Large-scale effects of climate change on water resources in Sweden and Europe / Storskaliga effekter av klimatförändring på vattenresurser i Sverige och Europa
According to the future scenarios from global and regional climate models, the climate change will profoundly affect hydrological processes at different scales in time and space. This paper presents results from a new generation of hydrological climate change impact studies, combining new methods for downscaling and bias correction of climate projections with new methods for large-scale hydrological modelling. Several water variables have been extracted to distinguish large-scale emerging patterns across Europe and Sweden, to describe climate change impact on future water resources. Maps are available at the web site of SMHI with information on potential changes in temperature, precipitation, water discharge, specific/local runoff, relative groundwater level, soil moisture, snow, low and high flows and water quality. Several variables show 50 % increase or 50 % decrease depending on geographical location. However, results are uncertain and should be treated with caution, especially on the local scale and when there is a large discrepancy between climate projections.