Abstract
Abstract. The Baltic Sea, located in northern Europe, is a semi-enclosed, shallow and tideless sea with seasonal sea-ice cover in its northern sub-basins. Its long water residence time contributes to oxygen depletion in the bottom water of its southern sub-basins. In this study, recently performed scenario simulations for the Baltic Sea including marine biogeochemistry were analysed and compared with earlier published projections. Specifically, dynamical downscaling using a regionally coupled atmosphere–ocean climate model was used to regionalise four global Earth system models. However, as the regional climate model does not include components representing terrestrial and marine biogeochemistry, an additional catchment and a coupled physical–biogeochemical model for the Baltic Sea were included. The scenario simulations take the impact of various global sea level rise scenarios into account. According to the projections, compared to the present climate, higher water temperatures, a shallower mixed layer with a sharper thermocline during summer, less sea-ice cover and greater mixing in the northern Baltic Sea during winter can be expected. Both the frequency and the duration of marine heat waves will increase significantly, in particular in the coastal zone of the southern Baltic Sea (except in regions with frequent upwellings). Nonetheless, due to the uncertainties in the projections regarding regional winds, the water cycle and the global sea level rise, robust and statistically significant salinity changes could not be identified. The impact of a changing climate on biogeochemical cycling is predicted to be considerable but still smaller than that of plausible nutrient input changes. Implementing the proposed Baltic Sea Action Plan, a nutrient input abatement plan for the entire catchment area, would result in a significantly improved ecological status of the Baltic Sea, including reductions in the size of the hypoxic area also in a future climate, which in turn would increase the resilience of the Baltic Sea against anticipated climate change. While our findings regarding changes in heat-cycle variables mainly confirm earlier scenario simulations, they differ substantially from earlier projections of salinity and biogeochemical cycles, due to differences in experimental setups and in input scenarios for bioavailable nutrients.
Highlights
The Baltic Sea is a shallow, semi-enclosed sea located in northern Europe (Fig. 1)
In contrast to the first BACC assessment (BACC Author Team, 2008), the findings reported in this chapter are based on multi-model ensemble scenario simulations using several greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions scenarios and Baltic Sea models
Due to its large latitudinal extension, the Baltic Sea is characterised throughout the year by a distinct sea surface temperatures (SSTs) difference between the colder northern and warmer southern sub-basins (Fig. 4)
Summary
The Baltic Sea is a shallow, semi-enclosed sea located in northern Europe (Fig. 1) It has a mean depth of 54 m, but due to its strongly varying bottom topography it can be divided into several sub-basins, with limited transport between them (Sjöberg, 1992). The volume of the Baltic Sea is ∼ 21 700 km (Sjöberg, 1992) and the turnover time of the total freshwater supply (∼ 16 000 m3 s−1) is 35 years (Meier and Kauker, 2003). These features contribute to strong horizontal and vertical salinity gradients in the Baltic Sea (Fonselius and Valderrama, 2003). Ocean circulation modelling has shown that the timescale of the salinity response to changes in atmospheric and hydrological forcing is 20 years (Meier, 2006)
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