Climate of Northern Europe

Most of the Great European Plain lies below 152 meters in elevation. It is home to many navigable rivers, including the Rhine, Weser, Elbe, Oder, and Vistula. The climate supports a wide variety of seasonal crops. These physical features allowed for early communication, travel, and agricultural development. The North European Plain remains the most densely populated region of Europe. Denmark and Sweden, there are cultural institutions with roots in the traditions of the royal courts. In these countries, national institutions formed the foundation of cultural life at an early stage while, in Norway, cultural institutions began to form later.  Nordic Culture Fund, established in 1966, aims to support a broad spectrum of cultural cooperations between the Nordic countries. The Fund’s ambition is to enable talented artists, both professionals and amateurs, to enrich each other via the cultural diversity that exists among the 26 million or more people of the Region.  Nordic countries share certain traditions in music, many of which have diverged significantly. In folk music Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the Faroe Islands share many common aspects. Greenland's Inuit culture has its own musical traditions, influenced by Scandinavian culture. Finland shares many cultural similarities with both the other Nordic countries as well as with the Baltic states, especially Estonia. The Sami have their own unique culture, with ties to the neighboring cultures.

The North European Plain extends from the southern United Kingdom east to Russia. It includes parts of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Poland, the Baltic states, and Belarus. Most of the Great European Plain lies below 152 meters in elevation. It is home to many navigable rivers, including the Rhine, Weser, Elbe, Oder, and Vistula. The climate supports a wide variety of seasonal crops. These physical features allowed for early communication, travel, and agricultural development. The North European Plain remains the most densely populated region of Europe. 

The geography of Scandinavia is extremely varied. Notable are the Norwegian fjords, the Scandinavian Mountains, the flat, low areas in Denmark, and the archipelagos of Sweden and Norway. Sweden has many lakes and moraines, legacies of the ice age.The climate varies from north to south and from west to east; a marine west coast climate typical of western Europe dominates in Denmark, southernmost part of Sweden and along the west coast of Norway reaching north to 65°N, with orographic lift giving more mm/year precipitation (<5000 mm) in some areas in western Norway. The central part, from Oslo to Stockholm, has a humid continental climate, which gradually gives way to subarctic climate further north and cool marine west coast climate along the northwestern coast. A small area along the northern coast east of the North Cape has tundra climate as a result of a lack of summer warmth. The Scandinavian Mountains block the mild and moist air coming from the southwest, thus northern Sweden and the Finnmarksvidda plateau in Norway receive little precipitation and have cold winters. Large areas in the Scandinavian mountains have alpine tundra climate.

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 od 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.
One large issue with climate change in northern Europe is the ever increasing precipitation, while at the same time, it is decreasing in the southern half of the continent.  This trend is expected to continue over the years to come and will only lead to further environmental problems in the region.  Multiple rivers are expected to flood as a result of this climate change due to higher temperatures intensifying the water cycle.  For precipitation, the most pronounced changes are found for Scandinavia in winter (+14.6%).  The cost up until 2100 for the flooding of buildings around the major lakes in Sweden, Vänern, Mälaren and Halmaren, was estimated at a total of SEK 7.9 billion at today’s hundred-year flood. Damage costs for shipping, roads, railways, agriculture, forestry, water treatment works, sewage system, power station and industries totaled an additional SEK 3.2 billion.  Today’s hundred-year flood will have a smaller return frequency in some parts of the country. In the area around Lake Vänern, it is estimated that the hundred-year floods will have a return frequency of 20 years. The hundred-year floods in a changed climate will; therefore, be higher than at present in these areas, which means that larger areas will be flooded. The return frequency will be longer in other parts of the country.  Even though there is no direct proof that these floods are a result of climate change, flash and urban floods, caused by intense precipitation events, are probable to be more frequent throughout Scandinavia. 

There are several political institutions in place that prevent adequate policies to prevent climate change in northern Europe as well.  First, the majority of the countries in this region heavily rely on industries to improve their respective economies that are known to releases greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.  This intimate connection between climate change and economic vitality implicates almost every aspect of a country’s economy.  Second, advanced technologies that could replace fossil fuels are extremely expensive and most countries cannot afford to make the switch without a devastating impact on their economic stability.  Third, northern European countries do not release as much carbon dioxide as others, so they disagree with most of the world that they should reduce their own emissions when countries such as the United States and China are responsible for so much more of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.  Not only is it difficult for these countries to agree with one another, it is almost impossible to enforce any regulations made to counteract climate change.  Finally, there are still those in the region that deny climate change and all parties that engage in such acts add to the politicization of the science of climate change. The result is a clouding of the reality of the climate change issue.

In terms of future climate predictions for the region, the area in general is in tremendous trouble.  This past decade was the warmest on record for Northern Europe and in the later parts of the century, temperature could increase by as much as 2.5-4 degrees Celsius warmer than in the later part of the 20^th century. The projected increase in heat waves could increase the number of related deaths over the next decades, unless societies adapt. However, cold-related deaths are projected to decrease in many countries. Climate change is projected to increase river flooding as higher temperatures intensify the water cycle. However, it is difficult to discern the influence of climate change in flooding data records for the past.  The Arctic is warming faster than other regions. Record low sea ice was observed in the Arctic in 2007, 2011 and 2012. Melting of the Greenland ice sheet has doubled since the 1990s, losing an average of 250 billion tonnes of mass every year between 2005 and 2009. Glaciers in the Alps have lost about two thirds of their volume since 1850 and these trends are projected to continue.  Climate change plays a part in the transmission of certain diseases. For example, it allows the tick species Ixodes ricinus to thrive further north, while further warming may make parts of Europe more suitable for disease-carrying mosquitos and sandflies. The pollen season is longer and arrives 10 days earlier than 50 years ago, also affecting human health. As temperatures rise, demand for heating has also fallen, saving energy. However, this must be balanced against higher energy demands for cooling during hotter summers.  Without serious regulations put into place to counteract climate change, many Northern Europeans homes, families and very lives will be destroyed in the future.