scholarly journals Human impacts and their interactions in the Baltic Sea region

2022 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-80
Author(s):  
Marcus Reckermann ◽  
Anders Omstedt ◽  
Tarmo Soomere ◽  
Juris Aigars ◽  
Naveed Akhtar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Baltic Sea ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Human Impacts ◽  
The Other ◽  
Indigenous Species ◽  
General Description ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
Baltic Sea Region ◽  
The Baltic

Abstract. Coastal environments, in particular heavily populated semi-enclosed marginal seas and coasts like the Baltic Sea region, are strongly affected by human activities. A multitude of human impacts, including climate change, affect the different compartments of the environment, and these effects interact with each other. As part of the Baltic Earth Assessment Reports (BEAR), we present an inventory and discussion of different human-induced factors and processes affecting the environment of the Baltic Sea region, and their interrelations. Some are naturally occurring and modified by human activities (i.e. climate change, coastal processes, hypoxia, acidification, submarine groundwater discharges, marine ecosystems, non-indigenous species, land use and land cover), some are completely human-induced (i.e. agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries, river regulations, offshore wind farms, shipping, chemical contamination, dumped warfare agents, marine litter and microplastics, tourism, and coastal management), and they are all interrelated to different degrees. We present a general description and analysis of the state of knowledge on these interrelations. Our main insight is that climate change has an overarching, integrating impact on all of the other factors and can be interpreted as a background effect, which has different implications for the other factors. Impacts on the environment and the human sphere can be roughly allocated to anthropogenic drivers such as food production, energy production, transport, industry and economy. The findings from this inventory of available information and analysis of the different factors and their interactions in the Baltic Sea region can largely be transferred to other comparable marginal and coastal seas in the world.

scholarly journals Human impacts and their interactions in the Baltic Sea region

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Reckermann ◽  
Anders Omstedt ◽  
Tarmo Soomere ◽  
Juris Aigars ◽  
Naveed Akhtar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Baltic Sea ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Human Impacts ◽  
The Other ◽  
Indigenous Species ◽  
General Description ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
Baltic Sea Region ◽  
The Baltic

Abstract. Coastal environments, in particular heavily populated semi-enclosed marginal seas and coasts like the Baltic Sea region, are stongly affected by human activities. A multitude of human impacts, including climate change, affects the different compartments of the environment, and these effects interact with each other. As part of the Baltic Earth Assessment Reports (BEAR), we present an inventory and discussion of different human-induced factors and processes affecting the environment of the Baltic Sea region, and their interrelations. Some are naturally occurring and modified by human activities (i.e. climate change, coastal processes, hypoxia, acidification, submarine groundwater discharges, marine ecosystems, non-indigenous species, land use and land cover), some are completely human-induced (i.e. agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries, river regulations, offshore wind farms, shipping, chemical contamination, dumped warfare agents, marine litter and microplastics, tourism, coastal management), and they are all interrelated to different degrees. We present a general description and analysis of the state of knowledge on these interrelations. Our main insight is that climate change has an overarching, integrating impact on all of the other factors and can be interpreted as a background effect, which has different implications for the other factors. Impacts on the environment and the human sphere can be roughly allocated to anthropogenic drivers such as food production, energy production, transport, industry and economy. We conclude that a sound management and regulation of human activities must be implemented in order to use and keep the environments and ecosystems of the Baltic Sea region sustainably in a good shape. This must balance the human needs, which exert tremendous pressures on the systems, as humans are the overwhelming driving force for almost all changes we see. The findings from this inventory of available information and analysis of the different factors and their interactions in the Baltic Sea region can largely be transferred to other comparable marginal and coastal seas in the world.

scholarly journals Coupled regional Earth system modelling in the Baltic Sea region

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Gröger ◽  
Christian Dieterich ◽  
Jari Haapala ◽  
Ha Thi Minh Ho-Hagemann ◽  
Stefan Hagemann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Baltic Sea ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Model Systems ◽  
Earth System ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
Coupled Models ◽  
Baltic Sea Region ◽  
Ocean Models ◽  
The Baltic

Abstract. Non-linear responses to externally forced climate change are known to dampen or amplify the local climate impact due to complex cross compartmental feedback loops in the earth system. These feedbacks are less well represented in traditional standalone atmosphere and ocean models on which many of today's regional climate assessments rely on (e.g. EuroCordex, NOSCCA, BACC II). This promotes the development of regional climate models for the Baltic Sea region by coupling different compartments of the earth system into more comprehensive models. Coupled models more realistically represent feedback loops than the information imposed into the region by using prescribed boundary conditions, and thus, permit a higher degree of freedom. In the past, several coupled model systems have been developed for Europe and the Baltic Sea region. This article reviews recent progress of model systems that allow two way communication between atmosphere and ocean models, models for the land surface including the terrestrial biosphere, as well as wave models at the air sea interface and hydrology models for water cycle closure. However, several processes that have so far mostly been realized by one way coupling such as marine biogeochemistry, nutrient cycling and atmospheric chemistry (e.g. aerosols) are not considered here.Compared to uncoupled standalone models, coupled earth system models models can modify mean near surface air temperatures locally up to several degrees compared to their standalone atmospheric counterparts using prescribed surface boundary conditions. Over open ocean areas, the representation of small scale oceanic processes such as vertical mixing, and sea ice dynamics appear essential to accurately resolve the air sea heat exchange in the Baltic Sea region and can only be provided by online coupled high resolution ocean models. In addition, the coupling of wave models at the ocean-atmosphere interface allows a more explicit formulation of small-scale to microphysical processes with local feedbacks to water temperature and large scale processes such as oceanic upwelling. Over land, important climate feedbacks arise from dynamical terrestrial vegetation changes as well as the implementation of land use scenarios and afforestation/deforestation that further alter surface albedo, roughness length and evapotranspiration. Furthermore, a good representation of surface temperatures and roughness length over open sea and land areas is critical for the representation of climatic extremes like e.g. heavy precipitation, storms, or tropical nights, and appear to be sensitive to coupling.For the present-day climate, many coupled atmosphere-ocean and atmosphere-land surface models demonstrate added value with respect to single climate variables in particular when low quality boundary data were used in the respective standalone model. This makes coupled models a prospective tool for downscaling climate change scenarios from global climate models because these models often have large biases on the regional scale. However, the coupling of hydrology models for closing the water cycle remains problematic as the accuracy of precipitation provided by the atmosphere models is in most cases insufficient to realistically simulate the runoff to the Baltic Sea without bias adjustments.Many regional standalone ocean and atmosphere models are tuned to well represent present day climatologies rather than accurately simulate climate change. More research is necessary about how the regional climate sensitivity (e.g. the models’ response to a given change in global mean temperature) is affected by coupling and how the spread is altered in multi-model and multi-scenario ensembles of coupled models compared to uncoupled ones.

scholarly journals Coupled regional Earth system modeling in the Baltic Sea region

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 939-973
Author(s):  
Matthias Gröger ◽  
Christian Dieterich ◽  
Jari Haapala ◽  
Ha Thi Minh Ho-Hagemann ◽  
Stefan Hagemann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Baltic Sea ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Model Systems ◽  
Earth System ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
Coupled Models ◽  
Baltic Sea Region ◽  
Ocean Models ◽  
The Baltic

Abstract. Nonlinear responses to externally forced climate change are known to dampen or amplify the local climate impact due to complex cross-compartmental feedback loops in the Earth system. These feedbacks are less well represented in the traditional stand-alone atmosphere and ocean models on which many of today's regional climate assessments rely (e.g., EURO-CORDEX, NOSCCA and BACC II). This has promoted the development of regional climate models for the Baltic Sea region by coupling different compartments of the Earth system into more comprehensive models. Coupled models more realistically represent feedback loops than the information imposed on the region by prescribed boundary conditions and, thus, permit more degrees of freedom. In the past, several coupled model systems have been developed for Europe and the Baltic Sea region. This article reviews recent progress on model systems that allow two-way communication between atmosphere and ocean models; models for the land surface, including the terrestrial biosphere; and wave models at the air–sea interface and hydrology models for water cycle closure. However, several processes that have mostly been realized by one-way coupling to date, such as marine biogeochemistry, nutrient cycling and atmospheric chemistry (e.g., aerosols), are not considered here. In contrast to uncoupled stand-alone models, coupled Earth system models can modify mean near-surface air temperatures locally by up to several degrees compared with their stand-alone atmospheric counterparts using prescribed surface boundary conditions. The representation of small-scale oceanic processes, such as vertical mixing and sea-ice dynamics, appears essential to accurately resolve the air–sea heat exchange over the Baltic Sea, and these parameters can only be provided by online coupled high-resolution ocean models. In addition, the coupling of wave models at the ocean–atmosphere interface allows for a more explicit formulation of small-scale to microphysical processes with local feedbacks to water temperature and large-scale processes such as oceanic upwelling. Over land, important climate feedbacks arise from dynamical terrestrial vegetation changes as well as the implementation of land-use scenarios and afforestation/deforestation that further alter surface albedo, roughness length and evapotranspiration. Furthermore, a good representation of surface temperatures and roughness length over open sea and land areas is critical for the representation of climatic extremes such as heavy precipitation, storms, or tropical nights (defined as nights where the daily minimum temperature does not fall below 20 ∘C), and these parameters appear to be sensitive to coupling. For the present-day climate, many coupled atmosphere–ocean and atmosphere–land surface models have demonstrated the added value of single climate variables, in particular when low-quality boundary data were used in the respective stand-alone model. This makes coupled models a prospective tool for downscaling climate change scenarios from global climate models because these models often have large biases on the regional scale. However, the coupling of hydrology models to close the water cycle remains problematic, as the accuracy of precipitation provided by atmosphere models is, in most cases, insufficient to realistically simulate the runoff to the Baltic Sea without bias adjustments. Many regional stand-alone ocean and atmosphere models are tuned to suitably represent present-day climatologies rather than to accurately simulate climate change. Therefore, more research is required into how the regional climate sensitivity (e.g., the models' response to a given change in global mean temperature) is affected by coupling and how the spread is altered in multi-model and multi-scenario ensembles of coupled models compared with uncoupled ones.

scholarly journals Effects of ship emissions on air quality in the Baltic Sea region simulated with three different chemistry transport models

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Karl ◽  
Jan Eiof Jonson ◽  
Andreas Uppstu ◽  
Armin Aulinger ◽  
Marja Prank ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Boundary Conditions ◽  
Baltic Sea ◽  
The Other ◽  
Aerosol Formation ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
Transport Models ◽  
Ship Traffic ◽  
Baltic Sea Region ◽  
The Baltic

Abstract. The Baltic Sea is highly frequented shipping area with busy shipping lanes close to densely populated regions. Exhaust emissions from ship traffic into the atmosphere are not only enhancing air pollution, they also affect the Baltic Sea environment through acidification and eutrophication of marine waters and surrounding terrestrial ecosystems. As part of the European BONUS project SHEBA (Sustainable Shipping and Environment of the Baltic Sea Region), the transport, chemical transformation and fate of atmospheric pollutants in the Baltic Sea region was simulated with three regional chemistry transport models (CTM) systems, CMAQ, EMEP/MSC-W and SILAM with grid resolutions between 4 km and 11 km. The main goal was to quantify the effect that shipping emissions have on the regional air quality in the Baltic Sea region when the same shipping emissions dataset but different CTMs in their typical setups are used. The performance of these models and the shipping contribution to the results of the individual models was evaluated for sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ozone (O3) and particulate matter (PM2.5). Model results from the three CTMs were compared to observations from rural and urban background stations of the AirBase monitoring network in the coastal areas of the Baltic Sea region. The performance of the three CTM systems to predict pollutant concentrations is similar. However, observed PM2.5 in summer was underestimated strongly by CMAQ and to some extent by EMEP/MSC-W. The spatial average of annual mean O3 in the EMEP/MSC-W simulation is 15–25 % higher compared to the other two simulations, which is mainly the consequence of using a different set of boundary conditions for the European model domain. There are significant differences in the calculated ship contributions to the levels of air pollutants among the three models. SILAM predicted a much weaker ozone depletion through NO emissions in the proximity of the main shipping routes than the other two models. In the entire Baltic Sea region the average contribution of ships to PM2.5 levels is in the range of 4.3–6.5 % for the three CTMs. Differences in ship-related PM2.5 between the models are mainly attributed to differences in the schemes for inorganic aerosol formation. Inspection of the ship-related elemental carbon (EC) revealed that assumptions about the vertical ship emission profile can affect the dispersion and abundance of ship-related pollutants in the near-ground atmosphere. The models are in agreement regarding the ship-related deposition of oxidised nitrogen, reporting a ship contribution in the range of 21–23 ktN y−1 as atmospheric input to the Baltic Sea. Results from the present study show the sensitivity of the ship contribution to combined uncertainties of boundary conditions, meteorological data and aerosol formation and deposition schemes. This is an important step towards a more reliable evaluation of policy options regarding emission regulations for ship traffic and the planned introduction of a nitrogen emission control area (NECA) in the Baltic Sea and the North Sea in 2021.

scholarly journals Natural Hazards and Extreme Events in the Baltic Sea region

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Rutgersson ◽  
Erik Kjellström ◽  
Jari Haapala ◽  
Martin Stendel ◽  
Irina Danilovich ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Baltic Sea ◽  
Natural Hazards ◽  
Extreme Events ◽  
Heat Waves ◽  
Extreme Waves ◽  
Phytoplankton Blooms ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
Baltic Sea Region ◽  
The Baltic

Abstract. A natural hazard is a naturally occurring extreme event with a negative effect on people and society or the environment. Natural hazards may have severe implications for human life and they can potentially generate economic losses and damage ecosystems. A better understanding of their major causes, probability of occurrence, and consequences enables society to be better prepared and to save human lives and to invest in adaptation options. Natural Hazards related to climate change are identified as one of the Grand Challenges in the Baltic Sea region. We here summarise existing knowledge of extreme events in the Baltic Sea region with the focus on past 200 years, as well as future climate scenarios. The events considered here are the major hydro-meteorological events in the region and include wind storms, extreme waves, high and low sea level, ice ridging, heavy precipitation, sea-effect snowfall, river floods, heat waves, ice seasons, and drought. We also address some ecological extremes and implications of extreme events for society (phytoplankton blooms, forest fires, coastal flooding, offshore infrastructures, and shipping). Significant knowledge gaps are identified, including the response of large scale atmospheric circulation to climate change, but also concerning specific events, for example, occurrences of marine heat waves and small-scale variability of precipitation. Suggestions for future research includes further development of high-resolution Earth System models, and the potential use of methodologies for data analysis (statistical methods and machine learning). With respect to expected impact of climate change, changes are expected for sea-level, extreme precipitation, heat waves and phytoplankton blooms (increase) and cold spells and severe ice winters (decrease). For some extremes (drying, river flooding and extreme waves) the change depends on the area and time period studies.

Regional Climate Modeling for the Baltic Sea Region

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Kjellström ◽  
Ole Bøssing Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Baltic Sea ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Climate Modeling ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Regional Climate Modeling ◽  
Sea Surface ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
Baltic Sea Region ◽  
The Baltic

Regional climate models (RCMs) are commonly used to provide detailed regional to local information for climate change assessments, impact studies, and work on climate change adaptation. The Baltic Sea region is well suited for RCM evaluation due to its complexity and good availability of observations. Evaluation of RCM performance over the Baltic Sea region suggests that: • Given appropriate boundary conditions, RCMs can reproduce many aspects of the climate in the Baltic Sea region. • High resolution improves the ability of RCMs to simulate significant processes in a realistic way. • When forced by global climate models (GCMs) with errors in their representation of the large-scale atmospheric circulation and/or sea surface conditions, performance of RCMs deteriorates. • Compared to GCMs, RCMs can add value on the regional scale, related to both the atmosphere and other parts of the climate system, such as the Baltic Sea, if appropriate coupled regional model systems are used. Future directions for regional climate modeling in the Baltic Sea region would involve testing and applying even more high-resolution, convection permitting, models to generally better represent climate features like heavy precipitation extremes. Also, phenomena more specific to the Baltic Sea region are expected to benefit from higher resolution (these include, for example, convective snowbands over the sea in winter). Continued work on better describing the fully coupled regional climate system involving the atmosphere and its interaction with the sea surface and land areas is also foreseen as beneficial. In this respect, atmospheric aerosols are important components that deserve more attention.

Perceptions among students and young scholars of drivers endangering the Baltic Sea.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans von Storch
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Baltic Sea ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
Political Issue ◽  
Baltic Sea Region ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Common Understanding

<p>In a series of ad-hoc surveys, students and young scholars from various institutions in the Baltic Sea region are asked about their perceptions about the reality and seriousness of climate change, and how these compare to other pressures on the Baltic Sea. The same questionnaire, albeit adopted to the different nationalities, have been run in Sweden, Denmark, Poland and Germany, among students with different backgrounds, such as oceanography, geography, environmental sciences and chemistry. The surveys were done in 2019, 2020 and 2021. While the individual surveys at the different institutes can not be considered representative, the ensemble of the so far 7 surveys provides a consistent summary of what is common understanding, and which issues may be considered less uniformly.</p><p>Climate, eutrophication and disposal of waste are listed most often as serious issues, while overfishing and tourism less often, and the construction of bridges and pipelines are least often chosen as serious issue. Climate issues are mostly not considered a scientific issue but a public/political issue, and climate science is mostly tasked with “motivate people to act on climate change” or “determine solutions to climate change” but less so with “define the climate problems and attribute cause of climate change”.</p>

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document