Climate change and global warming are affecting temperature readings around the world, creating increasingly stark and worrying extreme impacts on the weather of the Earth, from record-breaking heat waves to unprecedented storms. The latest example of the impact of the climate crisis has come out of Sweden as a new report on the Nordic country's climate change revealed that the region's average temperature has risen nearly 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since the late 1800s and more precipitation.
According to the report from the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI), the average temperature in the country was 1.9 degrees Celsius higher in the period between 1991 to 2020 compared to the period between 1861 and 1890.
The SMHI noted that the observed change was roughly double that of the change in global average temperatures for the same period.
The weather agency said that it had not previously conducted an analysis as extensive, where it looked at as many different indicators of climate change, before.
"The result of the analysis clearly shows that Sweden's climate has changed," Semjon Schimanke, climatologist and project leader at the SMHI, said in a statement.
"The warmer climate with more precipitation in Sweden closely follows the observed global warming that is a result of human climate influence," Erik Kjellstrom, a professor of climatology at SMHI, added.
Not all of the observation series covered the same timeframe, the weather agency said and noted that precipitation had increased since 1930, from about 600 millimeters (23.6 inches) to almost 700 millimeters from the year 2000 and later.
However, the snow cover during winter around the country had decreased by 16 days on average for the period between 1991 and 2020 compared to the period between 1961 and 1990.
SMHI stressed that the observations were the averages over a year, and said the picture became more complex as when "investigating smaller regions or different seasons."
"For instance, the increase of precipitation is mainly related to enhanced precipitation during autumn and winter whereas there are no obvious trends in spring and summer," the SMHI said, adding that "changes in extremes are generally harder to identify."
The report comes as the U.N. climate summit COP27 wrapped up in Egypt over the weekend.
While the summit resulted in a landmark deal on funding to help vulnerable countries cope with climate impacts it also led to criticism and frustration over a failure to be more ambitious in cutting emissions.
