alkalinity in the Baltic Sea may increase because the rising atmospheric CO2 may enhance the weathering of CaCO3 in the catchment area. He may have based it on the mythical North European island Baltia, mentioned by Xenophon. Specific attention will be drawn to investigate the added-value of this new product to address the scientific challenges associated to salinity, as identified by Baltic Earth community: salinity annual trends and budgets; insights of the coupling mechanisms involved in the interfaces atmosphere-ice-sea; climatological projections. The uplift is about eight millimetres per year on the Finnish coast of the northernmost Gulf of Bothnia . Introduction. It mixes very slowly with the upper waters, resulting in a salinity gradient from top to bottom, with most of the salt water remaining below 40 to 70 m deep. The Baltic Sea flows out through the Danish straits; however, the flow is complex. The ice reaches its maximum extent in February or March; typical ice thickness in the northernmost areas in the Bothnian Bay is about 70 cm for landfast sea ice. The more saline (and therefore denser) water remains on the bottom, isolating it from surface waters and the atmosphere. In the south, the Bay of Gdańsk lies east of the Hel peninsula on the Polish coast and west of Sambia in Kaliningrad Oblast. The seawater of the Baltic Sea is classed as low-salinity brackish water. The Baltic and Black Sea receive many large rivers and the evaporation is also small. Finland 4. Seasonal winds also cause small changes in sea level, of the order of 0.5 m.(Alhonen 88). The Baltic Proper does not freeze during a normal winter, with the exception of sheltered bays and shallow lagoons such as the Courland Lagoon). Therefore, the level of salinity is … The surface area is about 349,644 km (134,998 sq mi) and the volume is about 20,000 km (4,800 c… Since the Viking age, the Scandinavians have called it "the Eastern Lake" (Austmarr, "Eastern Sea", appears in the Heimskringla and Eystra salt appears in Sörla þáttr), but Saxo Grammaticus recorded in Gesta Danorum an older name Gandvik, "-vik" being Old Norse for "bay", which implies that the Vikings correctly regarded it as an inlet of the sea. From that time the waters underwent a geologic history summarized under the names listed below. Reef forming mytilid mussels exhibit decreasing growth when salinity < 11, however the mechanisms underlying reduced calcification rates in dilute seawater are not fully understood. Has any cyanobacteria been spotted in the sea near your holiday home? The Baltic Sea is a brackish inland sea, alleged to be the largest body of … Due to its strong salinity gradient, and hence biological features, the area is sub-divided into 17 sub-basins based on topography and hydrology. Estonia 3. The lack of tides has affected the marine species as compared with the Atlantic. The Baltic Sea salinity is driven by freshwater supply due to river runoff and net precipitation and the exchange … Cod has pelagic liquid roe, which in the Baltic Sea require a salinity of about 11 per mil to float. The Baltic sea drainage basin is roughly four times the surface area of the sea itself. glacial rebound, water levels in the Baltic Sea entrance area, and regional climatic conditions. . About 20% of the land is used for agriculture and pasture, mainly in Poland and around the edge of the Baltic Proper, in Germany, Denmark and Sweden. Despite the influx of salt water in the lower levels, the Baltic is still more of a lake or river than a sea. Russia's Peter the Great saw the strategic importance of the Baltic and decided to found his new capital, St Petersburg at the mouth of the Neva river at the east end of the Gulf of Finland. The Bothnian Sea, the basin south of it, freezes on average in late February. This is mainly due to the huge amount of freshwater added from hundreds of rivers. The brackish water of the Baltic Sea is a mixture of ocean water from the Atlantic/North Sea with fresh water from various rivers draining a large area of lowlands and mountain ranges. In the Finnish marine area, the salinity of the surface water layers varies by region. The low salinity of the Baltic sea has led to the evolution of many slightly divergent species, such as the Baltic Sea herring, which is a smaller variant of the Atlantic herring. The powerful German Teutonic Knights gained control over most of the southern and eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, while fighting the Poles, the Danes, the Swedes, the Russians of ancient Novgorod, and the Lithuanians (latest of all Europeans to convert to Christianity). Most of the latter are in the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland. if (window.showTocToggle) { var tocShowText = "show"; var tocHideText = "hide"; showTocToggle(); } Two low-salinity standards (L-series) of salinity ca 10 and 30, similarly calibrated, are also available. Perhaps the most famous one is the Vasa. The Baltic Sea produces benefits for people, Hunting and fishing in the Åland Islands in olden times – the first inhabitants were seal hunters and fishermen, Oxygen content dictates the survival of benthic organisms. These two factors limit many species of animals and plants to a relatively narrow region of Baltic Sea. Additional fresh water comes from the difference of precipitation less evaporation, which is positive. By contrast, in the oceans, it is 35 grams per kilogram. The latest three occurred in 1983, 1993 and 2003 suggesting a new inter-inflow period of about 10 years. Surface salinity decreases from south to north and varies from ~23 in the Kattegat, 9 in southern Baltic Proper to <1 in the eastern parts of the Gulf of Finland and the northern parts of the Bothnian Bay. Where are the nearest guest harbours? The benthic fauna consists mainly of Monoporeia affinis, which is originally a freshwater species. Of the nations containing all or part of the basin, Poland includes 45 percent of the 85 million, Russia 12 percent, Sweden 10 percent and the remainder have less than 6 percent each. Salinity. Incorporating satellite-derived Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) measurements into oceanographic and environmental applications within the Baltic. × Bothnian Sea Regular ship-based monitoring of the basin has been rather sparse in space and time. Many of the stages are named after marine animals (e.g., the Littorina mollusk) that are clear markers of changing water temperatures and salinity. The Baltic Sea, a semi-enclosed postglacial sea with a surface of 415,000 km 2 and a volume of 21,700 km 3 , is characterized by a strong salinity gradient from marine salinity (30 g kg −1) in the entrance to near freshwater (2 g kg −1) in the innermost parts . 1129 to 1138. Although the sea ice also harbors several species of algae that live in the bottom and inside brine pockets in the ice. The Baltic Sea is known by the equivalents of "East Sea", "West Sea", or "Baltic Sea" in different languages: The Baltic Sea is a brackish inland sea, the largest body of brackish water in the world. Figure 1). The inland lakes like the Dead Sea, the Caspian Sea and the Great Salt Lake of USA are more salty. (ii) Regional distribution of surface salinity of the oceans and the seas is described in two ways viz:. Pergamon Press, Printed in Great Britain The densities of Baltic Sea waters FRANK J. MILLERO* and KLAUS KREMLINGt (Received 29 March 1976; accepted 7 May 1976) Al~tract --The relative densities of Baltic Sea waters have been measured from 3.5 to 2ff~oo salinity and 0.36 to 20°C with a vibrating densimeter. More than 250 streams drain a basin of about 1.6 million square km, contributing a volume of 660 cubic km per year to the Baltic. Many of the neighboring countries are concerned about this, since a major oil leak would be disastrous in the Baltic given the slow exchange of water and the many unique species. Sweden had from early medieval times also a flourishing mining industry, especially on iron ore and silver. An important source of salty water are infrequent inflows of North Sea water into the Baltic. Geological surveys show that there was a river in the area prior to the Pleistocene: the Eridanos. The maximum depth is 459 m (1506 ft), on the Swedish side of the centre. In the Bay of Bothnia ice usually stays until late May; by early June it is practically always gone. (Alhonen 88) It varies from 0.1% in the north to 0.6-0.8% in the centre. In the 16th and early 17th centuries, Poland, Denmark and Sweden fought wars for Dominium Maris Baltici (Ruling over the Baltic Sea). The salinity of the Baltic Sea east of 13°E ranges between 13 g/kg at the bottom in the central Baltic Sea and 2 g/kg at the surface in the Bothnian Bay (cf. This is a list of bodies of water by salinity that is limited to natural bodies of water that have … These pockets have a higher salinity than the surrounding water, creating spots where sound waves deflect. The Baltic Sea has an exceptional long record of plankton monitoring, based primarily on microscopy, from the HELCOM-COMBINE monitoring program (HELCOM, 2015), but to our knowledge this is the first investigation of eukaryotic plankton diversity along the full salinity gradient using high-throughput sequencing. 1129 to 1138. During winter, fast ice which is attached to the shoreline, develops first, rendering the ports unusable without the services of icebreakers. However it is indisputable that the source of the name for the Baltic countries is the name of the Baltic Sea, not the other way around. Despite being a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, the relative proportion of the two saltwater bodies approximately corresponds to the size difference between Switzerland and the Russian Federation.The only connection between the Baltic Sea and the ocean leads through the narrow Kattegat and Skagerrak waterways between Denmark and Sweden. Also, compared to the 1970s and 1980s, surface salinities in the northern Baltic Sea have decreased in recent decades. Approximately 100,000 square km of the seafloor (¼ of the total area) is a variable dead zone. In spring, the Gulf of Finland and the Bothnian Sea normally thaw during late April, with some ice ridges persisting until May in the eastern Gulf of Finland. So, salinity of the Baltic Sea near Swedish coast is only 11 per cent and near the Gulf of Bothnia is only 2 per cent. Tides are negligible. Poland 8. This causes problems for sensors and other navigational and surveillance equipment. It is about 1,600 km (990 mi) long, an average of 193 km (120 mi) wide, and an average of 55 metres (180 ft) deep. The Baltic Sea is a brackish sea adjoining the North Sea. Near the Danish straits the salinity is close to that of the North Sea. The flow of fresh water into the sea from rivers and the flow of salty from the South builds up a gradient of salinity in the Baltic Sea. Freezing begins in the northern coast of Gulf of Bothnia typically in early November, reaching the open waters of Bay of Bothnia, the northern basin of the Gulf of Bothnia, in early January. The Western and Eastern Gotland Basins form the major parts of the Central Baltic Sea or Baltic proper. Between Falster and the German coast lie the Bay of Mecklenburg and Bay of Lübeck. Consequently, the surface area and the depth of the sea are diminishing. The relative densities of Baltic Sea waters have been measured from 3.5 to 20‰ salinity and 0.36 to 20°C with a vibrating densimeter. This causes problems for sensors and other navigational and surveillance equipment. There are several cargo and passenger ferry operators on the Baltic Sea, such as Silja Line, Polferries, Viking Line, Tallink and Superfast Ferries. These are suitable for checking the offset of salinometer comparator bridges at other points on the salinity scale as well as for use in low-salinity areas, such as the Baltic Sea. The first to name it the Baltic Sea ("Mare Balticum") was 11th century German chronicler Adam of Bremen. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Northern Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Europe, and the Danish islands. Countries that are in the drainage basin but do not border on the sea: This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details of authors and sources) and is available under the. The evaporation-precipitation balance results in an additional but minor excess of fresh water. In 2005, a Russian group of scientists found over 5,000 airplane wrecks, sunken warships, etc., mainly from the Second World War, lying at the bottom of the sea. Countries Countries that border on the sea: 1. The northern Baltic Sea is annually ice covered for up to 6 months . Low salinity. The ESA Baltic+ Salinity project (Dec 2018 – June 2020) will contribute to reduce the knowledge gap in the characterization of the freshwater flux changes in the … (Alhonen 88). After 1945 the sea was a border between opposing military blocks: in the case of military conflict in Germany, in parallel with a Soviet offensive towards the Atlantic Ocean, communist Poland's fleet was prepared to invade the Danish isles. This is why the Baltic Sea records comparatively lower salinity than the North Sea though the latitudinal extent of both the seas is the same. Low salinity. In the surface layers of the Baltic Sea, the average salinity is only seven grams per kilogram of water. These winter storms have been the cause of many shipwrecks, for example, the sinking of the ferry M/S Estonia en route from Tallinn, Estonia to Stockholm, Sweden in 1994, which claimed the lives of hundreds. The Bornholm Basin is the area east of Bornholm, and the shallower Arkona Basin extends from Bornholm to the Danish isles of Falster and Zealand. The ice extent depends on whether the winter is mild, moderate or severe. The salinity gradient is paralleled by a temperature gradient. Pergamon Press, Printed in Great Britain The densities of Baltic Sea waters FRANK J. MILLERO* and KLAUS KREMLINGt (Received 29 March 1976; accepted 7 May 1976) Al~tract --The relative densities of Baltic Sea waters have been measured from 3.5 to 2ff~oo salinity and 0.36 to 20°C with a vibrating densimeter. //]]>. Introduction. Table 26.2 presents latitude- wise distribution of oceanic salinity in both the hemi­spheres. It is highest in the southern Archipelago Sea and lowest in the most northern reaches of the Bay of Bothnia, as well as the easternmost parts of the Gulf of Finland. The confluence of these two seas at Skagen on the northern tip of Denmark is a visual spectacle visited by many tourists each year. The origin of the name is speculative. The Baltic Sea salinity is driven by freshwater supply due to river runoff and net precipitation and the exchange with saline water from the North Sea. Figure 1.1. Some of this water is polluted. Today's climate is characterized by an average salinity of about 7 psu and a freshwater supply including river runoff and net precipitation of about 16,000 m^3 s -1 . Russia 9. Lands next to the sea's eastern shore were among the last in Europe to be converted into Christianity in the Northern Crusades: Finland in the 12th century by the Swedes, and what are now Estonia and Latvia in the early 13th century by the Danes and the Germans ( Livonian Brothers of the Sword). Also, compared to the 1970s and 1980s, surface salinities in the northern Baltic Sea have decreased in recent decades. The salinity steadily decreases towards North and East. About 17% of the basin is unused open land with another 8% of wetlands. The Baltic Sea’s combination of low salinity, poor water exchange with the Atlantic Ocean, and nutrient excess from farm runoff and sewage has resulted in that almost all – 97% – of the Baltic Sea is eutrophic, a condition which leads to reduced light in the sea, induces excessive growth of algae, and leads to oxygen depletion. But thanks to the cold brackish water where the shipworm cannot survive, the sea is a time capsule for centuries-old shipwrecks. Jordanes called it the Germanic Sea in his work the Getica. Severe winters can ice the regions around Denmark and southern Sweden, and on rare cases the whole sea is frozen, such as in 1942. Latvia 6. In 1945 the Baltic Sea became a mass grave for drowned people on torpedoed refugee ships. The difference between the outflow and the inflow comes entirely from fresh water. Level ice, ice sludge, pancake ice or rafter ice form in the more open regions. At the time of the Roman Empire, the Baltic Sea was known as the Mare Suebicum or Mare Sarmaticum. Figure 1). The maximum depth is 459 m (1,506 ft) which is on the Swedish side of the center. The Baltic Sea is located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. The catchment area drained by the rivers bringing fresh water into the Baltic is about four times as large as the sea itself. Seawater - Seawater - Salinity distribution: A discussion of salinity, the salt content of the oceans, requires an understanding of two important concepts: (1) the present-day oceans are considered to be in a steady state, receiving as much salt as they lose, and (2) the oceans have been mixed over such a long time period that the composition of sea salt is the same everywhere in the open ocean. The Suebi eventually migrated south west to reside for a while in the Rhineland area of modern Germany, where their name survives in the historic region known as Swabia. In the early Middle Ages, Vikings of Scandinavia fought for control over the sea with Slavic Pomeranians. The Gulf of Finland connects the Baltic Sea with St Petersburg. The directly measured densities were compared with those determined from the seawater equation of state (Millero, Gonzalez and Ward, Journal of Marine Research, 34, 691-693, 1976) at the same true salinity given by S(‰) T = a + bS(‰), where a is … Germany 5. The Vikings used the rivers of Russia for trade routes, finding their way eventually to the Black Sea and southern Russia. The fact that it does not come from the collision of plates, but is a glacially scoured river valley, accounts for its relative shallowness. The Baltic Sea has marked stratification between low-salinity surface water and the more saline water at a depth of about 40-70 m. This salinity barrier prevents the exchange of oxygen and nutrients between the two layers, and large parts of the seabed are lifeless because of oxygen depletion. Check out the long-term trends or vertical depth fluctuations in the salinity of the Baltic Sea! Such inflows, important to the Baltic ecosystem becuse of the oxygen they transport into the Baltic deeps, used to happen on average every 4-5 years until the 1980s. Salinity is an important abiotic factor controlling the distribution and abundance of Nodularia spumigena, the dominating diazotrophic and toxic phototroph, in the brackish water cyanobacterial blooms of the Baltic Sea. Sweden has some regular stations in the Baltic Sea that measures salinity, too, and their data is open through SMHI Internet-pages. Message in a bottle? All this has provided for rich trading since the Roman times. Because of this large anaerobic zone, the seafloor ecology differs from that of the neighbouring Atlantic. . 90% of these are concentrated in the 10 km band around the coast. The Baltic sea is about 1610 km (1000 miles) long, an average of 193 km (120 mi) wide, and an average of 55 m (180 ft, 30 fathoms) deep. For the large-scale coastal wetland system of the Baltic Sea, this study develops a methodology for investigating if and to what degree the variability and changes in certain hydro-climatic drivers control key coastal–marine physical conditions. The largest of them are the seals that both feed and breed on the ice. The Baltic Sea, almost enclosed by northern Europe and Scandinavia, has a very low salinity of about 10 ppt. The surface area is about 377,000 km² (145,522 sq mi) and the volume is about 21,000 cubic km (3129 cubic miles). The Baltic Sea’s combination of low salinity, poor water exchange with the Atlantic Ocean, and nutrient excess from farm runoff and sewage has resulted in that almost all – 97% – of the Baltic Sea is eutrophic, a condition which leads to reduced light in the sea, induces excessive growth of algae, and leads to oxygen depletion. Below 40-70 m, it can be as much as 1.5-2.0%. Eventually, it was the Swedish Empire that virtually encompassed the Baltic Sea. During the Second World War Germany reclaimed all of the southern shore and much of the eastern by occupying Poland and the Baltic states. A surface layer of brackish water discharges 940 cubic km per year into the North Sea. The Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Riga freeze typically in late January. The factors that determined the sea’s characteristics were the submergence or emergence of the region due to the weight of ice and subsequent isostatic readjustment, and the connecting channels it found to the North Sea-Atlantic, either through the straits of Denmark or at what are now the large lakes of Sweden, and the White Sea- Arctic Sea. The westernmost part of the Baltic Sea is the Bay of Kiel. The Baltic Sea covers about 149,000 square miles (386,000 square km). The Baltic Sea is one of the largest brackish water basins on earth and has a wide range in salinity. This project aims to study the potential benefit of incorporating satellite-derived Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) measurements into oceanographic and environmental applications within the Baltic Sea. Still another proposed derivation from the Indo-European root *bhel meaning white, shining (note that 'baltas' means 'white' in today's Lithuanian language, for example). In the Baltic Sea… Lithuania 7. (Another form of the name, "Grandvik", attested in at least one English translation of Gesta Danorum, is likely to be a misspelling.). The First World War was partly fought in the Baltic Sea. The tourism industries, especially in economies dependent on tourism like northeastern Germany, are naturally very concerned. Originally the confluence of two major river systems prior to the Pleistocene, since then it has been flooded by the North Sea but still receives so much freshwater from the adjacent lands that the water is brackish. From approximately 25 ppm in Kattegatt it decreases to 8 ppm in the southern Baltic Sea, and is down to only 2 ppm in the northern Gulf of Bothnia and in the innermost parts of the Gulf of Finland. The general circulation is counterclockwise: northwards along its eastern boundary, and south along the western one. The Baltic Sea is one of the biggest brackish seas in the world with limited exchange with the open sea through the Danish straits. The Baltic Sea is surrounded by nine countries, covers an area of around 420,000 km 2, and has a drainage area around four times its surface area. The gleaming expanse of ice is similar to the Arctic, with wind-driven pack ice and ridges up to 15 m, and was noted by the ancients. The Northern Baltic Sea lies between the Stockholm area, southwestern Finland and Estonia. Alongside the low salinity, “salt pockets” are common in the Baltic Sea. The land is still emerging from its subsident state, which was caused by the weight of the last glaciation. Of the nations containing all or part of the basin, Poland includes 45% of the 85 million, Russia 12%, Sweden 10% and the others (see below) less than 6% each. This is an adaptation to the brackish water, and the roe of cod native to Västerhavet (the Kattegatt and Skagerrak straits) require a significantly higher salinity. In recent decades they have become less frequent. What will the weather conditions be like for sailing? In the Finnish marine area, the salinity of the surface water layers varies by region. There was much trading not just within the Baltic region but also with the North Sea region, especially eastern England and the Netherlands: their fleets needed the Baltic timber, tar, flax and hemp. During the Crimean War a joint fleet of Britain and France attacked the Russian fortresses by bombarding Sveaborg, which guards Helsinki, and Kronstadt, which guards St Petersburg, and destroying Bomarsund in the Åland Islands. 23, pp. At the bottom of the Gulf of Bothnia the water no longer tastes salty and many fresh water species live in the sea. Hide financier barPiilota rahoittajapalkki, Temperature, salinity, and stratification, Marine environment and marine natural resources, Marine management and environmental protection, Protection and management of cultural heritage, Finmari – infrastructure for marine research, Utö Atmospheric and Marine Research Station, The protection of habitat types is reflected in the survival of an individual species and of the ecosystem as a whole, Key species and key habitat types drive the Baltic Sea, In the food webs of the Baltic Sea, energy is transferred from plankton to the apex predators, Maritime Spatial Planning - sustainable use safeguards the future of the marine environment, The race for the Baltic Sea has begun – maritime spatial planning reconciles different interests. The periphery amounts to about 8000 km (4968 miles) of coastline. How can we spread the knowledge of underwater nature? The latter name could have influenced the Baltica myth because Baltic tribes lived on the shores of the Baltic Sea in ancient times and had contacts with the Mediterranean civilisations being a well-known source of amber for ancient Greece and later for the Roman Empire. Salinity a determining factor The Baltic Sea is characterized by its large differences in salinity. The ice-covered area during such a normal winter includes the Gulf of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland, Gulf of Riga and Vainameri in the Estonian archipelago. The global change in climate has affected marine ecosystems worldwide. // 25) in the West to below 7 in the Central Baltic Proper. The increased alkalinity input may affect the salinity anomaly but also has consequences for the Baltic Sea acid/base system since it counteracts the pH decrease as-sociated with increasing atmospheric CO2. The salinity has decreased since the 1990s, especially in the Bay of Bothnia, but also to a lesser extent in the Bothnian Sea. By contrast, in the oceans, it is 35 grams per kilogram. The Baltic Sea's salinity is much lower than that of ocean water, as a result of abundant freshwater runoff from the surrounding land, combined with the shallowness of the sea itself; runoff contributes roughly one-fortieth its total volume per year. In the surface layers of the Baltic Sea, the average salinity is only seven grams per kilogram of water.