Improving oxygen conditions in the deeper parts of bornholm sea by pumped injection of winter water

Abstract

Vertical diffusivity and oxygen consumption in the basin water, the water below the sill level at about 59 m depth, have been estimated by applying budget methods to monitoring data from hydrographical stations BY4 and BY5 for periods without water renewal. From the vertical diffusivity, the mean rate of work against the buoyancy forces below 65 m depth is estimated to about 0.10 mW m-2. This is slightly higher than published values for East Gotland Sea. The horizontally averaged vertical diffusivity κ can be approximated by the expression κ = a 0 N -1 where N is the buoyancy frequency and a 0 ≈ 1.25 × 10-7 m 2 s-2, which is similar to values for a 0 used for depths below the halocline in Baltic proper circulation models for long-term simulations. The contemporary mean rate of oxygen consumption in the basin water is about 75 g O2 m-2 year-1, which corresponds to an oxidation of 28 g C m-2 year-1. The oxygen consumption in the Bornholm Basin doubled from the 1970s to the 2000s, which qualitatively explains the observed increasing frequency and vertical extent of anoxia and hypoxia in the basin water in records from the end of the 1950s to present time. A horizontally averaged vertical advection-diffusion model of the basin water is used to calculate the effects on stratification and oxygen concentration by a forced pump-driven vertical convection. It is shown that the residence time of the basin water may be reduced by pumping down and mixing the so-called winter water into the deepwater. With the present rate of oxygen consumption, a pumped flux of about 25 km3 year-1 would be sufficient to keep the oxygen concentration in the deepwater above 2 mL O2 L-1. © 2012 The Author(s).