Changing Salinity Gradients in the Baltic Sea As a Consequence of Altered Freshwater Budgets

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Abstract

Climate change is expected to enhance the hydrological cycle in northern latitudes reducing the salinity in the Baltic Sea, a land-locked marginal sea with a large catchment area located in northern Europe. With the help of ocean simulations forced by historical atmospheric and hydrological reconstructions and local observations, we analyzed long-term changes in the sea surface salinity of the Baltic Sea as well as its latitudinal gradient. The variability of both is dominated by multidecadal oscillations with a period of about 30 years, while both atmospheric variables, wind and river runoff, contribute to this variability. Centennial changes show a statistically significant positive trend in the North-South gradient of sea surface salinity for 1900–2008. This change is mainly attributed to increased river runoff from the northernmost catchment indicating a footprint of the anthropogenic impact on salinity with consequences for the marine ecosystem and species distributions.

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Kniebusch, M., Meier, H. E. M., & Radtke, H. (2019). Changing Salinity Gradients in the Baltic Sea As a Consequence of Altered Freshwater Budgets. Geophysical Research Letters, 46(16), 9739–9747. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL083902

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