Earlier this week, scientists announced that 2024 is the hottest year on record since temperature records began. And Sweden’s mild weather creates uncertain snow conditions where the seasons don’t behave as they once did and winter can appear when you least expect it.
– You soon start to reach an annual average temperature for northern Sweden that is above zero degrees and then it starts to become problematic, says Pererik Åberg, meteorologist at SVT.
“A constant worry”
Sanna Vannar is a reindeer herder in Sirge’s Sami village, and the uncertain winter conditions make her work difficult.
– You walk around with a constant worry that it could turn out to be a little bit of anything. A week ago it rained and it was plus degrees, so winter is great. It is important to have crisis plans at all times, but it is very difficult to predict.
With frequent zero crossings, slush snow forms – an ice cover that makes it difficult for animals to dig for food. Vannar has had support feeding the reindeer during the year when the herd was at its worst. She believes that the reindeer cannot get there as a result of the changing weather.
– Last winter it rained for a week and then it rained. I have never experienced that at the end of February, beginning of March.
Two degrees warmer
Sweden has become almost two degrees warmer since pre-industrial times and in northern Sweden the temperatures are increasing the fastest. Scientists estimate that the Arctic is warming almost four times faster than the rest of the Earth.
– Single years do not say much about the climate in itself because the weather has always varied. If, on the other hand, you look at a 30-year period and compare it with an equally long period in the past, then you see big changes, says Pererik Åberg and continues:
– Even if the climate changes, you will have days that are exactly like before, but then you have these days that would not have happened 50-60 years ago, it would not be so hot or there would not be so much snow. But those days are coming now and they are coming more and more often.
In the next part of the series on climate change in Sápmi, we tell you how the reindeer remain on the mountain, when the migration routes turn into ice streets.