University of Oulu

Lépy, É.; Pasanen, L. Observed Regional Climate Variability during the Last 50 Years in Reindeer Herding Cooperatives of Finnish Fell Lapland. Climate 2017, 5, 81.

Observed regional climate variability during the last 50 years in reindeer herding cooperatives of Finnish Fell Lapland

Saved in:
Author: Lépy, Élise1; Pasanen, Leena2
Organizations: 1Faculty of Humanities, University of Oulu
2Research Unit of Mathematical Sciences, University of Oulu
Format: article
Version: published version
Access: open
Online Access: PDF Full Text (PDF, 3.4 MB)
Persistent link: http://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi-fe2017103150397
Language: English
Published: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2017
Publish Date: 2017-10-31
Description:

Abstract

In Finnish Lapland, reindeer herders’ activity is strongly dependent on the surrounding natural environment, which is directly exposed to environmental changes and climatic variations. By assessing whether there is any evidence of change in climate in Fell Lapland over the last 50 years, this paper attempts to link global climatic trends with local conditions and respond to the need of information at the local level. It aims at assessing the changes in temperature, precipitation and snow cover at a regional and local scale, as well as determining the climatic trends for the period 1960–2011. Statistical methods were used to conduct analyses of the regional homogeneity, the annual and seasonal variability, and the cold intensity. The results show that the regional climate is not homogeneous and differences exist between locations. Nevertheless, it can be concluded that, in general, a warming trend is discernible for the period 1960–2011, frost and thaw cycles slightly increase, and variations in mean temperatures are more important in the winter. Precipitation is more variable according to the site but, in general, precipitation is increasing with time, especially in the winter, and the snow cover does not seem to contain any discernible trend.

see all

Series: Climate
ISSN: 2225-1154
ISSN-E: 2225-1154
ISSN-L: 2225-1154
Volume: 5
Issue: 4
Article number: 81
DOI: 10.3390/cli5040081
OADOI: https://oadoi.org/10.3390/cli5040081
Type of Publication: A1 Journal article – refereed
Field of Science: 1171 Geosciences
Subjects:
Funding: This study is part of the contribution to the WP8: Traditional livelihoods of the CLICHE (Impacts of climate change on Arctic environment, ecosystem services and society) project, part of the research programme on Climate Change (FICCA) launched by the Academy of Finland in 2011. Dr. Élise Lépy’s work was supported by the PITCH project (Primary Industries and Transformational Change) funded by the Norwegian Research Council and the project “Understanding the cultural impacts and issues of Lapland mining: a long-term perspective on sustainable mining policies in the North” part of the Arctic Academy Programme (ARKTIKO) launched by the Academy of Finland in 2014. Dr. Leena Pasanen’s work was supported by the EBOR project (Ecological history and long-term dynamics of the Boreal forest ecosystem) funded by the Academy of Finland.
Copyright information: © 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (CC BY 4.0).
  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/