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Variability on centennial to multi-centennial timescales is mentioned as a feature in reconstructions of the Holocene climate. As more long transient model simulations with complex climate models become available and efforts have been made to compile large proxy databases, there is now a unique opportunity to study multi-centennial variability with greater detail and a large amount of data than earlier. This paper presents a spectral analysis of transient Holocene simulations from 9 models and 120 proxy records to find the common signals related to oscillation periods and geographic dependencies and discuss the implications for the potential driving mechanisms. Multi-centennial variability is significant in most proxy records, with the dominant oscillation periods around 120-130 years and an average of 240 years. Spectra of model-based global mean temperature (GMT) agree well with proxy evidence with significant multi-centennial variability in all simulations with the dominant oscillation periods around 120-150 years. It indicates a comparatively good agreement between model and proxy data. A lack of latitudinal dependencies in terms of oscillation period is found in both the model and proxy data. However, all model simulations have the highest spectral density distributed over the Northern hemisphere high latitudes, which could indicate a particular variability sensitivity or potential driving mechanisms in this region. Five models also have differentiated forcings simulations with various combinations of forcing agents. Significant multi-centennial variability with oscillation periods between 100 and 200 years is found in all forcing scenarios, including those with only orbital forcing. The different forcings induce some variability in the system. Yet, none appear to be the predominant driver based on the spectral analysis. Solar irradiance has long been hypothesized to be a primary driver of multi-centennial variability. However, all the simulations without this forcing have shown significant multi-centennial variability. The results then indicate that internal mechanisms operate on multi-centennial timescales, and the North Atlantic-Arctic is a region of interest for this aspect. International audience

Amidst the current period of urgent and costly climate abatement policies being implemented, company cars as a fringe benefit receive surprisingly little attention from policy and research, despite evidence showing that they not only result in substantial welfare losses but also in increased car ownership and use. Therefore, this paper adds to the evidence on how company cars increase car use. We estimate how the possession of a company car impacts the households’ probability of possessing at least one car and the total car possession (the sum of privately owned and company cars). We use register micro-panel data, covering all households in Sweden, allowing us to study the effect of company cars in the full population while accounting for household-specific time-invariant unobserved preferences. It also allows us to study asymmetric effects of gaining versus losing a company car. We regress temporal changes in car possession on temporal changes in company car possession, applying a fixed effect (FE) estimator for single and couple households separately. A company car increases the probability of having at least one car in single and couple households by 38% and 14%, respectively. For couple households, we find a small asymmetric effect, such that the impact of the company car on car possession is slightly larger when the car is received than when it is lost. For single households the effect is symmetric. Moreover, a company car increases car possession by on average 0.26 cars for couple households possessing at least one car. Since roughly 80% of the mileage of these cars is attributed to private purposes in Sweden, these results indicate that the current company car taxation also increases car use.

As cities worldwide implement strategies to accelerate the transition toward a circular economy (CE), there is an increasing need for tools to monitor progress. However, a standardised metric for CE monitoring in urban areas is lacking. This study examines the potential of the EU Circular Economy Monitoring Framework (CEMF), an established indicator-based framework for measuring national- and EU-level circularity performance, as a monitoring tool for urban areas. For this purpose, available data sources that can support the framework's application at the urban level are mapped, and data quality is assessed following the pedigree matrix approach. Next, the CEMF indicators are computed for the urban area of Umeå, Sweden. The mapping showed limited availability of urban-level data, necessitating the downscaling of national-level data using proxy factors. Most available urban-level data are of high quality, while the quality of national-level data is reduced when used to compute indicators at the urban level. The application of the CEMF in Umeå indicates that there are areas where the municipality performs well, though further improvements are needed. We conclude that the CEMF has potential as a monitoring tool for urban areas. However, improvements in CEMF...s scope and data availability are recommended. QC 20221205

Background: Changes in modal choice is argued to be one way to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. Increasing modal choices in favour of more environmentally friendly travel modes requires a better understanding of how these choices are actually made. The first aim of this study is therefore to examine how modal choice is related to subjective experiences as perceived accessibility, perceived satisfaction , habit, both before , after an intervention promoting public transport. The second aim is to examine how modal choice is affected by the intervention. Finally, the third aim is to examine how subjective experiences as perceived accessibility, perceived satisfaction, and habit are affected by the intervention.Method: The design used is a before-and after-study with free public travel passes as the intervention (30-or 14-days free travel pass). Altogether, 52 travelers - distributed on two intervention groups and one control group - participated in the study. The 30-days free travel pass group constitutes 18 participants, the 14-days free travel pass group constitutes 19 participants while the control group constitutes 15 participants. During the before -period the participants were asked to register their modal choice using a digitalized application downloaded on their smart phones (the TravelVu app), to complete a short app-based questionnaire, and a web-based questionnaire. During the after-period, they were once again asked to register their modal choice and to complete a web-based questionnaire. All data collected were analyzed by variance or correlation analyses using the change between before-and after period as the dependent variable.Results: The results show that walking was more common than the use of public transport and car, which in turn were more common than the use of bicycle. Perceived accessibility, perceived satisfaction, general health, life quality as well as habit were all rated fairly high. Over time, the use of public transport increased while the use of car decreased overall. With increased use of public transport, the perceived accessibility decreased, but on the other hand, the life quality increased. There was no difference in perceived accessibility, perceived satisfaction, or habit between the three groups, but the participants became overall more satisfied with the standard of their experiences of their everyday travel (cognitive evaluation). At the same time, they became less reflective of their choice of travel mode and less interested in trying out new alternative travel modes during the after-compared to the before period.Conclusion: The intervention did not affect the modal choice or the subjective experiences. Over time, the participants did however increase their use of public transport and their cognitive evaluation of their everyday travel overall, while they decreased their use of car and became less reflective and less interested in trying out new alternative travel modes. These changes might be attributed to their participation in the present study.

Indigenous peoples have for the past decades increasingly argued that not only is their traditional knowledge to be recognized in the management of their traditional territories, but that Indigenous control and self-governance over territories and natural resources are crucial for long-term sustainability of the land and cultural revitalisation of its people. In recent years, the Saami in Sweden have also presented themselves as pathfinders, offering advice and solutions for a more sustainable future not only for the Saami society, but for all of Sweden. This paper investigates how Saami claims for rights and stewardship in environmental management are related to Saami cultural revitalisation, within a Swedish colonial framework. It is based on an investigation of the Saami policy positions expressed in policy documents and opinion pieces produced by organisations representing the Saami, linking claims for rights and environmental stewardship with cultural revitalisation and a more sustainable development for all.

Based on the Baltic Earth Assessment Reports of this thematic issue in Earth System Dynamics and recent peer-reviewed literature, current knowledge of the effects of global warming on past and future changes in climate of the Baltic Sea region is summarised and assessed. The study is an update of the Second Assessment of Climate Change (BACC II) published in 2015 and focuses on the atmosphere, land, cryosphere, ocean, sediments, and the terrestrial and marine biosphere. Based on the summaries of the recent knowledge gained in palaeo-, historical, and future regional climate research, we find that the main conclusions from earlier assessments still remain valid. However, new long-term, homogenous observational records, for example, for Scandinavian glacier inventories, sea-level-driven saltwater inflows, so-called Major Baltic Inflows, and phytoplankton species distribution, and new scenario simulations with improved models, for example, for glaciers, lake ice, and marine food web, have become available. In many cases, uncertainties can now be better estimated than before because more models were included in the ensembles, especially for the Baltic Sea. With the help of coupled models, feedbacks between several components of the Earth system have been studied, and multiple driver studies were performed, e.g. projections of the food web that include fisheries, eutrophication, and climate change. New datasets and projections have led to a revised understanding of changes in some variables such as salinity. Furthermore, it has become evident that natural variability, in particular for the ocean on multidecadal timescales, is greater than previously estimated, challenging our ability to detect observed and projected changes in climate. In this context, the first palaeoclimate simulations regionalised for the Baltic Sea region are instructive. Hence, estimated uncertainties for the projections of many variables increased. In addition to the well-known influence of the North Atlantic Oscillation, it was found that also other low-frequency modes of internal variability, such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Variability, have profound effects on the climate of the Baltic Sea region. Challenges were also identified, such as the systematic discrepancy between future cloudiness trends in global and regional models and the difficulty of confidently attributing large observed changes in marine ecosystems to climate change. Finally, we compare our results with other coastal sea assessments, such as the North Sea Region Climate Change Assessment (NOSCCA), and find that the effects of climate change on the Baltic Sea differ from those on the North Sea, since Baltic Sea oceanography and ecosystems are very different from other coastal seas such as the North Sea. While the North Sea dynamics are dominated by tides, the Baltic Sea is characterised by brackish water, a perennial vertical stratification in the southern subbasins, and a seasonal sea ice cover in the northern subbasins. Peer reviewed