Somebody had made search using the title “Why is Scandinavia so cold?”. It made me want to ask much proper question: “Why is Scandinavia so warm?” When we look at the areas around the world in the similar latitudes either in the norther or southern hemisphere, it still tells the story of extreme coldness. And in comparison Scandinavia is very warm indeed – in fact the whole Europe is and the answer is Gulf Stream.
If you look at the latitudes of New York for example - what place is in the same latitudes in Europe? According to New York weather you might quess something like London or if you are sweet toward New York maybe Paris. Yet we are rather talking about places like Marseille, Barcelona, Rome or Venice. Not what you would think – is it?
In the same latitudes whit Scandinavia are places like Alaska, northernmost Hudson Bay and Southern Greenland. In the comparison the Scandinavia is warm indeed. And in the Russia the peninsula of Kamchatka is more southern than Scandinavia and in the same latitudes than Poland, Germany and Great Britain.
In the Southern hemisphere the whole Peninsula of the Patagonia whit Tierra del Fuego is much closer to the equator than Nordic Countries. Parts of the Antarctica reach to the equivalent latitudes whit even the southernmost Scandinavia.
So what makes Scandinavia cold? It is the latitudes and the fact that in the winter time we get very little sunshine. We are so far from the Equator and even from the Tropic of Cancer. It could not be warmer easily, in fact it could be much colder, like we see in the other parts of the World. Yet it seem Scandinavia is now warming faster than other parts of the world thanks to the climate change, but its effects on the nature are not necessary good ones.
May 29, 2008 at 7:41 am
and thanks to the global warming we pretty much never get snow anymore