Natalia Korhonen

Finnish Meteorological Institute · Weather and Climate Change Impact Research

Severe heat waves lasting for weeks and expanding over hundreds of kilometres in horizontal scale have many harmful impacts on health, ecosystems, societies, and economy. Under the ongoing climate change heat waves are becoming even longer and hotter, and as proactive adaptation, the development of early warning services is essential. Weather forec...

As the incidence of extended hot summers in the Nordic climate increases due to climate change, non-mechanically cooled apartments face high risks of overheating. Hence, this study aimed to investigate the temporal effects of heatwaves on indoor temperatures and examine the correlation between outdoor weather conditions and indoor temperature level...

Weather-driven hydrological variability and forest management influence the nutrient export from terrestrial to aquatic systems. We quantified the effect and range of variation in total nitrogen and phosphorus export in Vehka-Kuonanjärvi catchment located in southeastern Finland. A distributed model NutSpaFHy was used with varying weather scenarios...

The buildings’ HVAC system design and indoor conditions are affected by climate change. This study aimed to investigate the effects of climate change on office buildings’ cooling system design and indoor temperature conditions in the Nordic cold climate. Thus, two types of mechanical cooling systems, the all-air (ventilative) and the air-water (rad...

The subseasonal forecasts from the ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) were used to construct weekly mean wind speed forecasts for the spatially aggregated area in Finland. Reforecasts for the winters (November, December and January) of 2016–2017 and 2017–2018 were analysed. The ERA-Interim reanalysis was used as observations...

The global average air temperature is increasing as a manifestation of climate change and more intense and frequent heatwaves are expected to be associated with this rise worldwide, including northern Europe. Summertime indoor conditions in residential buildings and the health of occupants are influenced by climate change, particularly if no mechan...

This study investigated the effect of passive strategies (orientation, thermal mass of building structure, window opening, and window properties) and the usage of an active cooling system on energy demand and indoor temperature conditions of a detached house in Finland in the current (TRY 2012) and future climatic conditions (2050). So that nine di...

In Finland early summer droughts are common. They cause yield losses (YLoss) of spring cereals, barley, oats and wheat, that cannot be compensated for later in the growing season. To support farmers in deciding whether to switch or not from rainfed to irrigated production, more data and understanding are needed on precipitation, its regional and in...

The aim of this document is to critically analyse and document hydro-meteorological hazards, their negative consequences and good practice examples of NBS to manage the associated risks in OPERANDUM OALs. The outcomes of this deliverable serve as a foundation for the various tasks in other WPs of OPERANDUM. For instance, the evidence summarised fro...

This document reports information needed for the set-up of Nature Based Solutions (NBS) at Open Air Laboratories (OALs). It includes the description of the current hydro-meteorological and socio-economic status and identification of climatic and socio-economic drivers for future hazards. Land use scenarios, built on the identified drivers are descr...

The strength of the stratospheric polar vortex influences the surface weather in the Northern Hemisphere in winter; a weaker (stronger) than average stratospheric polar vortex is connected to negative (positive) Arctic Oscillation (AO) and colder (warmer) than average surface temperatures in northern Europe within weeks or months. This holds the po...

The skill scores of the Extended-Range Forecasts (ERF) of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) are still quite modest for the forecast weeks 3–6 in Northern Europe. As there are known stratospheric precursors impacting the surface weather with potential to improve ERFs, we aim to quantify the effect of these predictors and...

The purpose of this document is twofold. First, it presents the characterisation of extreme events occurred in the last 30 years (1989-2018) in the OPERANDUM OALs (in Europe and abroad): after a selection of cases, with criteria established according to hazard and site, the analysis is carried on by looking at their meteorological settings, availab...

Significance Despite its importance for understanding genetic, cultural, and linguistic evolution, prehistoric human population history has remained difficult to reconstruct. We show that the dynamics of the human population in Europe from 30,000 to 13,000 y ago can be simulated using ethnographic and paleoclimate data within the climate envelope m...

Earth system models of intermediate complexity (EMICs) have proven to be able to simulate the large-scale features of glacial-interglacial climate evolution. For many climatic applications the spatial resolution of the EMICs' output is, however, too coarse, and downscaling methods are needed. In this study we introduce a way to use generalized addi...

Understanding how fire-weather danger indices changed in the past, and detecting how changes affected forest fire activity is important in changing climate. We used the Canadian Fire Weather Index (FWI), calculated from two reanalysis datasets, ERA 40 and ERA Interim, to examine the temporal variation of forest fire danger in Europe in 1960-2012. A...

Earth System Models of Intermediate Complexity (EMICs) have proven to be able to simulate the large-scale features of glacial-interglacial climate evolution. For many climatic applications the spatial resolution of the EMICs' output is, however, too coarse, and downscaling methods are needed. We used Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) for downscali...

This study aims at analyzing the mean and extreme geostrophic wind speeds in Northern Europe. The analyses are based on nine global climate models and the Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) A1B, A2 and B1 scenarios. The time frames studied consist of the baseline 1971–2000 and the future periods 2046–2065 and 2081–2100. The SRES scenarios...

This research comprehensively described the occurrence of extreme weather and climate events and aspects of sea level rise that are relevant from the view point of safety of nuclear power plants. Studies about the frequency, intensity, and spatial and temporal variation of the extreme weather events and their combinations were carried out utilising...