Climate change impacts on future driving and walking conditions in Finland, Norway and Sweden

Abstract

Abstract Road weather is a major concern for the public safety and health, industries and transport sectors. Half of the yearly 27,000 road and 50,000 pedestrian injuries in Finland, Norway and Sweden can be traced back to slippery road and walkway conditions. We simulated the climate change impacts on future roads and walkways for mid- and end-century in Finland, Norway and Sweden with the road weather model RoadSurf, driven by the regional climate model HCLIM38 with boundary data from two global climate models following the RCP8.5 scenario.Our simulations for mid-century suggest strong road surface temperature increases, especially in southern Finland (+ 5.1 °C) and Sweden (+ 7.1 °C). Snowy and icy road surface conditions decreased by 23 percentage points, causing 18.5 percentage points less difficult driving conditions during the cold season. Zero-degree-crossing days mostly decreased in autumn and spring by up to 7 days and increased in winter by up to 5 days. Sidewalks mostly showed a decrease in slipperiness, but a five percentage point increase of water above ice layers on the sidewalks in winter, suggesting the slip-season might become shorter, but more slippery.Our results are upper extreme estimates but can serve as a reference to help local decision-makers plan mitigation and adaptation measures ahead of time.