Projected changes of rain, sleet, and snowfall in Norway

Tailored products based on climate projections are in demand for climate adaptation planning in different industries. To meet the needs of the tourism industry, the authors applied available datatsets to calculate projections for the distribution of precipitation as rain, sleet, and snow in Norway, using daily average temperature to classify the precipitation phases. Amounts and number of days with precipitation in the different phases were calculated. The projections were based on bias-adjusted output from 10 EURO-CORDEX models under two emission scenarios. In general, total precipitation, as well as temperature, was projected to increase, while the number of days with precipitation was not projected to change significantly. The proportion of rainfall was projected to increase while that of snow was expected to decrease. Sleet ratio was projected to decrease in low lying coastal areas, and to increase in mountainous and inland areas. The results were presented for several tourist destinations. However, the authors found that the bias adjustment method applied in the input dataset led to a bias towards too much rain and too little snow, which should be considered when interpreting the results. They concluded that projections of rain, sleet and snow days were considered less affected by that flaw.