scholarly journals Regional circulation patterns inducing coastal upwelling in the Baltic Sea

2021 ◽  
Vol 144 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 905-916
Author(s):  
Ewa Bednorz ◽  
Marek Półrolniczak ◽  
Arkadiusz M. Tomczyk

AbstractAtmospheric feedback involved in the occurrence of coastal upwelling in a small semi-enclosed sea basin, i.e., the Baltic Sea, was analysed, and the regional circulation conditions triggering upwelling in different coastal sections were identified. Upwelling in the summer season (June–August, years 1982–2017) was recognized on the basis of sea surface temperature patterns. Circulation conditions were defined using (1) the established daily indices of zonal and meridional airflow and (2) the synoptic situation at sea level distinguished by applying rotated principal component analysis to sea level pressure data. The 12 daily synoptic patterns differed substantially in the intensity and location of their pressure centres. The mean seasonal frequency of upwelling was generally higher along the western Baltic shores than along the meridionally oriented eastern shores and varied from less than 10 to over 30% along the more predestined coastal sections, i.e., the northwestern coast of the Gulf of Bothnia, the northern Gulf of Finland and the southern Swedish coast. Due to the variable orientations of coastlines, upwelling could occur under almost any prevailing wind direction, and thus, each of the classified synoptic patterns could induce upwelling in some coastal sections. As deduced from the pressure fields for each circulation pattern, mostly alongshore winds triggered upwelling, which is in line with the Ekman rule. With time, upwelling could also be induced by the stress of normal to the coastline seaward winds.

2021 ◽  
Vol 266 ◽  
pp. 107071
Author(s):  
Alar Rosentau ◽  
Volker Klemann ◽  
Ole Bennike ◽  
Holger Steffen ◽  
Jasmin Wehr ◽  
...  

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Ebert ◽  
Karin Ekstedt ◽  
Jerker Jarsjö

Abstract. Future sea level rise as a consequence of global warming will affect the world's coastal regions. Even though the pace of sea level rise is not clear, the consequences will be severe and global. Commonly the effects of future sea level rise are investigated for relatively vulnerable development countries; however, a whole range of varying regions need to be considered in order to improve the understanding of global consequences. In this paper we investigate consequences of future sea level rise along the coast of the Baltic Sea island of Gotland, Sweden, with the aim to fill knowledge gaps regarding comparatively well-suited areas in non-development countries. We study both the quantity of loss of infrastructure, cultural and natural values for the case of a two metre sea level rise of the Baltic Sea, and the effects of climate change on seawater intrusion in coastal aquifers, causing the indirect effect of salt water intrusion in wells. We conduct a multi-criteria risk analysis by using Lidar data on land elevation and GIS-vulnerability mapping, which gives formerly unimaginable precision in the application of distance and elevation parameters. We find that in case of a 2 m sea level rise, 3 % of the land area of Gotland, corresponding to 99 km2, will be inundated. The features most strongly affected are items of touristic or nature values, including camping places, shore meadows, sea stack areas, and endangered plants and species habitats. In total, 231 out of 7354 wells will be directly inundated, and the number of wells in the high-risk zone for saltwater intrusion in wells will increase considerably. Some values will be irreversibly lost due to e.g. inundation of sea stacks and the passing of tipping points for sea water intrusion into coastal aquifers; others might simply be moved further inland, but this requires considerable economic means and prioritization. With nature tourism being one of the main income sources of Gotland, monitoring and planning is required to meet the changes. Seeing Gotland in a global perspective, this island shows that holistic multi-feature studies of future consequences of sea level rise are required, to identify overall consequences for individual regions.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ida Margrethe Ringgaard ◽  
Jacob L. Høyer ◽  
Kristine S. Madsen ◽  
Adili Abulaitijiang ◽  
Ole B. Andersen

<p>The rise and fall of the sea surface in the coastal region is observed closely by two different sources: tide gauges measure the relative sea level anomaly at the coast at high temporal resolution (minutes or hours) and satellite altimeters measure the absolute sea surface height of the open ocean along tracks multiple times a day. However, these daily tracks are scattered across the Baltic Sea with each track being repeated at a lower temporal resolution (days). Due to the inverse relationship between spatial and temporal coverage of the satellite altimetry data, gridded satellite altimetry products often prioritize spatial coverage over temporal resolution, thus filtering out the high sea level variability. In other words, the satellite data, and especially averaged products, often miss the daily sea level variability, such as storm surges, which is most important for all societies in the coastal region. To compensate for the sparse spatial coverage from satellite altimetry, we here present an experimental product developed as part of the ESA project Baltic+SEAL:  on a 3-day scale, the DMI Optimal Interpolation (DMI-OI) method is combined with error statistics from a storm surge model as well as 3-day averages from both tide gauge observations and satellite altimetry tracks to generate a gridded sea level anomaly product for the Baltic Sea for year 2017. The product captures the overall temporal evolution of the sea level changes well for most areas with an average RMSE wrt. tide gauge observations of 17.2 cm and a maximum of 34.2 cm. Thus, the 3-day mean gridded product shows potential as an alternative to monthly altimetry products, although further work is needed.</p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 1031-1046 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sitar Karabil ◽  
Eduardo Zorita ◽  
Birgit Hünicke

Abstract. Coastal sea-level trends in the Baltic Sea display decadal-scale variations around a long-term centennial trend. In this study, we analyse the spatial and temporal characteristics of the decadal trend variations and investigate the links between coastal sea-level trends and atmospheric forcing on a decadal timescale. For this analysis, we use monthly means of sea-level and climatic data sets. The sea-level data set is composed of long tide gauge records and gridded sea surface height (SSH) reconstructions. Climatic data sets are composed of sea-level pressure, air temperature, precipitation, evaporation, and climatic variability indices. The analysis indicates that atmospheric forcing is a driving factor of decadal sea-level trends. However, its effect is geographically heterogeneous. This impact is large in the northern and eastern regions of the Baltic Sea. In the southern Baltic Sea area, the impacts of atmospheric circulation on decadal sea-level trends are smaller. To identify the influence of the large-scale factors other than the effect of atmospheric circulation in the same season on Baltic Sea sea-level trends, we filter out the direct signature of atmospheric circulation for each season separately on the Baltic Sea level through a multivariate linear regression model and analyse the residuals of this regression model. These residuals hint at a common underlying factor that coherently drives the decadal sea-level trends in the whole Baltic Sea. We found that this underlying effect is partly a consequence of decadal precipitation trends in the Baltic Sea basin in the previous season. The investigation of the relation between the AMO index and sea-level trends implies that this detected underlying factor is not connected to oceanic forcing driven from the North Atlantic region.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristine S. Madsen ◽  
Jacob L. Høyer ◽  
Ülo Suursaar ◽  
Jun She ◽  
Per Knudsen

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 3661
Author(s):  
Toma Dabuleviciene ◽  
Diana Vaiciute ◽  
Igor E. Kozlov

Based on the analysis of multispectral satellite data, this work demonstrates the influence of coastal upwelling on the variability of chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration in the south-eastern Baltic (SEB) Sea and in the Curonian Lagoon. The analysis of sea surface temperature (SST) data acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard Aqua/Terra satellites, together with Chl-a maps from Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) onboard Envisat, shows a significant decrease of up to 40–50% in Chl-a concentration in the upwelling zone. This results from the offshore Ekman transport of more productive surface waters, which are replaced by cold and less-productive waters from deeper layers. Due to an active interaction between the Baltic Sea and the Curonian Lagoon which are connected through the Klaipeda Strait, coastal upwelling in the SEB also influences the hydrobiological conditions of the adjacent lagoon. During upwelling inflows, SST drops by approximately 2–8 °C, while Chl-a concentration becomes 2–4 times lower than in pre-upwelling conditions. The joint analysis of remotely sensed Chl-a and SST data reveals that the upwelling-driven reduction in Chl-a concentration leads to the temporary improvement of water quality in terms of Chl-a in the coastal zone and in the hyper-eutrophic Curonian Lagoon. This study demonstrates the benefits of multi-spectral satellite data for upscaling coastal processes and monitoring the environmental status of the Baltic Sea and its largest estuarine lagoon.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (24) ◽  
pp. 4062
Author(s):  
Aive Liibusk ◽  
Tarmo Kall ◽  
Sander Rikka ◽  
Rivo Uiboupin ◽  
Ülo Suursaar ◽  
...  

Multi-mission satellite altimetry (e.g., ERS, Envisat, TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason) data have enabled a synoptic-scale view of ocean variations in past decades. Since 2016, the Sentinel-3 mission has provided better spatial and temporal sampling compared to its predecessors. The Sentinel-3 Ku/C Radar Altimeter (SRAL) is one of the synthetic aperture radar altimeters (SAR Altimeter) which is more precise for coastal and lake observations. The article studies the performance of the Sentinel-3 Level-2 sea level altimetry products in the coastal areas of the Baltic Sea and on two lakes of Estonia. The Sentinel-3 data were compared with (i) collocated Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) ship measurements, (ii) the Estonian geoid model (EST-GEOID2017) together with sea-level anomaly corrections from the tide gauges, and (iii) collocated buoy measurements. The comparisons were carried out along seven Sentinel-3A/B tracks across the Baltic Sea and Estonian lakes in 2019. In addition, the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) Level-3 sea-level products and the Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean (NEMO) reanalysis outcomes were compared with measurements from Estonia’s 21 tide gauges and the buoy deployed offshore. Our results showed that the uncertainty of the Sentinel-3 Level-2 altimetry product was below decimetre level for the seacoast and the selected lakes of Estonia. Results from CMEMS Level-3 altimetry products showed a correlation of 0.83 (RMSE 0.18 m) and 0.91 (RMSE 0.27 m) when compared against the tide gauge measurements and the NEMO model, respectively. The overall performance of the altimetry products was very good, except in the immediate vicinity of the coastline and for the lakes, where the accuracy was nearly three times lower than for the open sea, but still acceptably good.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (22) ◽  
pp. 3747
Author(s):  
Thomas Gruber ◽  
Jonas Ågren ◽  
Detlef Angermann ◽  
Artu Ellmann ◽  
Andreas Engfeldt ◽  
...  

Traditionally, sea level is observed at tide gauge stations, which usually also serve as height reference stations for national leveling networks and therefore define a height system of a country. One of the main deficiencies to use tide gauge data for geodetic sea level research and height systems unification is that only a few stations are connected to the geometric network of a country by operating permanent GNSS receivers next to the tide gauge. As a new observation technique, absolute positioning by SAR using active transponders on ground can fill this gap by systematically observing time series of geometric heights at tide gauge stations. By additionally knowing the tide gauge geoid heights in a global height reference frame, one can finally obtain absolute sea level heights at each tide gauge. With this information the impact of climate change on the sea level can be quantified in an absolute manner and height systems can be connected across the oceans. First results from applying this technique at selected tide gauges at the Baltic coasts are promising but also exhibit some problems related to the new technique. The paper presents the concept of using the new observation type in an integrated sea level observing system and provides some early results for SAR positioning in the Baltic sea area.


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