The Links of Climate Change in the Caspian Sea to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans

Abstract

The analysis of interannual changes in climatic parameters for the Caspian Sea over the period of 1900–2015 revealed their links to the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. For example, a dramatic Caspian Sea level decrease in the 1930s may be connected with the strengthening of eastern wind in the region caused by the weakening of the North Atlantic influence on the timescales of about eight years. As is known, this led to the precipitation reduction in the Caspian Sea catchment. At the same time, the influence of the Pacific Ocean on the Caspian Sea parameters on the quasi-twenty-year scale has increased since the 1930s. The opposite process occurred from the late 1970s till the middle of the 1990s: the impact of the North Atlantic increased and that of the Pacific Ocean decreased, thus causing the positive anomalies of western wind and in the sea level rise. In the second half of the 1990s, there was a rapid rise in average air temperature in the Caspian Sea region. However, since the late 1990s, the North Atlantic influence on the Caspian region has weakened, that led to the Caspian Sea level drop and to the slowdown of air temperature rise.