The warmer than normal annual average temperature in Sweden since the 90s continues

The winter continues to be mild, and today Stockholm and other Swedish cities set their heat records for January, according to Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. The weather conditions are, according to SMHI's meteorologists, due to southwesterly winds that bring mild Atlantic air to Scandinavia. Although the temperatures for the season are high, it is not possible to connect a single mild winter to global warming. 

- But we have a climate indicator for winter temperatures for the whole of Sweden from 1860. We see a striking change since the 1990s, compared with the period 1961-1990. The cold winters are becoming increasingly unusual, says Erik Engström, a climatologist at SMHI, to TT.

Below you can see that the past two decaedes only one out of 20 years was slighly cooler than normal (2010).

The top maps show the annual average temperature deviation (in ° C) from the normal yearly average temperature (average 1961-1990) for the year 2000 to 2019. The analyzes are based on observations from all stations that daily report temperatures in Sweden. The lower map shows how much the average temperature for the period 1 January to 14 January 2020 deviates (in ° C) from the normal average temperature for the period (average 1961-1990). The analyzes are based on observations from about 200 stations that report daily temperatures (source SMHI).

New report: CO2 emissions do not increase at the same rapid rate

Carbon dioxide emissions continue to increase - but the 2019 increase is not as great as last year. This is according to a report from the Global Carbon Project research project presented at the Madrid climate summit. 2018 increase was 2.1 percent, while 2019 increase is expected to land at 0.6 percent and emissions for the year are expected to be 37 billion tonnes. Explanations of the decline are that the US and Europe use coal power to a lesser extent and that China's economy has slowed down.

Renewable energy is growing exponentially, but this growth has so far been too low to offset the growth in fossil energy consumption.

Global fossil CO2 emissions are projected to rise by 0.6% in 2019 [range: -0.2% to +1.5%] The global growth is driven by the underlying changes at the country level.

Share of global fossil CO2 emissions in 2018: coal (40%), oil (34%), gas (20%), cement (4%), flaring (1%, not shown)

Renewable energy is growing exponentially, but this growth has so far been too low to offset the growth in fossil energy consumption.

Source: CDIAC; Peters et al 2019; Friedlingstein et al 2019; Global Carbon Budget 2019