Will European winters be increasingly mild and wet in the coming years? Will there be more extreme precipitation? Will climatic conditions be beneficial for Norwegian fisheries and hydroelectric power production?

Such questions of large societal importance are at the heart of the emerging scientific field of climate prediction. Yet we may know more about global warming in a 100-year perspective than how climate in Norway will be in a decade.

The Bjerknes Climate Prediction Unit (Bjerknes CPU) aims to bridge this gap between weather forecasting and long-term climate change projections, to develop skilful climate predictions.

The prediction centre will capitalise on promising initial results from a team of world-class scientists at the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research – model developers, observationalists, theoreticians, and forecasters – to develop the World’s most skilful prediction system for northern climate.

Our empirically based predictions corroborate the great potential to forecast Norwegian surface temperature and Arctic sea ice extent up to a decade in advance.