| Summary: | In northern countries, such as Finland, winter climate conditions affect the functionality of society in many ways. Due to the climate warming, the winter conditions are facing changes. Changes in snow and ice act as an indicator of the climate conditions in a region. The aim of this thesis is to examine what the winters are like in Finland in a changing climate. The main results of this work are based on gridded observations, FMIClimGrid and E-OBS, and CMIP5 global climate model simulations. Using these, the observed snow, temperature and precipitation conditions in 1961-2014 were analyzed, and the future changes in Baltic Sea ice cover were projected for the ongoing century. In addition, two modeling studies were performed: The first assessed the performance of ECHAM5 atmospheric general circulation model in simulating snow melt timing in spring, and the second studied the ability of numerical convection-permitting weather prediction model HARMONIE to simulate a sea-effect snowfall case. The results showed that, in Finland, the snow depth has decreased throughout the year and the snow season has shortened. Increasing liquid precipitation in winter was one of the main reasons for the changes. In spring, increasing air temperature has had an effect. The annual maximum sea ice extent and sea ice thickness in the Baltic Sea were projected to decrease during the ongoing century. However, the Baltic Sea is unlikely to become totally ice-free during typical winters in the coming decades. When climate models are used to predict future climate conditions, it is essential that they describe the snow cover realistically, since it is an important element of the climate system. In the ECHAM5 climate model, Northern Eurasian snow melt timing was generally produced quite well when compared to satellite observations, but regional differences were also found. The reasons for the discrepancies turned out to be the simplifications in the calculations of the model’s surface energy budget. The HARMONIE model also managed to ...
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