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Topography, Hydrography, Circulation and Modelling of the Baltic Sea

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Preventive Methods for Coastal Protection

Abstract

The hydrography and dynamics of the Baltic Sea, although ruled by the same principles and forcing factors as any part of the World Ocean, contain several distinguishing features. Apart from the complicated geometry and bathymetry of the basin, two major factors contribute to the complexity of the processes here. The interplay between inflowing saline, dense waters from the North Sea in the bottom layer with the excess of light, and fresh riverine waters coming into the system in the upper layer leads to the formation of a permanent two-layer structure of density separated by a sharp jump layer (halocline). Due to the layered structure, the direct atmospheric forcing is restricted to the upper layer with a typical thickness of 40–80 m, while in the bottom layer advection and mixing processes govern the patterns of the hydrographic fields. On the top of the upper layer, a well-mixed surface layer, with a typical thickness of 15–20 m, is formed due to summer-time heating, whereas at the bottom of this layer a rather sharp jump layer of temperature (thermocline) exists. During autumn the vertical temperature gradient vanishes due to thermal convection and turbulent mixing. There are four mechanisms which induce currents in the Baltic Sea: the wind stress at the sea surface, the surface pressure gradient, the thermohaline horizontal gradient of density and the tidal forces. The currents are steered furthermore by the Coriolis acceleration, topography and friction, forming a general (cyclonic) circulation in this stratified system with positive fresh water budget. Due to the shallowness of the Baltic Sea, bottom friction damps the currents remarkably. Voluminous river runoffs can produce local changes in the sea level height and consequently also in currents. Inflowing waters penetrate at depths where the density of the ambient water matches the inflowing water masses. Due to the small baroclinic Rossby radius (2–10 km), the proper descriptions of mesoscale eddies, fronts and mixing processes need high-resolution modelling.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    An often used notion is Baltic Proper to denote the Eastern, Northern and Western Gotland Basin (Table 2.1), Bornholm Basin and Gdańsk Bay.

  2. 2.

    Although the salinity unit ‰ (per mill) is discouraged since 1978, it has been customary in a large part of the oceanographic and popular literature to use this notion. We only use this unit in data and estimates extracted from older sources. The new international standard TEOS-10 uses absolute salinity values in g/kg (Millero et al. 2008).

  3. 3.

    The temperature difference between the surface layer and the lower part of the upper layer (above the halocline) gradually weakens because not all the heat energy is mixed downwards due to convection. A part of the heat energy is released to the atmosphere by turbulent heat fluxes and thus the surface water cools down and its temperature difference in comparison to the waters below the thermocline is reduced.

  4. 4.

    After Joseph Valentin Boussinesq (1842–1929).

  5. 5.

    The term ‘shallow water’ is used here and on some occasions below to distinguish the situation where the typical length of waves of a particular class (Rossby waves, internal waves, surface waves, etc.) considerably exceeds the water depth.

  6. 6.

    In a spin-down or spin-up process, during the relaxation time (also called e-folding time scale) the speed (or any other suitable measure of the process) changes e times compared to its original value.

  7. 7.

    The Ekman spiral was first observed under the ice by Fridtjof Nansen in the 1890s. The spiral was documented much later for the open ocean.

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Acknowledgements

This overview is a contribution to the BalticWay project, supported by the funding from the Finnish Academy (KM), Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), Germany, and the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7 2007–2013) under grant agreement no. 217246 with the joint Baltic Sea research and development programme BONUS. The authors gratefully acknowledge the contribution of Prof. Matti Leppäranta to the material used here from the book (Leppäranta and Myrberg 2009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Finnish Environment Institute, Marine Research Centre, Mechelininkatu 34 a, P.O. Box 140, 00251, Helsinki, Finland

    Kai Myrberg

  2. Department of Geophysics, Klaipėda University, Herkaus Manto Str. 84, Klaipėda, Lithuania

    Kai Myrberg

  3. Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR), Düsternbooker Weg 20, Kiel, Germany

    Andreas Lehmann

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Correspondence to Kai Myrberg .

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  1. Inst. Cybernetics, Laboratory of Wave Engineering, Tallinn University of Technology, Akadeemia Tee 21, Tallinn, 12618, Estonia

    Tarmo Soomere

  2. Inst. Cybernetics, Laboratory of Wave Engineering, Tallinn University of Technology, Akadeemia Tee 21, Tallinn, 12618, Estonia

    Ewald Quak

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Myrberg, K., Lehmann, A. (2013). Topography, Hydrography, Circulation and Modelling of the Baltic Sea. In: Soomere, T., Quak, E. (eds) Preventive Methods for Coastal Protection. Springer, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00440-2_2

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