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Throughout the literature, there are assertions that those endorsing conservative ideologies reject the science and solutions of climate change due to perceived threat. That is, they fear that accepting climate change means accepting problems with a favoured socioeconomic system and supporting action on climate change threatens to disrupt these systems. We draw together lines of research and reasoning on this topic to outline three key predictions this perspective makes about the drivers of conservative denial of climate change and opposition to climate policy. The first is that an asymmetry exists in climate-related threat perceptions, whereby greater endorsement of conservative ideology predicts lower perceived threat from climate change and greater perceived threat from climate reform. Second, climate-related threat perceptions are multifaceted, such that threats to economic and cultural well-being can be experienced, at personal or collective levels. Third, the asymmetry in threat perceptions explains conservatives' lower support for pro-climate reforms. We then specify a new integrated threat model of climate change attitudes, review the current evidence for and against each prediction in this model and outline ways to interrogate these theoretical predictions with empirical research. Doing so will advance understanding of the underpinnings of ideological disagreement on climate change.

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Climate-friendly food choices are still relatively rarely addressed in studies investigating climate engagement, particularly among young people. To address this research gap, we conducted a questionnaire study with senior high school students (N = 474). Our overarching theoretical framework is the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), which we extended with emotional factors (climate-change worry and optimism) and attitudinal ambivalence. We found that all factors included, except for optimism, correlated with the food-choice intentions. In multiple regression analyses, worry was the second strongest predictor, after attitudes. Moreover, a measure of objective ambivalence moderated the correlation between attitudes and intentions by weakening it. The results support the validity of using the TPB model when explaining intentions to make climate-friendly food choices among emerging adults. However, our results suggest that it is also important to consider emotions-in this case climate-change worry-and the existence of conflicting evaluations about choosing climate-friendly food.

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In this work, the climatic impacts of modifying urban surface characteristics are examined for the medium-sized city of Vantaa, Finland, in the current climate and in a projected future climate of 2040-2069. In simulations with the SURFEX air-surface interaction model with a horizontal resolution of 500 m, the fraction of green spaces and relatively sparsely built suburban-type land use was increased at the expense of more densely built commercial and industrial areas. The influence of this land use intervention was found to be rather modest but comparable to the effects of the expected climate change under the RCP8.5 greenhouse gas scenario. For temperature, the climate change is the dominating effect, while wind speed is mainly controlled by surface characteristics. For relative humidity, climate change and the imposed intervention are of comparable importance. The results of this sensitivity study are intended to support policy makers by assessing the potential impact of altering the urban layout in order to improve thermal comfort or as a countermeasure to climate warming in a high-latitude city.

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We studied interannual variability and changes over time in selected climate indices in the reindeer management area (RMA) in northern Finland. We present together the knowledge possessed by reindeer herders with information from meteorological measurements over three decades. The practitioner knowledge was gathered via a survey questionnaire addressing herder observations of long-term changes (approximately during the past 30 years) in climatic conditions and their impacts on herding during the four seasons. A set of temperature-, precipitation- and snow-related indices relevant for herding within the RMA was derived from spatially interpolated daily meteorological data (1981-2010). Climatic changes detected based on the measurement data were mainly consistent with earlier studies, and practitioner knowledge was generally in line with the meteorological data. The herders had experienced the largest number of changes during the winter, and the smallest number of changes during the summer. The herders reported various impacts of changing seasonal weather on reindeer condition and behavior, and on herding practices. Adaptation to the changing conditions requires adoption of various coping strategies by the herders in their everyday work, continuous development of professional techniques and practices, as well as support received from the governance of reindeer management. We conclude that holistic understanding of the impacts of climate change and adaptation to changes in the future requires simultaneous analyses of data from different sources, more research co-defined with local practitioners, and co-planned governance solutions. The approach presented in this work can ease the dialogue between the local practitioners, researchers and policy makers.

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The aim of this study was to assess regional differences in temperature-mortality relationships across 21 hospital districts in Finland. The temperature dependence of the daily number of all-cause, all-aged deaths during 2000-2014 was studied in each hospital district by using daily mean temperatures, spatially averaged across each hospital district, to describe exposure to heat stress and cold stress. The relationships were modelled using distributed lag non-linear models (DLNM). In a simple model version, no delayed impacts of heat and cold on mortality were taken into account, whereas a more complex version included delayed impacts up to 25 days. A meta-analysis with selected climatic and sociodemographic covariates was conducted to study differences in the relationships between hospital districts. A pooled mortality-temperature relationship was produced to describe the average relationship in Finland. The simple DLNM model version without lag gave U-shaped dependencies of mortality on temperature almost without exception. The outputs of the model version with a 25-day lag were also U-shaped in most hospital districts. According to the meta-analysis, the differences in the temperature-mortality relationships between hospital districts were not statistically significant on the absolute temperature scale, meaning that the pooled mortality-temperature relationship can be applied to the whole country. However, on a relative temperature scale, heterogeneity was found, and the meta-regression suggested that morbidity index and population in the hospital districts might explain some of this heterogeneity. The pooled estimate for the relative risk (RR) of mortality at a daily mean temperature of 24 °C was 1.16 (95% CI 1.12-1.20) with reference at 14 °C, which is the minimum mortality temperature (MMT) of the pooled relationship. On the cold side, the RR at a daily mean temperature of -20 °C was 1.14 (95% CI 1.12-1.16). On a relative scale of daily mean temperature, the MMT was found at the 79th percentile.

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Climate change is expected to increase heat-related and decrease cold-related mortality. The extent of acclimatization of the population to gradually-changing thermal conditions is not well understood. We aimed to define the relationship between mortality and temperature extremes in different age groups in the Helsinki-Uusimaa hospital district in Southern Finland, and changes in sensitivity of the population to temperature extremes over the period of 1972-2014. Time series of mortality were made stationary with a method that utilizes 365-day Gaussian smoothing, removes trends and seasonality, and gives relative mortality as the result. We used generalized additive models to examine the association of relative mortality to physiologically equivalent temperature (PET) and to air temperature in the 43-year study period and in two 21-year long sub-periods (1972-1992 and 1994-2014). We calculated the mean values of relative mortality in percentile-based categories of thermal indices. Relative mortality increases more in the hot than in the cold tail of the thermal distribution. The increase is strongest among those aged 75 years and older, but is somewhat elevated even among those younger than 65 years. Above the 99th percentile of the PET distribution, the all-aged relative mortality decreased in time from 18.3 to 8.6%. Among those ≥75 years old, the decrease in relative mortality between the sub-periods were found to be above the 90th percentile. The dependence of relative mortality on cold extremes was negligible, except among those ≥75 years old, in the latter period. Thus, heat-related mortality is also remarkable in Finland, but the sensitivity to heat stress has decreased over the decades.

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Dynamic building energy simulations need hourly weather data as input. The same high temporal resolution is required for assessments of future heating and cooling energy demand. The data presented in this article concern current typical values and estimated future changes in outdoor air temperature, wind speed, relative humidity and global, diffuse and normal solar radiation components. Simulated annual and seasonal delivered energy consumptions for heating of spaces, heating of ventilation supply air and cooling of spaces in the current and future climatic conditions are also presented for an example house, with district heating and a mechanical space cooling system. We provide details on how the synthetic future weather files were created and utilised as input data for dynamic building energy simulations by the IDA Indoor Climate and Energy program and also for calculations of heating and cooling degree-day sums. The information supplied here is related to the research article titled "Energy demand for the heating and cooling of residential houses in Finland in a changing climate" [1].