masses in other parts of Europe. Also, cold air originating from Canada, warms rapidly over the ocean, forming thunderclouds. Thunderstorms, however, are very rare in Iceland, and there are less than five of them per year. In June, Iceland's average daily temperatures range from 8 °C to 16 °C. Summer conditions vary in Norway depending on location. The Norwegian coast has cooler summers than areas further inland. Due to its northern location, there is almost no darkness in June and July in the north, reaching as far south as Trondheim. In summer, the average temperature in the Northern areas are somewhere between 8 °C and 16 °C, while further South it is usually 13 °C to 22 °C. In Sweden, summers experiences more rainfall than other seasons. Swedish areas north of the Arctic Circle rarely see the sun set during the months of June and July, due to the natural phenomenon Midnight sun. Northern parts of Sweden have summer temperatures in the 8 °C to 16 °C range, while further south, the temperature is closer to 13 °C and 22 °C.

Northernmost Scandinavia has two main bedrock units, the Precambrian Basement (with rocks mainly in the range 2,500-1,500 Myr) and the Caledonian Mountain Range (age about 550-350 Myr). The Caledonides cut discordantly across Basement structures. The Basement owes its main sedimentary and volcanic rocks, as well as its most important structures and magmatic intrusions, to the Svecokarelian Orogeny (1,950-1,750 Myr) and associated events that preceded this Orogeny and followed upon it. The Kiruna ore, which is one of the world's largest iron ore bodies, formed in the course of these events together with other, economically important mineral enrichments. The Svecokarelian orogeny affected a much older continent the remains of which are still exposed. The Caledonides also include major massives of older bedrock. The principal Caledonian structure consists of overthrust nappes. These are several hundred meters to a few kilometers thick sheets of rock of sedimentary and magmatic origin that have been pushed horizontally over distances of as much as hundreds of kilometers. As a result of these movement the nappes rest on the top of one another. Individual nappes can be identified over tens to many thousands of square kilometers. The original root areas of the nappes are now covered by the North Atlantic. Metamorphism tends to be greatest in some of the higher and more westerly nappes, reflecting the circumstance that they came from central parts of the Caledonian Orogen. The Caledonian Orogeny is the expression of plate tectonic movements of Cambrian to Devonian age. Later plate tectonism has moved the continental crust of Scandinavia from the southern hemisphere, where it was in the early Paleozoic, to its present, northerly position.

The Pleistocene is the best known glacial period of the earth's history. Its ice sheets at one time covered large parts of Northern Europe. The ice sheets of Europe radiated from Scandinavia and covered Finland, NW Russia, N Germany, and the British Isles. In addition to the Pleistocene, there is numerous evidence in support of past ice ages in the region: Alterations of rivers and drainage systems, caused by diversion of rivers or the erosion of surface topography by glaciers.  Channels not occupied by significant streams, left behind after the glaciers diverted the rivers that originally excavated them.  Evidence of catastrophic floods as huge glacial lakes breached ice dams.  Broad gouges across the landscape that show evidence of glacial surges, indicating that the glacial ages may have been punctuated by periods of warming and melting; many of these are so large they are only recognizable on aerial photographs and topographic maps.  Moraines and other deposits of gravels and glacial till transported from distant places; some of these deposits are found at the feet of valleys in which the glaciers have retreated; others are found far from any present day glaciers.  Striated rocks abraded by glaciers; these are found all over Northern Europe.  Glacial eratics, huge boulders left far from their original sources, so large that they couldn't have been moved by water or wind.  Pothole lakes scoured from the land and left by melting glaciers.  Loess deposits and sand carried by the winds that blew down from the continental glaciers.  Widespread deposits of finely ground rock left by glacial melting; these are found in mountain lakes, in the oceans, and in dried up lake beds far from the mountains.  During the Last Glacial Maximum, Northern Europe was largely covered by ice, the southern boundary of the ice sheets passing through Germany and Poland. This ice extended northward to cover Svalbard and Franz Josef Land and northeastward to occupy the Barents Sea, the Kara Sea and Novaya Zemlya, ending at the Taymyr Peninsula.  Permafrost covered Europe south of the ice sheet down to present-day Szeged in Southern Hungary. Ice covered the whole of Iceland and almost all of the British Isles but southern England.