And when you see a headline like that, you probably think immediately of deep-freeze and permafrost, but this year you’d be wrong. In an ominous development the country has seen the first two days of the year both set records for January temperatures.
In Andalsnes, on the west coast about 300 miles north of Bergen, the temperatures ran over 65F two days in a row; The previous record, four degrees lower, was set in 1989. Further north, near Trondheim, temperatures went over 50 for the first time since 1950, and is the warmest recorded there since measurement started in 1923.
Meteorological officials say it’s not just a normal variation; Reidun Gangsto Skaland of the Norwegian Meteorological Institute told press that “It has gotten warmer and it is still getting warmer. The winter is getting shorter…. The average number of days in which the temperature is under zero has been reduced by over half a month… Climate change will cause this trend to continue,”