Climate impacts on road transportation, presente and future scenarios

A weather forecast has always been important for different activities in society. With the current technology for calculating different scenarios for future climate it is possible to make a connection with different types of society functions. This is of great importance because it makes it possible to plan and making follow-ups on for example transport related activities.

At previous IPPC meetings there has been stated that one of the most important research areas is to increase accuracy and resolution on the forecast models. Climate change is going to be most obvious on local levels.

It has been shown in different models that Sweden is going to be influenced to a great extent of a future climatic change. The project will analyse how a climatic change will affect the Swedish road climate related to transportation. The aim with this project is to develop models for estimation of frequencies of different situations of slipperiness and other weather related traffic situations. Knowledge of this kind is of great importance to be able to calculate consequences and effects of a changing climate concerning the mobility in society.

Within this project there will be a detailed analyse of the connection to local climate and future global climate change. The data for this project is provided by the Swedish National Road Administration containing climate statistics from 700 stations spread all over Sweden. These stations cover various types of local climate surroundings which make it possible to make connections to different climate models that have not been conceivable before.