Long-term variations of the Black Sea dynamics and their impact on the marine ecosystem

Abstract

Satellite altimetry data are used to study the long-term dynamics variability of the Black Sea from 1993 to 2013, its dependence on wind forcing and its impact on the marine ecosystem. Basin-scale dynamics have significant interseasonal and interannual variability. The most distinctly observed feature of the interannual dynamics variability is an almost twofold increase of the current kinetic energy from 2002 to 2012, based on anomaly weak values from 1998 to 2001. The amplitudes of a seasonal cycle of current velocity variability from 2002 to 2102 were two times higher than the amplitudes from 1998 to 2001. The seasonal variability of the current Mean Kinetic Energy (MKE) significantly varies among the years. Although usually maximal values of MKE are observed in winter and minimal values are observed in summer, the seasonal variability may exhibit two distinct peaks in spring and autumn, or even can be opposite with maximum values observed in warm period of a year.The variability of wind stress curl (or the Ekman pumping velocity) averaged over the basin is the main factor for the observed changes in the Black Sea dynamics. The analysis shows that the integral effect of the cyclonic wind curl causes water divergence in the centre of the basin, rising sea level gradients and Rim current intensification. The mean kinetic energy of the Black Sea currents follows the variability of Ekman pumping on seasonal and interannual time scales with a time delay of approximately two weeks. This lag is consistent with the estimated time that is required for water particles to drift from the central part to the basin periphery due to rising Ekman divergence.We employ an eddy-identification method to show that the interannual variability of the number of mesoscale eddies in the basin and their energy are opposite to the variability of the mean kinetic energy of the Black Sea currents and Ekman pumping over the basin. The number of eddies and their total energy decreased after basin scale current intensification in 2002. The reduction of the eddy horizontal transport and cross-shelf exchange caused a significant decline (~25%) of the surface chlorophyll a concentration in the deep part of the Black Sea after 2002. The largest decrease of the chlorophyll a concentration occurred over the continental slope, in the parts of the basin that are adjacent to the productive shelf areas. The eddy horizontal advection of nutrients can play a major role in conditioning the state of the Black Sea ecosystem on interannual time scales compared with a vertical entrainment of nutrients via winter convective mixing.