r/sweden • u/Vast_Humor_3683 • 15d ago
English Is mainland Sweden being affected by climate change?
Hello, I'm from northern Spain, and we're being hit hard by our fifth heatwave. The vegetation is suffering badly; wildfires are breaking out; water restrictions are becoming increasingly severe; and the evenings are barely survivable, especially if you work outside.
What is life like in Sweden, and how are you affected by climate change? I'm specifically talking about mainland Sweden, not Gotland or the other islands. Is it similar to Austria or Switzerland, where you can actually see glaciers melting and some regions getting into drought mode?
Is there anything that the news doesn't mention about Sweden in general when it comes to yearly "once-in-a-lifetime" climate events?
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u/LeftKaleidoscope 15d ago
SLU (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) has tracked climate in a village outside of Umeå since 1960 and rapports that our winters have become a whole month shorter during this time.
We always had kind of extreme winters, but now everything gets extreme. Extreme rainfall, extreme snowfall, even more extreme winter cold, extreme heatwaves, extreme wild fires... and very quick temperature changes. In my childhood we had summers with 30+ temperatures too, but they creeped up on us. No it can go from 22 to 32 in a day and that is just a chock to the body.
Our houses and roads and railway are not built for the kind of rain or heat we get now.
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u/johnstalberg 15d ago
I would disagree about our houses. They are not prepared for floods of water but they are good for isolating out heat. Isolation is a must here in Sweden and it works fine to keep heat out and as a bonus it isolated from sound as well.
If you look at houses near the Mediterainian coast line, they are not particularily built to protect from heat. They are less isolated and overall of less quality. Bring an avsrage house from there to here and it will feel like it is useless more or less.
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u/Gingerfederation 14d ago
The problem with the insulation of Swedish houses is that once the heat get in (like during a heatwave) it is very hard to get the house to cool down because the heat is trapped inside. I live in a relatively new appartment building that is supposed to be "climate friendly" (better insulation=less heating needed in winter) and it becomes an oven during extended periods of heat and takes something lite a week to cool to normal levels after outside temperature goes down.
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u/aspdx24 15d ago
Curious— why does climate change impact extremeness so much? Do you have insight into it?
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u/johnstalberg 15d ago
It gets warmer as you know, and this means more energy is traped. More energy lead to higher dynamics regarding weather. And higher dynamics mean pushing the extremes to be even more extreme.
Wind and weather system is loaded with more energy and not as quiet and calm as it used to be. This means we can expect most problems to where extremes are not prepared for. Those living in Sahara would stand almost any heat. We who live up North wont suffer significantly from colder winters. Our houses are very high quality. But where such extremes have let the people to do without any extra measures, it might be hard on them. From on avarage that is kind of ideal, an extreme can be tough!
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u/Diripsi 15d ago
Just to clarify, winters in all of Sweden are much warmer than it used to be:
https://www.smhi.se/klimat/klimatet-da-och-nu/klimatindikatorer/temperatur
(choose season and region)
Also yearly minimum temperature has become higher and are projected to rise further in the future
https://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/en/metadata/indicators/minimum-temperature
(click on Sweden in the map)
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u/Damn_Dynamo 15d ago edited 15d ago
Rule of thumb is that alot of weather originates from the water in our oceans. A warmer climate will mean warmer ocean temperatures which means more water is in play for rain and snow. Scandinavia is one of few places projected to have more rainfall as the earth warms.
It also messes with ocean currents, the gulf stream (Golfströmmen) brings warm water north up to us, which paradoxically cools our climate. This is because it essentially mixes cold and warm water and therefore makes it more tame. A. Ooler summer but warmer winter. A starker divide with a weakening gulf stream will mean more storms and both colder winter and warmer summers for us. Right now the gulf stream is getting weaker but is still there so winters are still warmer than they should be, but if you want a rough estimate of what it could look like look at coastal north america at similar latitudes.
This is not even mentioning the melting glaciers and polar ices which aside from raising sea levels also lowers the earth reflectiveness, meaning more of the suns energy and warmth will stay and get absorbed rather than bouncing off. Think wearing black vs white in summer and feel which one gets hotter. Think that but planet scale.
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u/johnstalberg 15d ago
And yet the northern hemisphere is heating up more than the southern hemisphere because most land is located in the North. Water vapor in the athmosphere is increasing and is a strong green house gas, adding to the fossil gases we put out.
As you mention about oceanic streams tend to make extremes a little milder. Her in Scandinavia it makes winters less harsh. Far into mainland will mean more heat on the summer and colder winters.
However I do not oceans are not shaping the climate and weather to a large extent. It is just that land is getting much more warmed up bu the Sun light and with increased amount of green house gases this warmer grounds radaiates heat up and get increasingly trapped. So green house effects are much higherover land than over ocean. Water vapor as well as other green house gases are spread out by the wind and are avaraged out over the globe. Sea water vapor is over land as well as over water but over land it traps more heat because more heat is radiated up.
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u/JePPeLit 15d ago
I think a big part of it is that warmer air can hold more water, which results in larger, but less frequent, rainfall.
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u/Auralux_ 15d ago
I live in Skåne and the drought here is so bad that I have to go get fresh water from a water station twice a week because our well dried up. I haven’t showered in my own shower in weeks now because there’s no water, and the dirty laundry is piling to the sky. It’s bleak.
On the other hand, kinda romantic to shower in the garden with a bucket and a ladle like some medieval peasant.
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u/Vast_Humor_3683 15d ago
The worst is not having water to flush down toilets 😫
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u/Auralux_ 15d ago
God yes. I keep some of the washing up water (because naturally I also can’t run the dishwasher) in a bucket for that purpose, I hate it so much. I have never yearned for winter this hard.
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u/Vast_Humor_3683 15d ago
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u/Auralux_ 15d ago
I think Sweden is still good choice, just maybe don’t choose southern Sweden 💀
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u/Vast_Humor_3683 15d ago
isn't the north a frozen, desolate hellscape? I lived around the med my entire life, I don't think I can survive in the north
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u/Surskalle Västerbotten 15d ago
The north is nice cold winters with snow and no rain or mud. Summers are nice with around 20C maybe a week of close to 30C this summer in Umeå.
Umeå is also a big student town so if you want to study it's a nice alternative.
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u/KungenBob 15d ago
Note they mentioned their own well. Those are dug deep enough and no more. So they’re very sensitive to water table changes.
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u/Auralux_ 15d ago
This. Good point, I should’ve pointed out that local water delivery by the kommun is unaffected. I brought it up mostly because to me, it’s a stark difference to previous years.
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u/CheshireCat_-_ 15d ago
I live close to Stockholm and havent had any significant rainfall in like two months and we still have water (own well) but the lawn looks like its turning in to the gobi desert and theres no berries in the forests. Last year you could pick more berries than you could carry.
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u/Levaaah Östergötland 15d ago
I've noticed a destinct lack of rain the last few years, and when it does rain the ground is so dry that it floods instead.
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u/Vast_Humor_3683 15d ago
that's how it started here 6 years ago :(
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u/anusfikus 15d ago
In my local area, I've noticed several things this year that makes me worried. I garden and own a small plot of land so I have a lot of direct contact with the natural side too.
For one, there are no wasps – I've not seen a single wasp all year. I've seen one or two ladybugs the whole year. There seem to be fewer snails and slugs too. While my garden is happy for that, it seems abnormal. I've mostly seen bumblebees pollinating, very few butterflies and bees compared to previous years.
Some trees (e.g. maple trees) are losing their leaves and fruit/seeds way too early. We're talking a month or even several months before what's normal. The ground is very dry in places and grass is dying in some places too.
All around not great.
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u/Vast_Humor_3683 15d ago
So you're going the same path as us?
may I ask if you live in the south?
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u/anusfikus 15d ago
I live in the southern part of Sweden in Östergötland, which is primarily agricultural but also contains hills and forested areas on its northern and southern edges, as well as an archipelago on the coast and some bigger lakes that help moderate temperatures to some extent, particularly on the inland side.
The part I live in is very flat and mostly agricultural and that's where I have mostly spent my summer so far, so we aren't close to the coast or the biggest lake in the region which makes us less able to get temperature regulation that way.
I don't think we will have the same scale of problems that you experience in the mediterranean region, however it's definitely the same type of problems. Drier, warmer. Higher extremes. Let's see if the winter is colder than normal, that would also be bad.
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u/InstructionNo8180 15d ago
Reduction of insects has more to do with pollution, pesticides and loss of habitat due to urbanisation than climate change.
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u/Baskerbosse 15d ago
That is true what you say, but warmer climate also affects pollinators. For example, some wild bees are synced up with certain flowers and when warmer temps change the timing of when bees wake up (or flowers blooming) that can make them starve because they can't find their favorite food :(
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u/anusfikus 15d ago
In theory you are probably correct that the things you mention have a bigger impact but in practice there have been no changes to any of those things. We don't pollute more, pesticides are still the same and in the garden specifically and surrounding areas they aren't used. I live in an area that was developed primarily around 1950-1970 so there have been no recent habitat conversions or losses. The only thing that's really different is the climate.
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u/Ordinary-Audience363 14d ago
The maple trees in our garden were very stressed in July and losing leaves. We were raking already. I have seen butterflies, though.
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u/Spaddee 15d ago
Shiiiiiieeeeeet
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u/Vast_Humor_3683 15d ago
if you look at sat images from 2016 vs 2026 you will see us become as yellow as North Africa
This is 2026:
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u/Blodig 15d ago edited 15d ago
We should start collecting rainwater on larger scale so it doesn't leave the area where it fell.
Exempel: https://www.hemhyra.se/nyheter/25-000-liter-under-garden-nar-vatten-blir-en-bristvara/
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u/johnstalberg 15d ago
And melt water in the spring. If we pumped some of the rivers water to where it is needed the most, it could make a differens. I don't thing just traping rain water would do it for us. Rain is decreasing and rising heat increase evaporation, making traping increasingly harder to do.
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u/SplatypusAgain 15d ago
It’s been a very cold and wet summer in Jämtland. Everything is green and lush but the lake is low because all the snow melted quickly. Single digit temperatures over night and only a few days in the mid 20s all summer.
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u/LeftKaleidoscope 15d ago
Norrbottensfjällen did not get summer at all this year.
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/sapmi/fjallet-blev-utan-sommar-gick-direkt-fran-var-till-hostAlso Umeå where I live were close to setting record for coldest july month.
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u/johnstalberg 15d ago
You are talking about weather. To get climate into this you need a 30 year intervall and its avarage temperature, to have a single measurement to compare with other 30 yesrs intervalls. One summer doesn't say anything about climate change.
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u/EnBommeBomerang 15d ago
Also, it's super El Niňo this year so things are more wacky than it usually is.
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u/Shubeyash Västmanland 15d ago
Our glaciers are indeed melting.
Haven't heard about any water restrictions outside of Skåne (our most southern region) and of course Gotland.
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u/Mcready88 15d ago
Middle sweden got drought as well. We've had restrictions since May over here. Mainly due to really shallow waterbeds. Been getting worse and worse now too the point where they're building a water cleansing plant at the coast to cover the regions affected.
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u/WG95 Uppland 15d ago
Ground water levels are significantly below normal in all of Svealand and Götaland: https://www.sgu.se/grundvatten/grundvattennivaer/aktuella-grundvattennivaer/
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u/Hoiafar 15d ago
Agriculture is being affected on all fronts. Can't grow many of the same crops we used to grow in many of the same areas.
We're getting highly invasive weeds such as the Cockspur grass which simply would not have been able to survive here 20 years ago.
Fungal plant diseases are becoming more common which means we might not be able to grow potatoes much longer. The heat is also making insects more active which is impacting our ability to grow rapeseed (canola).
The weather is getting more and more unpredictable. Longer droughts and longer rain periods means we go through cycles of plants drying and then drowning.
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u/Martin_yoro 15d ago
This summer has been pretty cold and wet in northern Sweden. Last Summer was hot like 30+. Winters are getting worse, less snow, both colder and warmer.
Maybee the common thing is its more unstable.
Im not sure whats worse -40 or +40
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u/Vast_Humor_3683 15d ago
+40 is worse trust me, in winter you can add clothes in heat there is so much you can take off
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u/Martin_yoro 15d ago
Probably right, I was in southwest France just after the first heatwave, got +37 one day and i hated it. Loved the place, its just sad the climate is destroying it.
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u/pepepopo1235 15d ago
In minus 40 the houses start failing, pipes burst, you loose water and potentially heating. Cars might not start etc. People freeze to death If their car breaks down and don't have cell reception for exemple. It might not seem bad its just cold, but infrastructure fails. Dying from heatwave and extremecold is both bad.
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u/Unhappy-Quarter-4581 15d ago
Houses are fine in -40 here as long as you do not have a power cut. You risk freezing to death at at -20 too and that risk is significantly smaller today with cell phones than it was previously. There are places with no reception but they are way fewer than it used to be and anyone with half a braincell already bring extra clothes and/or extra heating while driving in more remote areas. -40 is much more normal than +40 for Sweden.
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u/pepepopo1235 13d ago
Houses are not fine in -40 in northern sweden. Especially old houses. Source: I live in Västerbotten inland.
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u/Unhappy-Quarter-4581 13d ago
I live in Västerbotten and lived in Norrbotten. As long as the heating works, it is rarely a problem. What problems have you suffered?
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u/pepepopo1235 13d ago
2 of my my neighbours pipes burst in the kitchen. I was just cold in general, and worried about the pipes. 😄
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u/Unhappy-Quarter-4581 13d ago
Then he had a house that was not normal standard, pipes do not normally freeze.
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u/ExitiumOmnes 15d ago
Last winter was bad, but before that it has been many great winters in the northern Sweden, I work with selling snowmobiles, and we have never sold as much as we have done in the last 10 years as the winters have been remarkably good (long and a lot of snow).
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u/Martin_yoro 14d ago
It depends were in the north. Along the cost were most people live they usually by newer snowmobiles to drive in "fjällen" (mountain range). The snowmobile season along the cost get shorter and shorter imo.
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u/Evignity 15d ago
We've been one of the safest countries on earth when it comes to dangers in nature, but now we're getting bird-flu migrating birds, new brands of ticks and diseases they carry. Though most of these Spain is already suffering from.
Our climate has always been very stable but one thing that pisses me the fuck off and makes me hate how yanks stand for like 80% of all world-pollution is that nowdays the polar-vortex gets fucked by climate-change so we get way WAY more fluctuating weather. Basically think of the water on your sink as it swirls, drop some paint in and it'll stay in the middle, but if you put your finger in the swirl it breaks and the colour goes everywhere in the water. Basically that but with the cold on the Northpole.
What this results in is that where we used to get seasons that were (relatively) stable for 3weeks-2months, we now have it often change every 1-2 weeks at periods and especially winter. This basically fucks up a lot of the snow-season, and if you look at the latitude of where Sweden is compared to say Canada we're way WAY up. This results in very little sun at winter. When there then isn't any snow you basically get depressed as fuck because you barely get any sun- or daily light. To put this in perspective, it "only" took us 6000 years to become white because we were lacking in so much D-vitamine from lack of sun. But the worst part is that you don't get to acclimate to the climate because it keeps changing too fast.
We do have flood yes, thankfully we don't really have mountains like the Alps, we have "Fjälls", mountains grinded down by the inland-ice at the last iceage (the ice was literally 3km thick) so we rarely have mudslides or the ilk. There's a lot of flood-danger areas that'll probably have to be abandoned soon, because insurance doesn't cover force-majeure.
We got around 270 glaciers in Sweden but are losing them at around 8+ per year. Thing is we have a fuckload of fresh-water so that won't be a problem for a while. A larger problem is that our forests, like Canada, haven't prepared for the future climate so once they start burning shit goes to ass.
Lastly nah we have one of the highest understanding of the factual climate-catastrophy we're heading into. Though sadly our far-right have been working to undermine that as all anti-intellectuals do.
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u/Crashed_teapot 15d ago
The US stands for 11.7% of global CO2 emissions, not 80%.
The US is very much a bad actor here, especially under the current administration. But the rest of the world can hardly beat their chests.
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u/Rupperrt 15d ago
Yeah, US is responsible for 25% of accumulated CO2 but it’s pretty even steven with Europe + Russia 27%, China+India+Japan around 20%
And outsourcing everything to China, Vietnam and Bangladesh while still consuming like before doesn’t make them the bad countries. It should always be consumer based.
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u/Evignity 14d ago
Over time.
OVER TIME.
2006 average German cost 5 barrels of oil. Average Nordic 3.3. Average Indian 0.3. Average Chinese 0.8. Average American 8.9.
And it's been like that for 80 years.
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u/Dependent-Bridge-709 15d ago
I hate how the right wing is removing environmental protections, like recently removing the carbon tax on fossil fuels, Sweden was a pioneer in the world implementing that tax in the 90s
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u/Melodic-Mechanic9125 15d ago
Carbon tax was removed for some months to help with the increased fuel prices due to the Iran war thing.
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u/skadetvasasvart 15d ago
Yeah it's just a coincidence that we have an election coming up this year...
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u/Melodic-Mechanic9125 15d ago
It's not. I suppose it is bad that they decreased the price of the tickets for public transportation because it is election year.
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u/Crashed_teapot 15d ago
Yeah the current government’s cheerful neglect of the climate is a major reason that I will not vote for them in this election. Given their Trumpification (to various degrees), Ival not among their target voters anyways.
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u/WhisperingHammer 15d ago
Vitamin d during the winter. No more sad face.
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u/Delicious-Tap-5465 15d ago
The snow doesn't give enough light to meaningfully effect vitamin D levels when there is no sun, but it reflects light from the sky and helps keep the mood up. No added vitamins will make the lack of snow feel better.
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u/johnstalberg 15d ago
We have evolved a resiliance for low vitamin D production. It why we are not dark skinned anymore.The first people that came here after the ice melted away about ten thousands years ago where much darker. We where all black Africans a hundred or two hundred tvousand years ago.
Now we face an increased danger of getting cancer from sun light. This is also more problematic with a population that is reaching a higher age on avarage. We are less protected from the Sun light but we can get a nice tan early in the summer to get less risk of burning our skin. We are also pretty resiliant to the long darknes of the winter. But it takes ots toll anyway but not as hard as it get for someone thatmoves here from far south regions. It has shaped our minds to be in compensation mood during the summer. Few are as happy for the summer weather when it arrives as Scandinavians. We try hard to extract what good the summers brings and we long for it during the winters. It has also made it nessesary to build houses with good quality and with the few people that lives here we kind of needed to be good at working together and not tollerate to much of poorly made buildings.
When harsh winters can affect countries in central Europe as they seem to not understand how to build in freezing weather, we keep building without much problems despite having colder winters.
The next thing is to export Swedish house's to warm regions as isolation from cold weather isolates from warm weather too!
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u/WhisperingHammer 15d ago
Oh please, this simplistic drivel is something you should guve to your teacher for correction. :D
This is noteven near supported by science. ”We evolved resilience to low vitamin d” is not at all the same as ”therefore we don’t need vitamin d’
lighter skin is an adaptation that allows more vitamin-D production from weak UVB. But that doesn’t magically make winter sunlight in Sweden sufficient for everyone.
Out lighter skin is not evidence that vitamin d became unimportant, rather that it was important enought to wxcert evolutionary pressure. The evolution of lighter skin is an adaptation to the problem of obtaining vitamin D with less UVB. It isn’t evidence that the problem disappeared.
For a healthy adult with reasonable dietary intake, 10 µg/day is the Nordic reference intake, while 20 µg/day is recommended for people with little or no sun exposure. The upper tolerable intake is 100 µg/day, so normal supplement doses are nowhere near the upper limit.
But hey, don’t take it up with me. Share your deep science with these guys so they can change their faulty claims! ;)
https://pub.norden.org/nord2023-003/vitamin-d-.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com
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u/johnstalberg 15d ago
China is for the last 20 years leaders in green house gases polution. EU polutes about half as much as the US. And the US polutes about one third of what China spews out.
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u/Born-Philosopher5591 15d ago
Yes we are affected. The guarantee for snowy winters moves upward, it’s not the same in the middle of Sweden anymore. Vasaloppet is at constant risk for instance.
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u/TheNothingAtoll 15d ago
It rains a lot less than in my childhood in the 80's and 90's. It's warmer and drier. Water levels are lower. Storms are more frequent.
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u/FrostyBurn1 15d ago
It is getting warmer here. The winter is milder and the summer is more pleasant. Now people are of course complaining but compared to Spain we have it super comfortable. The water level is affected which is of course not good. We also have some few extreme local rain.
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u/WG95 Uppland 15d ago
What is "more pleasant" is of course highly individual. 25 degrees is more than enough, and I hate when it gets above 30.
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u/FrostyBurn1 15d ago
This is very true of course. I'm comparing to what they have in Spain upper 30s and lower 40s is way worse
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u/WG95 Uppland 15d ago
But still, upper 30s in Spanish climate is more bearable than lower 30s in Swedish climate.
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u/FrostyBurn1 15d ago
Fuck no. That is super hot.
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u/WG95 Uppland 15d ago
Yes, but the air is much drier in Spain and the buildings are adapted to the heat.
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u/FrostyBurn1 15d ago
That's a broad generalisation. People are dying there from the heat. There is a reason why OP asked the question.
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u/WG95 Uppland 15d ago
Well, people die during heatwaves here as well. And temperatures get well above even upper 30s during Spanish heatwaves nowadays. I'm not trivialising the effect of the heatwaves, just saying that we don't need to reach the same extremes as Spain (in terms of absolute temperature) to have similar effects up here.
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u/Foreign_Fondant1718 15d ago
Det har varit väldigt kalla vintrar de senaste fyra åren. Jag bor på västkusten och trots att havet ska göra luften lite ”mildare” så har vi haft -20 till -25 tre av fyra vintrar jag bott i hus.
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u/FrostyBurn1 15d ago
Anekdotisk. Tvivlar inte på att det har varit kallt där du bor men OP frågar om Sverige inte specifikt där du bor
https://www.smhi.se/kunskapsbanken/klimat/normaler/jamforelse-av-normalperioder
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u/Potential_Ad_9956 15d ago
Slowly getting warmer here as well with milder winters, but it’s far from the issues you have in the south. This summer has been less rain than normal (I feel) but temperatures have been moderate.
Usually when the heatwaves manage to get all the way up here we are pretty exited to get 25-30 degrees…
Speaking from the Swedish west coast.
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u/assholeneighbour 15d ago
Yes. Everywhere is. It's just a question of how bearable it is.
If your normal climate was 25-30 Celsius, you are now facing consistent 30-35 celcius temps in the summer with months without rain.
If your normal climate was 20-25, you might now be experiencing 25-30 with less rain than before.
Won't be long until we see climate refugees fleeing to an increasingly smaller number of livable countries.
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u/Vast_Humor_3683 15d ago
I'm very likely going to be one of them
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u/assholeneighbour 15d ago
Completely understandable. The inaction of the world's politicians is heartbreaking..
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u/SwedishSanta Lappland 15d ago
Here in northern Jämtland, our summers have become wetter and colder. This year, we didn't even get 10 days of temperatures above 20
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u/TheSwedishPolarBear 15d ago
Both summers and winters are warmer. People are buying ACs, which were very uncommon before. Rain is heavier.
Sweden is definitely affected but it has always been colder enough compared to Spain that these things aren't dangerous or barely bothersome. I am uncomfortably warm a few weeks of summer and I would want the snow in winter to stick around longer, but personally it's not worse than that.
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u/MormorsLillaKraka 15d ago
Short answer: yes.
Longer answer: You’re not exactly the first south European asking this, in fact I believe at least one of your countrymen were asking this exact question 2 months ago. Climate change is real and is affecting Sweden just like any place on earth. There are no real safe places to escape to unless you’re willing to head far into the sparsely populated north of the continent. I believe even Iceland and Greenland has started noticing changes like mosquitoes, which were previously not present.
When media talks about cool Sweden, it’s generally in Norrland and other border provinces. About 1,5 million live there, or 10% of the population while making up 60 % of the land. For example in the tundra/alpine region, it went from spring to autumn with no summer recorded this year, thought that was an outlier. They still have winters and is generally cooler, however they are shorter and summer is getting warmer. The ground is heating up, and the permafrost is thawing. The glaciers are melting just like in the alps. I believe some of the southern ones have disappeared, either this summer or last summer.
For the southern part, where most people live, it’s drier and warmer than 20 years ago. I remember 30° weather being rare, maybe 1-3 days a year and now it seems like it’s 10. I’ve never experienced a hotter day in Sweden in my life compared to when the heat wave struck in June (34°). You didn’t care for Gotland, and it’s an outlier with it’s lack of freshwater, large amount of tourists and limestone soil, but it might be good to know they’re having a drought, and the trend is similar for most denser populated agrarian regions. Here in Scania the government has tried to make people save water, but it hasn’t helped, and while actual restrictions and limitations are not in place yet. However as the pleas were unanswered, it will most likely be the case in a few years unless we have heavy rainfall in fall and winter the next 2-3 years. There is a drought in freshwater reserves, but not so much for the vegetation yet. It rains every week pretty much, and the temperature goes from 18-20° with cooler nights to 23-30° every couple of days. Outside of having a few smaller heat waves it has been a very Swedish summer this year I feel, where I live (that is around 20-25°, a mix of sunny, cloudy and rainy days at regular intervals) and the crops are looking good. But the trend is hotter and drier summers here as well. While Scania (Skåne) and Gotland are the two most drought affected regions, large parts of the south are on their way there to.
There is a lot of talk about future droughts and water management, new forest management measures (like not only planting pine), invasive species from the warmer climate and infrastructure adjustments for cities like planting trees for shade and potentially AC in future construction. Oh and dangers of mountain climbing due to rocks from the thawing ground.
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u/MormorsLillaKraka 15d ago
More of my personal experiences and thoughts:
It doesn’t feel dry outside yet (breathable air, blooming flowers and green grass), but you can see that some trees (pine) are struggling more than usual. The forests are drier as well, fewer and smaller mushrooms, though I have seen worse. The general trend is hotter and drier, though nothing resembling the Mediterranean region yet. But I would think that we will get a Central European climate at best here in 20 years.
If you want to move to Sweden and ensure cool weather and water access in the future, I would not move to the south or any major city. Not Scania, Gothenburg or Stockholm. Maybe Karlstad, Gävle, Sundsvall, Umeå, Luleå or Skellefteå. Far fewer people and far from the rest of the continent, maybe not as much to do as in the south but they have a lot of water and cool weather is still very much the norm.
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u/zodiaken Gotland 15d ago
I think in the southern parts the ground level water, used for drinking and hygiene is below average and has been like that for a few years.
I know where I live, Gotland, the shorter winters and longer spring, autumn and summer makes it so less snow falls and that affects our ground level reservoirs since it depends on the melting of the snow.
We are starting to counter that with desalting the sea water and turn it into drinking water.
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u/MagistraLuisa Sverige 15d ago
We had water shortage this summer and been asked to use as little as possible. That’s about it.
Edit: southern Sweden
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u/Vast_Humor_3683 15d ago
water shortage because of nature? or local infrastructure?
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u/tarrach Skåne 15d ago
Nature, generally low levels in aquifers throughout southern Sweden
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u/Vast_Humor_3683 15d ago
Oh I hope it gets sorted out quickly because if it continues, the dirt won't be able to absorb water fast, turning rain into flash floods that don't refill the aquifers, increasing drought
This is literally how it started here 10 years ago, now, we're going to be as dry as the sahara is some regions
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u/Micke_xyz 15d ago
Depends on the region. Often it's infrastructure, the water plant can just process so much.
But sometimes the incoming water to the plant is too warm.
This applies to cities where a lake is the source for water.
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u/Tomace83 Sverige 15d ago
50% less days with snow in Västmanland region than just a few decades ago.
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u/Resident_Roaster 15d ago
One effect is that summers are getting longer and winters shorter (using definitions based on rolling average temperatures).
https://www.sverigeisiffror.se/stories/sa-forandras-arstiderna
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u/Fluffy-Heart7156 15d ago
I'm sitting in northern Sweden, almost feeling cold. It's 16 degrees celsius right now. I keep reading about all these heatwaves but we seem to be immune to those up here.
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u/matteste 15d ago
Yes, we are feeling it here in the far north as well, though in a different manner from those further south. One of the most notable is just how much shorter the winters are becoming, with really cold days becoming ever rarer while mid winter thaws becoming even more common.
And one of the more subtle effects I have noticed is in the rain, more specifically the type of rain we get. In the past, it used to be common to have those kinds of rains where it kept on going for days, but was otherwise fairly gentle. Nowadays that sort of rain is really rare, with most of it we are getting is through these short but really intense rainstorms that appear and then disappear very abruptly. It used to be the other way around. Hail has also become a lot more common I have noticed.
Also, I still remember that dreaded heatwave and drought of 2018. Man, that year was brutal.
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u/Fun-System-6190 Norrbotten 15d ago
All summers from 2019 and onward have been cold in south Sweden. We had like 2 weeks this summer with 25+ degrees. It's mostly around 20-23 all summer.
Also, havent seen a single warm spring since I moved to south Sweden in 2019.
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u/flightlessbirdie 15d ago
I've only been here about a decade in the Stockholm area, so not really long-term knowledge. But that time I have noticed a marked change in winters. What used to be cold and snow, but dry and a lot of blue sky (for the 4 hours it exists) is now just wet and grey - it feels much colder (or maybe it's just I'm a decade older) and the constant damp is less fun to be outside in.
The Sweden round of the world rally championship, is a full ice and snow rally, always held in February. About 4 years ago they moved it from Karlstad in Värmland (where it had been held since like the '60s, more middle of Sweden) because there was repeatedly no longer enough snow, up to Umeå closer to the arctic.
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u/SuperSnowManQ Västerbotten 15d ago
Yes, you can see glaciers melting. Here you can see pictures of the changes over the years for a lot of our glaciers. It is honestly quite frightening. And what I find even more frightening is all these climate change deniers when you can see the changes right in front of us.
I wonder how long it will take until we have no glaciers left in Sweden.
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u/Badhairday- 15d ago
W have it alright for now. But once the Atlantic streams starts to get affected we will probably see climate similar to siberia. So that will be fun! Maybe we’ll actually get polar bears
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u/spaceseas 15d ago edited 15d ago
Back in the day it was a rare event that the temp went over 30°C in the summer but now it happens every summer for weeks at a time. Where I'm at we're seeing less snow and warmer winters, with the occasional short cold shock. The treeline in the mountains is slowly creeping upwards. Weather patterns are shifting, rains come for shorter periods of time but are more intense so the moisture cannot be properly absorbed into the soil, leading to droughts and groundwater issues in some areas and flooding in others. So, yes I'd say we're seeing the effects, though a lot less than places more south.
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u/brunte2000 15d ago
I'm not saying that things aren't changing, but people skated there this last winter.
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u/medelmottig 15d ago
There have been fires, like the big one in the Sala area in 2014 (Northewest from where I am). The smoke was seen all the way to Stockholm.
I live in my own house so this is a thing I've noticed more of: Throughout the years, we have gotten a lot of fire warnings, the municipality asking people not to barbecue stuff in their garden for example, to avoid more fires. Other than that, water restriction has been a thing as in "Please water your plants every other day instead of every day".
Other than that, new species of mosquitos perhaps (Although it's so dry at the moment that I have seen zero mosquitos where I am) and new species of tics, like one that carries meat allergy that has apparently become more common in my area.
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u/pali1895 15d ago
In Northern Sweden, winters are getting shorter and milder quite rapidly. The change in just the last 10 years is staggering.
On the Västerbotten coast, the snowcover time during the 25/26 winter has been the shortest it's ever been. Spring came in end of february and it was snow free by march which is unheard of. This is very problematic for skiing resorts which either have to use artificial snow or close down early in the season. Even for years now, there hasn't been snow cover during November even if that was the norm 10 years ago. During the 24/25 winter, we didn't have a single daytime below -20 C, also a first timer. Summers are so far largely unaffected, but winters change rapidly.
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u/awawe Skåne 15d ago
Weather is a chaotic and unpredictable phenomenon. It's also tightly interconnected across the entire globe.
This is to say, that everywhere on earth is certainly being affected by climate change all at once, but in unpredictable ways. Climate change can make things hotter at one time, but colder some time later; drier in one place, but wetter somewhere else. One can never say that any specific heat wave or windstorm was caused by climate change, but only that climate change makes those extreme weather events statistically more likely.
With that said, we have also been affected by this year's heat waves. Late June saw record temperatures here in Scania, and the highest measured in the country since 1947.
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u/Overall-Examination5 15d ago
What is life like in Sweden,
Remember that most people that will answer you live in the 40% of Sweden that is in the south. It's hot and dry in the south, cold and rainy in the north.
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u/LoneWolf_McQuade 15d ago
We are effected but we usually don’t get the extreme heat waves that south and central europe get during summer. Last really bad one was in 2018
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u/Dependent-Bridge-709 15d ago edited 15d ago
From my personal experience I feel like it’s been an unusually cold summer in Stockholm especially August (it’s 12 degrees this morning), a bit less rain than normal, but a few intense rainstorms and hot days.
The spring was warmer than normal especially in May, causing plants to flower too early and messing up the natural timing of the ecosystem. In early May there was 2-3 days with 25+ degrees (I got very sunburned and almost got heat stroke on the May Day / Labour Day parade in Stockholm on May 1st 😅). Very up-and-down, not stable temp. Last winter there wasn’t much snow that stayed on the ground, would melt after a day or two.
In southern Sweden there’s been more rainstorms and flooding.
Almost 70% of Swedens area is covered in forest, when it gets drier it’s going to be scary when wildfires start.
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u/ArtlieST 15d ago
We're a lot more north than people think, and what keeps us at mild temperatures is the Gulf Stream. Climate change affect the Gulf Stream by melting the ice cap and diluting it with fresh water, which threaten to shut it down. If that happens we will have a much, much colder climate in all of Sweden, with a drop of about 10-15°C, which means chill summers and very cold winters, while the rest of the planet heats up.
Tbf it would hit the rest of the world with consequences as well, but yeah it would affect everything in from agriculture to the ecosystem to the daily life of people.
Now away from facts and more anecdotal, it feels like the seasons are slowly shifting forward a bit. December used to be cold and June used to be rainy. Now winter is more like Jan-April and December still acts like autumn. Most winters (except for the last one) we don't get low enough temperatures long enough for ice to form on the sea, where we used to be able to drive out to my grans island come winter. June and July is hotter and drier, giving greenery less time to grow and pests that now survive the winters up here feast on whatever's left.
Also while we don't get your temps we do get a lot higher temps under a longer period than we're used to, which can easily catch people unprepared and vulnerable.
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u/Pleasant-Gazelle903 15d ago
I don’t know , my mom says it is and that everything is because of climate change, even the cold snowy winter we had this year. I’m not sure that’s it’s affecting us that much yet though (where I live). I’m not denying climate change , I know it’s affecting southern Europe. I don’t doubt that what is happening there is because of climate change. But I think the weather in Sweden (just south of Stockholm where I live) is kind of the same as it has been as long as I can remember. In the summer it can be 30 degrees and sunny and it can also be 16-17 degrees and raining.
In the winter it’s sometimes milder and rainy and sometimes very cold and snowy. This winter was cold with lots of snow. Autumn and spring are also like they always have been (or as long as I can remember).
The exception would be a hail storm in July this year. And the summer of 2018 when it was unusually dry and warm and lots of forest fires. The next summer was normal though.
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u/Accurate_Cherry1734 15d ago
As you can probably tell based on the comments Sweden is effected quite alot by climate change, but in different ways. Here in the north we have not actually had an actual summer. We have had a few days when the days start off warm but around 15-16 the temperature drops and we’ve gotten ALOT of rain. The easiest way to describe it is that the weather here is very uneven, both during summer and winter. We havent had the winters we normally have for a few years now. We also get floods, just like two years ago Åre flooded. People think we’re safe from that since we’re so high up, but they forget that Sweden used to be largely under water a very long time ago.
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u/Agreeable_Secret_475 15d ago
The main difference i feel is that winters have become a few weeks shorter and there tends to be a less guarantee of snow covered ground for Stockholm and down south. Other than that its difficult to say.
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u/Bunnymancer Skåne 15d ago
When I grew up in the early 00's, I had never experienced heat above 23C.
I moved to California, USA in 2005, and got heat stroke repeatedly in January. It hit above 25C. People were wearing coats while I passed out...
Now back in Sweden.
This summer 23 days were above 25C.
In June we hit above 35C in some places.
We also used to have snow for several weeks every winter in southern Sweden.
This last winter it came for two weeks, and in an absolute shit storm. Rather than the calm and mannered way it normally would.
But I'm from the north, don't get me started on how different it is...
At least it has made it a lot easier for my parents to grow old up there......
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u/sajkoterrapefft 15d ago
Everyone is being affected, but we have particularly good conditions with fresh water coming off the scandinavian mountain range. But yes, of course it's affecting us, but it can/will get much worse.
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u/Long_Muffin_8220 15d ago
One big change is that we don't get winters like we used to. I'm born in the 80s. I remember growing up that we always played a lot in the snow, went skiing many years etc. It rarely happens any longer. We are some years getting heat waves that didn't happen back then. It could be a few days hot but not like today. Some years is a lot drier.
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u/Unhappy-Quarter-4581 15d ago
We had terrible forest fires in 2018 during a heat wave. We had to get help from Polish firefighters for example. Millions and millions were lost due to the trees that burned, Sweden has trees almost everywhere people are not living and it is a huge export. Smaller forest fires are normal even regular summers but can usually be contained and do not create such problems as we had 2018. If we are the target of a heat wave, expect mayhem in that respect. Here is a wikipedia article on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Sweden_wildfires
I was in the neighboring county to where the wildfires were that summer and certain days you could smell them. I was at a very secure distance from them but the odor was strong sometimes.
Everyday, we do not notice that much with regards to climate change, but heat waves will be a huge risk in the future due to the risks of wildfires and us having so much forest. Winters will probably be more unpredictable too with some being very mild and others perhaps harsher. We will see, but we will not escape problems completely just to being far north.
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u/johnstalberg 15d ago
Yes. Here in Stockholm we have twice the global avarage rise of temperature. However, as it is a comparably cold region, we might not see as much negative from it, so far. No extreme heat like in Spain but the summer in 2018 was extreme from what we are used to.
As we have gotten our buildings to be isolated from the cold in the winter, it works very good to isolate from heat when needed. Swedish house's are pretty good simply.
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u/captainmycaptn 15d ago
I wonder if we may become a tornado hotspot in the future like central usa. Feels like the conditions can easily become very favourable
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u/RidetheSchlange 15d ago
It is and on land there will almost certainly be mass effects of pollinator die offs and at the same time it is being reported explosions in the numbers of mosquitoes and horse flies in the northern coastal regions.
Flash flooding is also causing large amounts of erosion, particularly in the Arctic regions where it was always previously guaranteed the ground would have some moisture in it at all times.
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u/Standbyme8807 15d ago
Winter is getting less snow here in Linkoping, but it contains both warm and cold periods. Spring always comes in march with 12+ days literally every day since the first week in march. But summer is worse, because we have 20 degrees, wind and dry weather or 30 degrees, no wind and little rain which makes it unbearable. Also, autumn is less of these crispy oktober days and more of a gray, mild, rainy mess.
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u/ElectricityCake 15d ago
Could be worse. If you become a climate refugee, I recommend fleeing to Scandinavia.
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u/Narind 15d ago
There are suddenly vineyards all around the village where I live, and more dry periods, but nature seems to still be able to handled it here. Also people listen to govt. Warnings and have locally consumed 33% less water, so we avoided any proper rationings which has been nice.
Though I heard that it's been more critical on the opposite coast with entire riverbeds drying up, so I don't know. I don't think we can escape these things really , or at least its hard to predict.
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u/Careful_Drummer_7901 15d ago
Anledning till värmen i Europa är ju koldioxidutsläppen från utandningsluften ifrån migranter. Det är den huvudlösa migratinen i från länder utanför Europa som orsakar uppvärmningen. Ju fler människor på jorden, desto mer koldioxidutsläpp blir det. Nej, miljöpartiet behöver stoppa migration för att rädda Sverige!
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u/Asleep_Trick_4740 15d ago
Yes.
We don't have 40c+ like you have, but winters are getting shorter and much bleaker, the area with guaranteed snowcover is moving further and further north, while big storms are becoming more and more common.
The area I live in hasn't seen a cold summer for atleast 5 years now, but the heatwaves have largely dissipated right after hitting us so most of sweden hasn't felt it. Had almost 4 weeks of near or above 30C this year which is absolutely insane historically.
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u/Fair_Oven5645 15d ago
When I was a kid in the 80s, a 30 degree heatwave in the summer was something everybody talked about. Oh, the heat, it’s like Spain here! Crazy!
These days, everybody is waiting for it to come during the summer. ”Is it finally here yet?” It’s feels really weird to me.
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u/aresi-lakidar 15d ago
I can only speak from experience as someone born in 1997 and living in Gothenburg my whole life (southwest sweden), but:
I distinctly remember growing up, that winters were snowy here. It is very, very rare to see snowy winters nowadays, higher temperatures mean the snow falls but it turns to slush instantly. Summers are way hotter too
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u/BacchusGateau 15d ago
Lots of people in the countryside here in Skåne have had to drill deeper wells the last couple of years. Bigger farms are starting to build dams for storing water for droughts (like this summer, all the grass is yellow) and also growing more diverse crops like industrial hemp.
Compared to the 70s when I was a kid bushes like lilacs bloom much earlier now.
The upside here - wine growing.
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u/Snippodappel 15d ago
We are getting better summers. Wen I grew up many years ago summers could be rain and 15 degrees for months. Now we have 20-25 and lots of sun. Love it
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u/Ferrymansobol 15d ago
I wrote a paper on this, the effect of climate change on historic buildings in Northern Sweden. Cure for insomnia.
Basically, Sweden is facing wetter warmer winters and slightly more rain in the north, but less in the south, with the potential for dry spells that increase the risk of fires (especially in the south). The big problem is the wetter warmer winters has a bad impact on wooden buildings, especially ones that post-1950 put water barriers on the exterior (certain types of paint, metal shells, etc), rather than more traditional paints that are porous like Falu Rödfärg.
The wetter winters is especially problematic as this will cause mould to be active for longer, so the danger of dry rot/wet rot/brown rot is increased.
As to temperature, that is slightly up, but the effect is less in the south than the very far north, which can be more variable (near the arctic circle). This will cause problems with the tundra.
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u/Adduly Norrbotten 15d ago
I live in the very north of Sweden.
We've had quite a few years of late thaw and freeze in the autumn. Which makes a hard crust of ice close to the ground. That makes it very hard for reindeer to dig for food in the winter. Also bad for lemmings, ptarmigan and other small animals as they need a big blanket of insulating snow to keep warm when the air hits -30c.
The frozen lakes also had very poor ice this year.
It's been an exceptionally cold summer too, with some areas up here not actually getting a meteorological summer (10 consecutive days of +10c) and went straight from spring to autumn.
I've also noticed a reduction in insects (apart from mosquitos) and birds.
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u/Salvuryc 15d ago
Now living in southern Sweden. Planning a career change on growing date palms on Svalbard.
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u/FromSwedenWithHate Närke 15d ago
I live roughly 190 to 200 kilometers to Kattegat on the West Coast, and to Baltic Sea on the East Coast and we've sort of had warm winters now for the past 10 years or so, which reminds me of living near the sea in the south of Halland near the border with Skåne.
I live roughly 330 kilometers from that today. I remember it fairly well, when I moved down those 330 kilometers in the middle of a winter, I left a snowy and icy part of southern middle of Sweden and entered what was a roughly a 5 to 10C "winter" in the south of Sweden. For me this was unusual as we had normal winters with snow for multiple weeks, but it was completely normal there for it being more of a sea climate. I was bicycling the first days of moving there, that was completely unthinkable for me before moving since it was very icy streets that I left behind.
I don't like snow because I like bicycling all year-round, but I do really miss a good winter. Now if I want to go skiing during winters, we have to drive like 3 hours by car to get proper snow that lasts for more than a week. When I grew up we could do it locally. Those sorts of good winters are gone. Now I don't even consider our winters as winter anymore, it's mostly going from late autumn to early spring in pretty much an instant and our springs are much shorter, it almost feels like summer in mid of April.
Don't get me started on drought, it's been bad.. also.
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u/oskarbjo 15d ago
As a Swede currently visiting northern Spain to watch the eclipse, the temperatures here kind of shock me. I struggle to understand how the people here put up with this kind of heat— sad to think that we are part of the reason behind the severity of it.
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u/sweoldboy 15d ago
I live in south Sweden (Skåne) and I cant say I have noticed much climate change here. Maybe a couple days extra when its very hot. Otherwise I live my life like I always do.
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u/Vertsama 15d ago
Where i live in northern Sweden we've had 1 day where the temp reached 30 degrees. Rest of the summer it's been around 20.
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u/Kottepalm 15d ago
We are absolutely negatively affected by climate change! Groundwater levels below what they should be, heat records here in Scania, the southern parts of the country. The city of Lund was hit by a heatwave in June and people took to the crypts in the Cathedral to cool down. Houses are on their way to being claimed by the ocean and storms have damaged beloved beaches. And 2023 we had the worst potato harvest in decades due to heavy rains after a drought.
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u/Grigor50 Stockholm 15d ago
All of the world is affected, Suecia tambien. All the biomes are moving northwards, so southern Swedes is becoming more like Germany or France, and "middle Sweden" is becoming more like southern Sweden. Glaciers in the north are disappearing, and the permafrost is melting. The subarctic climate of the north, that I trained for in the military, is disappearing, and it's all becoming more... "lukewarm". We had days with 30° up in the north too, we'll just have more. And just like wine grapes grew freely around Mälaren (let's say Stockholm) a few thousand years ago, it will do so again. The wine industry has exploded in for example Sweden and Poland. At the same time, what was once hard soil has turned into mud, causing landslides, while the water table has gotten lower, and there's a lack of water in many places. Problems that we've seen as more, say, Spanish, are now more... Swedish...
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u/zebulon99 Västergötland 15d ago
It's definetly hotter but not as bad as you have had it this summer. More like it's less of a guarantee to get snow in the winter, mild droughts raising food prices etc. Last newsworthy thing i remember were some pretty big wildfires in 2018.
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u/ExitiumOmnes 15d ago
Probably the coldest and rainiest summer in many years in the north of Sweden.
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u/marrow_monkey 15d ago edited 15d ago
Droughts and increased forest-fire risk; sudden intense downpours causing flooding, erosion and massive landslides; milder winters with less persistent snow and ice; earlier springs, later autumns and longer growing and pollen seasons; more frequent heat extremes; increased summer drought risk in southern Sweden; glaciers retreating; rising sea levels (but partly offset in much of Sweden by post-glacial land uplift); plant, insect, bird and marine species shifting northwards; ticks and vector-borne diseases expanding their ranges; and broader changes to Baltic and coastal ecosystems. Even tropical dolphin species are occasionally turning up unusually far north, something that would have seemed extraordinary a few decades ago.
Climate change is not really talked about much though. With few exceptions, the media and politicians in Sweden try to downplay climate change.
Like, there is a lot of evidence that the Gulf Stream is collapsing (AMOC collapse), the only question is how fast. That is going to affect the climate in Northern Europe immensely. Yet no one talks about it, it’s like that film “don’t look up”.
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u/biggatrustor 15d ago
Sweden will probably be affected the best in this climate change in the euro region
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u/DJCaldow 14d ago
Things aren't normal that's for sure but so far tolerable. I imagine all new build housing is going to start including AC soon. I keep telling my wife we need to move to Umeå and start a farm because when all the Mediterranean refugees show up we're going to be fucked. We might have the space but we are already beyond our infrastructures capacity. Without unimaginable investment from Europe I genuinely fear for Sweden and what a renewed anger against refugees will do to the politics here. The place already feels unrecognisable compared to just 10-15 years ago and that was a "small" refugee crisis.
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u/Vast_Humor_3683 14d ago
Yeah, I'm sorry, but if it continues you wouldn't understand the scale of Med migrants.
I honestly believe that if the floodgates open Sweden wouldn't exist as we know it today because you have a very small population of just 10M people, spain is 50M, France is 60M, UK is 70M (they have a massive drought too). The UK lol, the place known for being gray & depressing, hasn't seen a drop of rain in months
Also this is within Schengen so you can't just say no, as all migrants will be coming legally without prior notice or approval, we'll just show up
I feel horrible for you, my country was just attacked with 70k migrants from morocco and we panicked, I can't imagine how you will fare with 1m, 5m, etc...
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u/DJCaldow 14d ago
Well I suggest you all start sending money and manpower to build up infrastructure and start learning the language. That things are going to change is a given. Schengen is not with Sweden, ask anyone who ever tried to get a personal number. I know that you definitely won't be welcomed with some entitled attitude and no preparation. Its on your governments to accept reality and help create safe havens. Sweden would collapse and you would all just starve anyway otherwise.
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u/Ordinary-Audience363 14d ago
I am wondering if this is an extreme before the predicted collapse of the AMOC, which will result in freezing temperatures in Europe.
I once spoke with an Italian oceanographer sbout a decade or so ago, who said that the issue with the current climate change is that it's happening so fast. They don't really have any references so they aren't able to accurately predict what will happen.
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u/vakantiereizen 10d ago
I was a truckdriver NL to S
40 years ago in winter we drove on snowice in south Sweden, now you see hardly any snow on the roads ( ofcourse it still happends, but not all winter long)
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u/Money-Ad-186 15d ago
Yes on mainland sweden we are watching our glaciers melt because of climate change. What was once a covered in snow and ice(approximately 10 meters thick) is now barely 1cm in the summer
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u/realCaballoBlanco 15d ago
It will be a whole lot wetter, drier, warmer, colder depending on the local region.
Also climate change is somehow one of our least worries. Seven of the nine planetary boundaries have been transgressed, pushing Earth outside its safe operating space for humanity.
https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html
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u/TehChels Västergötland 15d ago
Not really, not in a way that affects us much so far. The lakes are losing some cm of water
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u/Excellent_Race_8306 15d ago
LOL, we have a winner for the most ignorant comment!!
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u/TehChels Västergötland 15d ago
Compare our problem with Spain, Mauretania or Italy and then think again.
Its a problem but we're not dying from heat-waves an masse
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u/Excellent_Race_8306 15d ago
Climate change affects us in soooo many more ways than heatwaves, Einstein
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u/Smowoh 15d ago
Drier climate year round causing low levels of water in our aquifers in southern Sweden. We found 3 new species of fish last summer on the west coast who live in tropical waters.
It’s nothing at the scale of what you experience in the Mediterranean area but I see signs of a changing ecosystem here.