the finsken global change scenarios

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The FINSKEN global change scenarios

TIMOTHY R. CARTER1*, ILONA BÄRLUND2, STEFAN FRONZEK1, SUSANNA KANKAANPÄÄ1,JARI KAIVO-OJA3, JYRKI LUUKKANEN3, MARKKU WILENIUS3, HEIKKI TUOMENVIRTA4,KIRSTI JYLHÄ4, KIMMO KAHMA5, MILLA JOHANSSON5, HANNA BOMAN5, JOUKO

LAUNIAINEN5, TUOMAS LAURILA6, VIRPI LINDFORS6, JUHA-PEKKA TUOVINEN6, MIKA

AURELA6, SANNA SYRI7, MARTIN FORSIUS1 AND NIKO KARVOSENOJA1

1Finnish Environment Institute, Research Programme for Global Change2Finnish Environment Institute, Research Programme for Environmental Policy3Finnish Futures Research Centre, Turku School of Economics and Business Administration4Finnish Meteorological Institute, Meteorological Research5Finnish Institute of Marine Research6Finnish Meteorological Institute, Air Quality Research7VTT Processes*Corresponding author, e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

The FINSKEN project has developed new integrated scenarios of changes in environmental andrelated factors for Finland during the 21st century. Five types of scenarios are presented: socio-economic, climate, sea level, tropospheric ozone and sulphur and nitrogen deposition scenarios.Consistency between scenarios was achieved by: 1) basing all scenarios on the same global drivingfactors of environmental change described by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES), and 2) examining new linkages betweenscenario types (e.g. between climate warming and ozone concentration). Scenarios are reported forfour alternative SRES worlds: A1, A2, B1 and B2. Without a switch to a non-fossil economy, the A-type world implies strong economic growth in Finland accompanied by rapid increases in CO2

concentration, increased ozone pollution and deposition, rapid climate warming, increased precipita-tion and a possible reversal from falling to rising sea levels. The B-type world shows lower economicgrowth than the A-type, and less rapid increases in CO2 concentration, temperature and precipitation.After initial increases, ozone pollution and acid deposition are unlikely to exceed present levels andwill probably be much lower by the end of the century. Sea levels in southern Finland either stabiliseor continue to fall.

Keywords: FINSKEN, scenario, 21st century, global change, Finland, climate, temperature, precipita-tion, CO2 concentration, tropospheric ozone, acid deposition, sea level, emissions

Introduction

A rapidly rising human population and the un-bridled exploitation of natural resources duringpast centuries are having detectable effects on theglobal environment. The effects include pollu-tion of the atmosphere, soil, inland waters andoceans, with associated problems that include acidrain, climate change and stratospheric ozone de-pletion. These have become known as “globalchanges”, because they affect all areas of the globe

and because they touch upon all aspects of therelationship between human development andenvironmental change.

Long-term monitoring in Finland also re-veals an environment undergoing continualchange (Wahlström et al., 1996). In order to judgethe likely future implications of these changes itis necessary to be able to project current trendsinto the future. However, the future develop-ment of complex socio-economic and environ-mental systems is too uncertain to predict with

UNDERSTANDING THE GLOBAL SYSTEM

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any confidence. Instead, an alternative approachis to construct “scenarios”. A scenario is “a co-herent, internally consistent and plausible descrip-tion of a possible future state of the world”(IPCC, 1994).

This paper reports the key findings of thethree-year (2000–2002) FINSKEN project, whichsought to develop consistent and up-to-date sce-narios of changes in environmental and relatedfactors in Finland during the 21st century1. TheFINSKEN project, which was co-ordinated atthe Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE-1),has developed five types of global change sce-narios (responsible institutes are bracketed):

- Socio-economic scenarios (Finnish FuturesResearch Centre, FFRC)

- Climate scenarios (Finnish MeteorologicalInstitute, FMI-1)

- Sea level scenarios (Finnish Institute of Ma-rine Research, FIMR)

- Sulphur and Nitrogen deposition scenarios(Finnish Environment Institute, SYKE-2)

- Tropospheric ozone scenarios (Finnish Me-teorological Institute, FMI-2)

The following sections outline the basic ap-proach adopted in the project, followed by re-sults obtained by each of the sub-groups. Theconcluding section presents a summary of the

FINSKEN scenarios, offering four alternativeviews of socio-economic and environmentalchange in Finland during the 21st century andsuggesting some priorities for the future devel-opment and use of scenarios.

Approach

One of the key objectives of FINSKEN was todevelop scenarios that are mutually consistent.In order to achieve this, all scenarios developedin the project can be traced back to a common setof global driving factors. These are the globalscenarios reported in the IntergovernmentalPanel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Reporton Emissions Scenarios (SRES – Nakicenovic etal., 2000). The IPCC defined four narrativestorylines, labelled A1, A2, B1 and B2, describ-ing the relationships between the forces drivinggreenhouse gas and aerosol emissions and theirevolution for large world regions and globally(Figure 1). These storylines were then quantified,to provide families of scenario for each storyline.In all 40 scenarios were quantified, six of whichare used as illustrative scenarios by the IPCC.Three alternative technological futures are usedas illustrations for the A1 storyline: A1FI (fossilintensive), A1T( predominantly non-fossil) andA1B (balanced across energy sources). One illus-trative scenario represents each of the A2, B1 and

1 The results are provisional, as research work is still in progress. Detailed results will be reported in a SpecialIssue of Boreal Environment Research, to appear in 2003.

Figure 1. The four IPCC SRES scenario storylines (based on Nakicenovic et al., 2000).

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B2 storylines.The driving forces underlying the four SRES

storylines were used to frame socio-economicscenarios for Finland. Similarly, the SRES sce-narios of emissions, and their modelled effectson atmospheric composition, climate and sealevel, are used to describe future conditions inthe Finnish region. For each scenario type, re-searchers have attempted to reconcile historicaland ongoing trends with a range of model pro-jections of future change. Particular attention hasbeen paid to identifying alternative sources ofuncertainty in the projections presented. Feed-back on the nature and content of the scenarioswas obtained via a questionnaire survey (Bärlund& Carter, 2002), at two project Seminars (May2001 and November 2002), and through indi-vidual contacts with members of the project.

Results

The main findings of FINSKEN are presentedhere according to the five scenario types.

Socio-economic scenarios

The socio-economic driving factors underlyingthe four narrative SRES storylines (A1, A2, B1and B2), quantified by the IPCC for large worldregions, have been interpreted at national scalefor Finland. Scenarios for different measures ofsocio-economic development in Finland havebeen constructed using the International Futuresmodel (Hughes, 1999). In addition, interviewswith representatives of the private and publicsectors have been conducted to obtain qualita-tive insights into perceptions of future develop-ments in Finland in comparison to the SRESworlds adopted in FINSKEN. Detailed resultsof these studies are reported elsewhere1, butsome examples are presented here. For example,scenarios2 of total population in Finland by 2100range between 4.9 million (A1 and B1) and6.2 million (A2) compared to 5.2 million in 2000,and of Gross Domestic Product, between about500 billion (B2) and 1000 billion (A1) US1990$compared to 170 billion in 2000 (cf. Table 3). In

additional work, estimates of demand for forestproducts in Europe under different SRES sce-narios from an integrated assessment model(IMAGE Team, 2001) were combined with in-formation on current forest policy and subjectiveinterpretation of other pressures on forest landuse under the SRES scenarios (Figure 2) to de-velop scenarios of forest land cover for Finland(Kankaanpää et al., 2002 – see Table 3).

Climate changes and scenarios

A methodology for homogeneity testing andadjustment of climatological time series was de-veloped (Tuomenvirta, 2002) and was applied toinvestigate possible trends in observed climatein Finland. Results show that annual mean tem-peratures have increased about 0.7 °C during the20th century in Finland, with the greatest warm-ing in spring and modest warming in summerand autumn. Mean daily minimum temperatureshave risen more than mean daily maximum tem-peratures, especially since the 1940s, probably dueto a concurrent increase in cloud cover. Long-term temperature measurements and historical

2 Estimates by the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) at ColumbiaUniversity, USA and reported in Parry (2002)

Figure 2. Relative direction of the driving factors deter-mining forest area in Finland, 2001–2100, in the fourSRES worlds (Kankaanpää et al., 2002)


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documents from Fennoscandia during the past300 years indicate that the winters and springs inthe 1990s were exceptionally mild. These condi-tions appear to be related, in part, to unusuallystrong westerly air flows during the wintermonths. There has also been a tendency towardsa shorter snow cover season and reducedamounts of snow during recent decades in south-ern Finland. In contrast, precipitation totals donot show any strong long term trends over the20th century. A storm index, based on the fre-quency of intensive low pressure systems, hasbeen increasing somewhat from the 1960s, buthas not exceeded the level experienced about acentury ago.

New climate scenarios have been developedfor Finland during the 21st century based on esti-mates by five different coupled atmosphere-oceangeneral circulation models (AOGCMs) for theSRES emissions scenarios (Table 1). These su-persede the climate scenarios constructed duringthe SILMU programme (Carter et al., 1996),which have been widely used in Finnish studieson possible impacts of climate change. Annu-ally, all scenarios show increases in both tempera-ture (ranging from 1.8 to 5.2 °C) and precipita-tion (1 to 28 %) over Finland by the 2050s rela-tive to 1961–1990. The equivalent changes by the2080s are 2.4 to 7.4 °C (temperature) and6 to 37 % (precipitation). The largest changes arefor the A1FI emissions scenario and the smallest

for the B1 scenario. Seasonally, projected changesare greater in winter and more statistically signifi-cant than in summer (based on comparison tonatural multi-decadal variability estimated fromtwo 1000-year unforced climate modelsimulations – Figure 3). Only one climate modelindicated decreased precipitation (in summer).Scenarios of atmospheric CO2 concentration,important for studying vegetation response toglobal change (Prentice et al., 2001), have also beencompiled (cf. Table 3).

Preliminary FINSKEN scenarios of futureclimate have already been used to study impactsof climate change on transport conditions(Tuomenvirta et al., 2000a, 2001; Haapala et al.,2002; Venäläinen et al., 2001a, b), on dam safetyand flood risks (Tuomenvirta et al., 2000b) andon energy supply and demand (Wajda et al.,2001).

Sea level scenarios

The long term mean sea level has declined dur-ing the 20th century at all Finnish tide gauge loca-tions, mainly due to land uplift. However, thisdecline slowed markedly during the last 20 yearsof the century, due to changes in the water bal-ance of the Baltic Sea. There has also been anincrease in short-term, sub-annual sea-level vari-ability (Johansson et al., 2001). The magnitudeof extremely high sea levels increased up to the

3 Pattern scaling assumes that the pattern of regional climate change simulated by an AOGCM in response to agiven emissions scenario can be scaled upwards or downwards to represent other emissions scenarios notsimulated (Santer et al., 1990; Hulme & Carter, 2000; Carter et al., 2000). Scaling factors are based on the global meantemperature response across multiple emissions scenarios obtained from a simple climate model. Scalingfactors were obtained from Cubasch et al. (2002), but were not available for CGCM2 and GFDL–R30, and werenot applied to CSIRO-Mk2 results for B1 because direct model estimates were available.

Table 1. The AOGCM-averaged means and ranges (parentheses) of mean annual temperature and precipitation changesin Finland from the period 1961–90 to 2010–39, 2040–69 and 2070–99. Direct AOGCM outcomes are used forSRES A2 and B2, and pattern-scaled approximations for A1FI and B1. Scenarios are arranged from left to right in orderof declining emissions in 2100. The AOGCMs used are given in the legend of Figure3.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266409562_Trends_in_sea_level_variability_in_the_Baltic_Sea?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-9abbe006-fc0f-4a0f-85ea-d38d298ca0d9&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzIyODcxMzk1MDtBUzo5ODc2NTYwNDEzMDgyNEAxNDAwNTU4OTYzODI1


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1970s, whereupon it has declined somewhat upto the present.

A new set of scenarios of mean sea level forsites along the Finnish coast during the 21st cen-tury has been constructed for the six illustrativeSRES scenarios (Johansson et al., 2002). Theseare based on global mean sea level scenarios(Church et al., 2001), projections of local landuplift (Kahma et al., 2002), and estimates of theBaltic Sea water balance. The latter has been foundto correlate with the air pressure gradient overthe north Atlantic, expressed as the North At-lantic Oscillation (NAO) index. Scenarios for theNAO index were obtained from differentAOGCMs for alternative SRES scenarios, in co-operation with FMI-1. The AOGCMs werefound to be unable to reproduce the observedbehaviour of the NAO sufficiently well to serveas a basis for quantitative predictions. Instead, arough estimate for the index – independent ofthe emission scenarios – was used (Johanssonet al., 2002).

Central estimates were produced for eachSRES illustrative scenario as well as extreme up-per and lower uncertainty bounds across all sce-narios (Figure 4). Estimates3 are location-specific,with a declining risk of rising sea level as landuplift becomes more important. The land upliftrate is strongest around Vaasa and weakest on

the coast of the Gulf of Finland. Taking theexample of Hanko, all central scenarios show adecline of sea level of about 5cm up to 2050 afterwhich sea level begins to rise under the A2 andthe three A1 scenarios. By 2100, only under theA1FI scenario does sea level exceed that in 2000.The B2 scenario shows a stabilisation of sea levelafter 2050, while levels decline further to about10 cm below the present under the B1 scenario.Uncertainties in projections of mean sea level arestill high (Figure 4), mainly due to uncertaintiesin the global mean sea level scenarios.

Sulphur and nitrogen deposition scenarios

Two sets of scenarios of sulphur and nitrogendeposition were developed during theFINSKEN project. The first was a set of long-term scenarios out to 2100, to examine the im-plications for acid deposition and eutrophicationof the SRES emissions scenarios. The secondwas a set of scenarios out to 2020, developed toassess the implications of alternative greenhousegas emissions control measures in Finland. Bothmade use of projections of emissions for Fin-land itself as well as for transport of pollutantsfrom other European countries. Deposition ofsulphur and nitrogen compounds under thesealternative scenarios was estimated with the

Figure 3. Mean changes in temperature (horizontal axis) and precipitation (vertical axis) in Finland from the period1961–90 to 2070–99 for winter (left) and summer (right). Solid black and solid grey symbols are for SRES-basedsimulations by AOGCMs. Open symbols are for pattern-scaled3 approximations for the most extreme SRES scenarios.Also shown are the three SILMU scenarios developed in 1995 and scaled outputs from two simulations with the RossbyCentre Regional Climate Model (RCA1-H and RCA1-E). Ellipses about the origin are estimates from three AOGCMsof natural inter-tridecadal variability (±2 SD) in the absence of greenhouse gas forcing.


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DAIQUIRI regional deposition model for Fin-land (Syri et al., 1998; Kangas & Syri, 2002). Depo-sition from Finnish emission sources is mod-elled with a resolution of 0.251° x 0.1251°, i.e.about 14 km x 14 km, and long-range transportmatrices of the EMEP model are used to esti-mate deposition from other European countries(EMEP/MSC-W, 1998).

Long term developments have been definedglobally for the 21st century in the SRES emis-sions scenarios (Nakicenovic et al., 2000). Sce-narios were adopted from each scenario family inorder to obtain a wide range of possible futures.As this study focuses on Europe, results fromthe two integrated assessment models used inthe SRES work that were developed in Europe,IMAGE and MESSAGE, were selected for theanalysis. A1, A2 and B2 scenarios were taken fromthe MESSAGE model (Nakicenovic et al., 2000).This model distinguishes OECD90 countriesfrom countries undergoing economic transitions.Three variations of the A1 scenario were consid-ered: a balanced mix of fossil and nonfossil fuelsin the A1B scenario, the fossil fuel intensive A1Cscenario and the technologically advanced,

nonfossil fuel dominated A1T scenario. In addi-tion, A1 and B1 scenarios4 were taken from theIMAGE model (Alcamo et al., 1998 – version2.1.2). IMAGE distinguishes OECD90 coun-tries, Eastern Europe, and countries of theformer Soviet Union as separate European re-gions. These scenarios were modified in a paral-lel EC-funded project AIR-CLIM (Alcamo et al.,2002) to account for recent air pollution controlpolicies. All assume compliance with theGothenburg Protocol (UN/ECE, 1999) but twoassume no further emissions controls (scenariosA1p and B1p), while two assume the furtherimplementation of advanced pollution controlmeasures (scenarios A1a and B1a). Figure 5 (a–c)shows the change in NOx deposition under threealternative scenarios, A1C, A1p and B1 relativeto 1990.

In addition, the possible impacts of climatechange on air pollution and deposition in Fin-land were investigated using results from theAIR-CLIM project. In that project, simulationsof present and future climate by the ECHAM4AOGCM5 of the Max Planck Institute for Mete-orology, Hamburg were used as an input to the

4 Based on preliminary marker scenarios released by the IPCC in 1998. The A1 scenario has a similar emissionsprofile to the final A1B illustrative scenario. Emissions of CO2 in the B1 scenario are somewhat greater than inthe final B1 illustrative scenario. All scenarios are detailed in Appendix I of Nakicenovic et al. (2000).

5 Run for the IS92a emissions scenario and representing 10-year time slices for 1971–1980 and 2041–2050. Morerecent results from the same model assuming SRES emissions scenarios are presented in Figure 3.

Figure 4. Historical mean sea level at Hanko, 1888–2001 (annual values and 15-year running mean) and scenarios to2100 for the six SRES illustrative emissions scenarios. Upper and lower error limits have been calculated taking intoaccount uncertainties in future global mean sea level, in NAO scenarios and in global mean sea level rise during the 20thcentury.


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EMEP Lagrangian Acid Deposition Model(LADM). LADM was used to calculatetransboundary acidifying pollution in Europeusing national emissions estimates and theAOGCM-based future climate (Mayerhofer et al.,2002). Based on the results of the AIR-CLIMproject, the plausible impacts of climate changeon atmospheric transportation and transforma-tion were assessed with respect to Northern Eu-rope. The results implied that by the 2040s cli-mate change could have a minor reducing effecton the amount of long-range transported airpollution from Central Europe to Finland(Figure 5d). Further simulations using otherAOGCM patterns of climate change for differ-ent periods in the future are needed to establishthe robustness of this result, but were outsidethe scope of this project.

National-scale scenarios extending to the year2020 were also developed for the Finnish Cli-mate Strategy (Ministry of Trade and Industry,2001). Energy scenarios were modelled with thelinear optimizing energy system model EFOM-ENV at the Technical Research Centre of Fin-land (VTT) (Lehtilä & Pirilä, 1996). External con-straints on economic growth and energy supply,

as defined by the Ministerial Working Group onClimate Strategy, were also taken into account.Two alternative sets of measures for complyingwith the Kyoto protocol requirements (KIO1,KIO2) were prepared and compared with a ‘Base-line’ scenario that assumed the absence of green-house gas control policies (Ministry of Trade andIndustry, 2001). The economic, environmentaland societal impacts of the scenarios were alsoassessed in the scenario development process(Perrels et al., 2001; Hildén et al., 2001). The re-sults indicated that the Finnish Climate Strategywould have clear beneficial effects on the emis-sions of acidifying and ozone-forming pollut-ants and on the exceedances of critical thresh-olds. These data provide the presently best avail-able knowledge about the likely future of Finn-ish greenhouse gas and acidifying emissions upto 2020.

Ozone trends and scenarios

Ozone in the troposphere (the lowest 10 kmlayer of the atmosphere), is producedphotochemically from precursors such as meth-ane, other reactive organic species and carbon

Figure 5. Change indeposition of nitrogen ox-ides relative to 1990 forthree SRES emissionsscenarios: (a) A1C, (b)A1p and (c) B1p, by2050 assuming present-day climate, and (d) dueto a change in climate bythe 2040s as simulatedby the ECHAM-4 modelassuming 1990 emis-sions.


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monoxide in the presence of nitrogen oxides(NOx). Observations in southern and central Fin-land show that ozone concentrations, especiallyin unpolluted air masses, have been higher dur-ing the late 1990s compared to the early years ofthe decade. This is not consistent with the re-gional precursor emission inventories that wouldsuggest declining trends. One of the possiblereasons could be increasing background tropo-spheric concentrations.

Scenarios of ozone concentrations close tothe surface have been simulated (Tuovinen et al.,2002) using a regional photochemical model ofthe EMEP-MSC-W at the Norwegian Meteoro-logical Institute (Simpson, 1992) together withinformation on tropospheric atmospheric com-position from the IPCC Third Assessment Re-port based on the SRES emissions. Simulationsof the present day atmospheric composition useofficially reported emissions for the year 1999 andmeteorology for the years 1994–1996.Simulations for 2010 use the same meteorologyand emissions according to the Gothenburg pro-tocol. Two scenarios for 2050 were defined basedon the IPCC SRES scenarios within the A1 fam-ily: A1C (fossil intensive) and A1T (non-fossiltechnologies). The emissions of ozone precur-sors were derived by starting from the SRES datafor the A1C and A1T scenarios and the EMEP

database. The EMEP data include the emissionreductions agreed within the Convention onLong-range Transboundary Air Pollution (UN/ECE, 1999). For the model calculations the emis-sions in the EMEP database for 2010 were scaledaccording to the relative changes between 2010and 2050 in the SRES scenarios. Emissions werederived from the MESSAGE model, and ozoneconcentrations in the free troposphere and thebackground methane concentrations were takenfrom Prather et al. (2001). For ozone, these areapplied as a scaling factor of the current values inthe EMEP model, while absolute mixing ratiosare set for methane.

Climate change scenarios for the year 2050were produced by adding an average temperaturechange obtained from climate model simulationswhile the other meteorological fields remainedunchanged from the original data set. Air tem-perature change by 2050 relative to 1961–1990, incontrast to precipitation change, was found to bestatistically significant relative to modelled natu-ral variability over Europe in summer, based oninformation from a number of global climatemodels6 analysed for the Europe ACACIAproject (Hulme & Carter, 2000).

Simulations were conducted for 1999, 2010and for 2050 using the A1C and A1T scenarios.AOT40, an index that accumulates ozone con-

Table 2. Global fossil CO2 emissions, atmospheric methane concentrations, global NOx emissions, tropospheric averageozone burden, trends of NOx emissions in western (WEU) and eastern (REF) Europe relative to 2010 and ozone exposureindex for crops AOT40 (May-July) from measurements (1996–2000) and from model estimates for 2010 and 2050.Scenario emission estimates are based on the MESSAGE model. European ozone precursor emissions for 1999 and 2010are from Verstreng (2001).

6 The climate model simulations used in the ACACIA project employed AOGCM results based on IS92a emissionspattern-scaled to approximate the preliminary SRES marker emissions scenarios (cf. footnote 3).


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centrations above 40 ppb7 , was calculated for1-hourly ozone concentrations from three Finn-ish EMEP stations (Table 2). The simulatedozone concentration and atmospheric composi-tion data were used to scale observed exposureindices to get exposures for all scenarios, usingthe statistical AOT-index model by Tuovinen(2002). It was assumed that changes in tropo-spheric ozone concentration affected averageozone but that other statistical parameters re-main unchanged.

The simulations indicate that the Europeanemission reductions agreed for 2010 would re-sult in around a 10 % decrease in the AOT40index. For long-term trends (to 2050) the devel-opment of tropospheric ozone concentrationwill be the most important factor. This variesbetween the scenarios and is mainly dependenton fossil fuel consumption via emissions ofozone precursors. The SRES scenarios haverelatively high levels of emissions; for example,none of the scenarios have decreasing trends ofNOx emissions in Eastern Europe by 2050. Fur-thermore, there is a positive feedback betweenCO2 emissions, which accelerate climate warming,and natural emissions of Volatile Organic Com-pounds which increases ozone production. Thelong-term target value of the AOT40 index forcrops in Europe is 3000 ppb.h, which is currentlyexceeded in southern and central Finland. Emis-sion reductions by 2010 would temporarily de-crease exposure, but over the longer term evenexposures in northern Finland are estimated toexceed this threshold, with exposures in south-ern Finland lying close to 9000 ppb.h, which isthe European target intended to be reached by2010 under the Ozone Directive.

Conclusions

Four alternative views of Finland in the 21st

century

Table 3 provides a summary of the precedingresults, offering four alternative characterisationsof socio-economic and environmental change in

Finland during the 21st century, in the A1, A2, B1and B2 worlds. In order to present the widestrange of future emissions, the A1 scenario as-sumes a fossil intensive economy (A1FI). TheA-type world posits strong economic growth inFinland, shared by a population that may increaseor decrease by 2100, depending on the scenario.However, in the absence of a global shift to-wards non-fossil energy sources, this will comeat the expense of large environmental changes,including a doubling of present-day CO2 con-centration before the end of the century, increas-ing ozone pollution and nitrogen deposition,slightly increased levels of sulphur deposition,and rapid mean annual warming of more than0.5 °C per decade with increasing annual precipi-tation of around 2 percent per decade. Currentlyfalling sea levels in southern Finland could stabi-lise or begin to rise.

The B-type world, shows lower economicgrowth than the A-type scenarios, with moder-ate increases in population followed by a generaldecline. Rising CO2 concentration may begin tolevel off towards the end of the century as itapproaches a doubling of pre-industrial levels.Ozone concentration and nitrogen depositionmay increase somewhat by mid-century, but by2100 deposition levels of both sulphur and ni-trogen are unlikely to exceed present levels andwill probably be much lower. Mean annual tem-perature and precipitation are estimated to in-crease at between half and two-thirds the rateunder the A-type scenarios. Sea levels in south-ern Finland either stabilise towards the end ofthe century or continue to fall.

New features of the FINSKEN scenarios

Some novel features of the FINSKEN scenarioscompared to scenarios prepared previously inFinland include:

- Consistency between different environmen-tal and socio-economic scenarios has beenensured by basing them all on the global IPCCSRES scenarios. Integration has been further

7 A new flux-based method to replace the AOT40 index has also been developed in FINSKEN (Emberson et al.,2001; Tuovinen et al., 2001). This method can be used to estimate ozone uptake by most of the important plantand crop species. Effects of climate change can also be estimated because soil moisture and air temperature are


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Table 3. Summary of selected global change scenarios for Finland in four future worlds (A1FI, A2, B1 and B2) and forthree future time periods (2020s, 2050s and 2080s)8.

enhanced by examining interactions betweenscenario types.

- All scenarios consider time horizons to 2050or beyond, which is an extension of the con-ventional projection period for several sce-nario types.

- Long-term socio-economic scenarios havebeen developed for Finland based on expertinterpretation of the SRES storylines, quan-titative modelling and stakeholder dialogue.

- New climate scenarios have been developedfor Finland to supersede the SILMU sce-narios, representing modelled responses

across the range of SRES emissions. Moreo-ver, results from high resolution modelsimulations have also been made available.

- A comprehensive set of sea-level scenarioshas been prepared for the Finnish coastline,accounting for global sea-level rise under theSRES scenarios, local land movements andpossible changes in atmospheric circulation.

- Scenarios of tropospheric ozone and of thedeposition of sulphur and nitrogen com-pounds have been prepared for an extendedtime horizon. They account not only for fu-ture changes in emissions (across a range of

8 Entries are preliminary and subject to revision.


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SRES and policy scenarios), but also for pos-sible concurrent future changes in climate.

- FINSKEN scenarios can be accessed from asingle site on the Internet: http://www.ymparisto.fi/eng/research/projects/finsken/

Next steps

The FINSKEN project has produced a small setof integrated scenarios for Finland. Future re-search should focus on:

- Disseminating, maintaining and updating thecurrent set of scenarios

- Extending the set to include other socio-eco-nomic and environmental characteristics (e.g.non-forest land uses, social preferences, in-frastructure, adaptation capacity)

- Refining the set to address alternative sce-nario construction methodologies andbroader issues relating to uncertainty

- Establishing the credibility and broad accept-ance of global change scenarios through con-tinuous interaction and dialogue withstakeholders throughout the process of sce-nario development

- Exploring a wider range of policy-related sce-narios to compare with the SRES referencescenarios (e.g. greenhouse gas stabilisationscenarios; normative, target-based scenarios)

- Incorporating global change scenarios withinan integrated assessment framework, to fa-cilitate analysis of future global change im-pacts and potential response measures in Fin-land

Acknowledgements

The FINSKEN team gratefully acknowledges thefinancial support of the Acadamy of Finland,the Ministry of Transport and Communicationsand the four partner institutes (Finnish Envi-ronment Institute, Finnish Meteorological In-stitute, Finnish Institute of Marine Research andFinnish Futures Research Centre) as part of theFinnish Global Change Research Programme

(FIGARE). Additional thanks are due to col-leagues in the European Commission-fundedAIR-CLIM, ATEAM and PRUDENCEprojects, at EMEP, Oslo, from the IPCC DataDistribution Centre, and from numerousprojects and organisations in Finland.

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