This document is the main report from the project NorScen - Nordiske klimaScenarioer (Nordic climate Scenarios) funded by The Nordic Council of Ministers (NCM) programme Marine Management and Climate. Main target groups are the Nordic Council of Ministers, national ministries and directorates, other researchers and the Nordic population.
The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published over the years 2019–2023 a range of comprehensive reports within its 6th assessment cycle (AR6). IPCC AR6 contains an enormous amount of high-quality information and has better coverage of marine aspects and higher regional resolution than earlier IPCC assessments. Still, the Nordic sea areas (Baltic, North, Norwegian, Iceland, Greenland, and Barents seas) are not treated as a unit or resolved well into individual seas. It is particularly challenging that the state-of-the-art global climate models used to simulate future climate and climate effects under different emission do not have sufficient resolution to provide a good basis for decision-making on a Nordic scale. This is additionally problematic because our sea areas have characteristics that distinguish them from many others and may make them especially vulnerable to future climate change.
The NCM sees a need to increase our understanding of the effects of future climate change specifically on the Nordic sea areas and has asked for regional analyses and assessments. NorScen aims to address the request. In our first report we gave an up-to-date overview of knowledge of the present status and expected future development of climate impacts on physical ocean properties, organisms and ecosystems in the seas around the Nordic countries. This current report presents the main results of the project. By producing, presenting and discussing the results of detailed model data for future values of physical, biogeochemical, and ecological variables across the sea areas of the Nordic countries, the project aims to enhance understanding of climate change impacts, facilitate economic and societal adaptation, and provide a robust knowledge base for decision-makers. We have chosen to be quite comprehensive in our reporting, striving to make our results publicly available. Nonetheless, we acknowledge that not all decision-makers and managers may have the time or interest to study the full report and therefore also provide a concise summary.
The authors, research scientists from Norway, Sweden and Denmark, wish to thank colleagues from within and outside the project for helpful discussions and ideas.
Oslo, March 10th, 2025
Geir Ottersen, Institute of Marine Research
Project leader NorScen and lead author