Impacts of Climate Change on Renewable Energy Sources

It is generally accepted that human emissions of greenhouse gases upset the thermal balance of the earth-atmosphere system and ultimately lead to global climate changes. The extent of the changes will depend on future emissions of greenhouse gases and will vary between the Earth's different regions. But a central estimate for the Nordic Region is that, by 2100, the temperature will have increased by about 3 C, average rainfall will be 10% higher and the sea level may have raised 40 cm. Such changes will have an influence on the production of renewable energy, which plays an increasingly important role in the Nordic Countries. At the same time, the increase in temperature will have an effect on the amount of energy consumed, mainly in the form of a reduction of energy used for heating. A Nordic Energy Research project with a series of subprojects was initiated to study these impacts.