It’s official: Norway’s Arctic ice keeps melting, its glaciers keep shrinking and the winter season is already much shorter than it used to be. The most extensive report on Norway’s climate in 10 years was released on Monday, and documents how the country is already going though dramatic change with more to come.

This photo was taken in August by officials from the Norwegian ministry in charge of climate- and environmental issues during a visit to Svalbard. It shows how Arctic sea ice keeps melting away. PHOTO: KMD/Katinka Vaag Prestøy

The report is based on research from the state Meteorologic Institute, the state agency in charge of waterways and energy (NVE) and other contributors to the Norwegian Climate Service Center, which compiled it all on assignment from the state environmental directorate (Miljødireaktoratet). It’s likely to be an important document during upcoming negotiations over Norwegian oil and industrial policy, and how the country still isn’t meeting its own climate goals.

The report shows that average temperatures in Norway rose by 1.4C from 1901 until 2024, with the biggest increases occurring from the period 1961-1990 to 1991-2020. The current average rise is 1.9C, suggesting temperatures will be up by an average 2.3C by 2100.

Norway stands to lose 32 winter days during the next 75 years. Temperatures will on average be 2.3 degrees warmer in 2100 than they were from 1990-2000. The winter ski season, for which Norway is internationally famous, will be much shorter. It’s measured by days when snow depth is at least 25 centimeters. Researchers warn that Norway will lose 44 such days by 2100.

The threat to Norway’s winter ski season became especially clear just last summer, when the sport lost one of its most important summer training centers. The Folgefonna Summer Ski Center was known as one of Europe’s leading locations for summer skiing, where top athletes could train on the Folgefonna glacier. Now that glacier has melted so much that the T-bar ski lift erected on top of it has all but collapsed.

Norway’s Engabreen, an arm of the glacier Svartisen, is another of Norway’s glaciers that continues to melt and retract at an alarming rate. PHOTO: NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund

The loss of ice and snow contributed to the bankruptcy of the company that offered glacier tours and ran the ski lift. This past summer was the first time in 30 years that Fonn’s ski trails weren’t in use. It remains unclear who will pay for the clean-up now needed to remove the remains of facilities initially funded by investors including Trond Mo and Øystein Stray Spetalen.

“We’ve seen more and more of the mountain emerge (through the ice) in recent years, where we used to have fine ski trails,” Vilde Tveito, who has led glacier treks over Fonna, told newspaper Aftenposten in September. “This now seems so unreal.”

According to the researchers, it’s very real indeed, and bound to get worse. Researchers note in their new report, entitled Klima i Norge (Climate in Norway), that precipitation increased by 21 percent from 1901 to 2024. It now comes mostly in the form of rain, and in much stronger downpours than earlier.

Flooding from snowmelt now comes earlier in the spring, “and there have been more floods from rain,” notes the report, especially in Southern- and Western Norway. In addition comes all the water from the melting glaciers. The report notes that the Langfjordjøkelen, a glacier in Finnmark, melted the most, by an average of one meter a year between 1991 and 2020, while glaciers in Jotunheimen in Innlandet and the Ålfotbreen and Austdalsbreen in Vestland shrunk by 70 centimeters per year on average.

Glaciers are also melting on Svalbard, like here in the Kongsfjorden area. PHOTO: KMD/Katinka Vaag Prestøy

The ice in Norway’s Arctic areas, meanwhile, has been melting three- to four-times faster than globally. Temperatures on Norway’s Svalbard rose from 3-5C from 1971 to 2017, in turn reducing sea ice considerably. The state Meteological Institute reported earlier this month that it continues to recede, contributing to higher temperatures elsewhere in the world.

This is all contributing to a loss of the permafrost in Norway’s mountain areas and marshes, because it’s “sensitive to climate change.” In Northern Norway, half of the permafrost areas in marshes has disappeared since the 1950s. At the same time, there are far more registered landslides in Norway, but also because of better monitoring and reporting of them in a national database.

Sea levels are also rising along the Norwegian coast, by around 2.3mm on average from 1960 to 2022 and 3.3mm on average from 1993 to 2022.

Norway’s Climate and Environment Minister Andreas Bjelland Eriksen (right) kept smiling when the new climate report was presented by Hilde Singsaas, new director of the environmental directorate and Roar Skålin of the Meteorologisk Institute. It’s serious stuff, though, and puts more pressure on Eriksen and his fellow ministers. PHOTO: KMD

In summary, the reseachers cite shorter winters and longer summers in Norway, with precipitation coming much more often in the form of rain instead of snow. Small glaciers are likely to disappear. Anita Verpe Durrdal, leader of the Norwegian Climate Service Center, told state broadcaster NRK on Monday that she’s surprised over how fast the glaciers are melting.

Meanwhile, Norway is not meeting its climate goals, continues to search for and produce oil and gas and has even begun to cut back on incentives for Norwegians to buy electric cars instead of those using fossil fuel. The Parliament finally agreed at the end of its last session to cut its carbon emissions by 70-75 percent by 2035, compared to its 1990 emissions, but critics are skeptical at best and don’t think the goals will be met.

Asked by NRK whether Norway has adjusted to the new realities of climate change, the government minister in charge of climate and the environment said “no, I don’t think so.” Andreas Bjelland Eriksen of the Labour Party said both state- and local government officials have begun to adjust, but still have a lot of work to do, especially since the state is still granting licenses for oil exploration and production. An actual restructuring of Norway’s economy away from oil and gas has been slow to come.

There’s been some progress in cutting some of Norway’s biggest emissions, at oil processing facilities and on offshore platforms. The City of Oslo was also finally able to move forward with a new carbon capture system at its main garbage processing facility at Klemetsrud. Eriksen thinks it’s important to set high goals for emissions cuts while prodding citizens to adjust to a low-emission society.

Climate issues will also be a major part of legislation during the new parliamentary sesson. Eriksen told NRK that he still doesn’t think Norwegians will regret their country’s oil policy in 2100.

“But we must realize that the energy market is changing quickly, and restructuring itself,” Eriksen told NRK. “That will have consequences for the way we think about restructuring both the oil and gas sector but also the entire economy.”

NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund