Articles | Volume 18, issue 6
https://doi.org/10.5194/os-18-1725-2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/os-18-1725-2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Modelling the impact of anthropogenic measures on saltwater intrusion in the Weser estuary
Federal Waterways Engineering and Research Institute, Wedeler
Landstraße 157, 22559 Hamburg, Germany
Anna Zorndt
Federal Waterways Engineering and Research Institute, Wedeler
Landstraße 157, 22559 Hamburg, Germany
Hans Burchard
Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde,
Seestraße 15, 18119 Rostock, Germany
Ulf Gräwe
Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde,
Seestraße 15, 18119 Rostock, Germany
Frank Kösters
Federal Waterways Engineering and Research Institute, Wedeler
Landstraße 157, 22559 Hamburg, Germany
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Hans Burchard, Knut Klingbeil, Xiangyu Li, Lloyd Reese, and W. Rockwell Geyer
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This review presents major aspects of estuarine mixing. Due to the large amounts of brackish water in estuaries produced by mixing of fresh river discharge and salty ocean water, mixing is one major characteristic of what is an estuary. Mixing is quantified locally as well as on estuary-wide scales. Diagnostics of integrated mixing are given for estuarine volumes bounded by transects as well as surfaces of constant salinity moving with the flow. Examples for real-world estuaries are given.
Torsten Kanzow, Angelika Humbert, Thomas Mölg, Mirko Scheinert, Matthias Braun, Hans Burchard, Francesca Doglioni, Philipp Hochreuther, Martin Horwath, Oliver Huhn, Maria Kappelsberger, Jürgen Kusche, Erik Loebel, Katrina Lutz, Ben Marzeion, Rebecca McPherson, Mahdi Mohammadi-Aragh, Marco Möller, Carolyne Pickler, Markus Reinert, Monika Rhein, Martin Rückamp, Janin Schaffer, Muhammad Shafeeque, Sophie Stolzenberger, Ralph Timmermann, Jenny Turton, Claudia Wekerle, and Ole Zeising
The Cryosphere, 19, 1789–1824, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-1789-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-1789-2025, 2025
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The Greenland Ice Sheet represents the second-largest contributor to global sea-level rise. We quantify atmosphere, ice and ocean processes related to the mass balance of glaciers in northeast Greenland, focusing on Greenland’s largest floating ice tongue, the 79° N Glacier. We find that together, the different in situ and remote sensing observations and model simulations reveal a consistent picture of a coupled atmosphere–ice sheet–ocean system that has entered a phase of major change.
Marvin Lorenz, Katri Viigand, and Ulf Gräwe
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 1439–1458, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-1439-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-1439-2025, 2025
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This study divides the sea level components that contribute to extreme sea levels in the Baltic Sea into three parts: the filling state of the Baltic Sea, seiches, and storm surges. In the western part of the Baltic Sea, storm surges are the main factor, while in the central and northern parts, the filling state plays a larger role. Using a numerical model, we show that wind and air pressure are the main drivers of these events, with Atlantic sea level also playing a small role.
Florian Börgel, Sven Karsten, Karoline Rummel, and Ulf Gräwe
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 2005–2019, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-2005-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-2005-2025, 2025
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Forecasting river runoff, which is crucial for managing water resources and understanding climate impacts, can be challenging. This study introduces a new method using convolutional long short-term memory (ConvLSTM) networks, a machine learning model that processes spatial and temporal data. Focusing on the Baltic Sea region, our model uses weather data as input to predict daily river runoff for 97 rivers.
Robert Lepper, Leon Jänicke, Ingo Hache, Christian Jordan, and Frank Kösters
Ocean Sci., 20, 711–723, https://doi.org/10.5194/os-20-711-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/os-20-711-2024, 2024
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Most coastal environments are sheltered by tidal flats and salt marshes. These habitats are threatened from drowning under sea level rise. Contrary to expectation, recent analyses in the Wadden Sea showed that tidal flats can accrete faster than sea level rise. We found that this phenomenon was facilitated by the nonlinear link between tidal characteristics and coastal bathymetry evolution. This link caused local and regional tidal adaptation with sharp increase–decrease edges at the coast.
Marvin Lorenz and Ulf Gräwe
Ocean Sci., 19, 1753–1771, https://doi.org/10.5194/os-19-1753-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/os-19-1753-2023, 2023
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We study the variability of extreme sea levels in a 13 member hindcast ensemble for the Baltic Sea. The ensemble mean shows good agreement with observations regarding return levels and trends. However, we find great variability and uncertainty within the ensemble. We argue that the variability of storms in the atmospheric data directly translates into the variability of the return levels. These results highlight the need for large regional ensembles to minimise uncertainties.
Joshua Kiesel, Marvin Lorenz, Marcel König, Ulf Gräwe, and Athanasios T. Vafeidis
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 23, 2961–2985, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-2961-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-2961-2023, 2023
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Among the Baltic Sea littoral states, Germany is anticipated to experience considerable damage as a result of increased coastal flooding due to sea-level rise (SLR). Here we apply a new modelling framework to simulate how flooding along the German Baltic Sea coast may change until 2100 if dikes are not upgraded. We find that the study region is highly exposed to flooding, and we emphasise the importance of current plans to update coastal protection in the future.
Bronwyn E. Cahill, Piotr Kowalczuk, Lena Kritten, Ulf Gräwe, John Wilkin, and Jürgen Fischer
Biogeosciences, 20, 2743–2768, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-2743-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-2743-2023, 2023
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We quantify the impact of optically significant water constituents on surface heating rates and thermal energy fluxes in the western Baltic Sea. During productive months in 2018 (April to September) we found that the combined effect of coloured
dissolved organic matter and particulate absorption contributes to sea surface heating of between 0.4 and 0.9 K m−1 d−1 and a mean loss of heat (ca. 5 W m−2) from the sea to the atmosphere. This may be important for regional heat balance budgets.
Matthias Gröger, Manja Placke, H. E. Markus Meier, Florian Börgel, Sandra-Esther Brunnabend, Cyril Dutheil, Ulf Gräwe, Magnus Hieronymus, Thomas Neumann, Hagen Radtke, Semjon Schimanke, Jian Su, and Germo Väli
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 8613–8638, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-8613-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-8613-2022, 2022
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Comparisons of oceanographic climate data from different models often suffer from different model setups, forcing fields, and output of variables. This paper provides a protocol to harmonize these elements to set up multidecadal simulations for the Baltic Sea, a marginal sea in Europe. First results are shown from six different model simulations from four different model platforms. Topical studies for upwelling, marine heat waves, and stratification are also assessed.
Vera Fofonova, Tuomas Kärnä, Knut Klingbeil, Alexey Androsov, Ivan Kuznetsov, Dmitry Sidorenko, Sergey Danilov, Hans Burchard, and Karen Helen Wiltshire
Geosci. Model Dev., 14, 6945–6975, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-6945-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-6945-2021, 2021
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We present a test case of river plume spreading to evaluate coastal ocean models. Our test case reveals the level of numerical mixing (due to parameterizations used and numerical treatment of processes in the model) and the ability of models to reproduce complex dynamics. The major result of our comparative study is that accuracy in reproducing the analytical solution depends less on the type of applied model architecture or numerical grid than it does on the type of advection scheme.
Jens Daniel Müller, Bernd Schneider, Ulf Gräwe, Peer Fietzek, Marcus Bo Wallin, Anna Rutgersson, Norbert Wasmund, Siegfried Krüger, and Gregor Rehder
Biogeosciences, 18, 4889–4917, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-4889-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-4889-2021, 2021
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Based on profiling pCO2 measurements from a field campaign, we quantify the biomass production of a cyanobacteria bloom in the Baltic Sea, the export of which would foster deep water deoxygenation. We further demonstrate how this biomass production can be accurately reconstructed from long-term surface measurements made on cargo vessels in combination with modelled temperature profiles. This approach enables a better understanding of a severe concern for the Baltic’s good environmental status.
Qing Li, Jorn Bruggeman, Hans Burchard, Knut Klingbeil, Lars Umlauf, and Karsten Bolding
Geosci. Model Dev., 14, 4261–4282, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-4261-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-4261-2021, 2021
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Different ocean vertical mixing schemes are usually developed in different modeling framework, making the comparison across such schemes difficult. Here, we develop a consistent framework for testing, comparing, and applying different ocean mixing schemes by integrating CVMix into GOTM, which also extends the capability of GOTM towards including the effects of ocean surface waves. A suite of test cases and toolsets for developing and evaluating ocean mixing schemes is also described.
Robert Hagen, Andreas Plüß, Romina Ihde, Janina Freund, Norman Dreier, Edgar Nehlsen, Nico Schrage, Peter Fröhle, and Frank Kösters
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 2573–2594, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-2573-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-2573-2021, 2021
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We established an open-access, integrated marine data collection for 1996 to 2015 in the German Bight as a database of scientific, economic, and governmental interest. This paper presents data for tidal elevation, depth-averaged current velocity, bottom shear stress, depth-averaged salinity, and wave parameters and spectra at a high temporal and spatial resolution. Data are additionally processed into meaningful parameters (i.e., tidal characteristic values, e.g., tidal range) for accessibility.
Erik Jacobs, Henry C. Bittig, Ulf Gräwe, Carolyn A. Graves, Michael Glockzin, Jens D. Müller, Bernd Schneider, and Gregor Rehder
Biogeosciences, 18, 2679–2709, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-2679-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-2679-2021, 2021
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We use a unique data set of 8 years of continuous carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) surface water measurements from a commercial ferry to study upwelling in the Baltic Sea. Its seasonality and regional and interannual variability are examined. Strong upwelling events drastically increase local surface CO2 and CH4 levels and are mostly detected in late summer after long periods of impaired mixing. We introduce an extrapolation method to estimate regional upwelling-induced trace gas fluxes.
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Short summary
River engineering measures greatly changed tidal dynamics in the Weser estuary. We studied the effect on saltwater intrusion with numerical models. Our analysis shows that a deepening of the navigation channel causes saltwater to intrude further into the Weser estuary. This effect is mostly masked by the natural variability of river discharge. In our study, it proved essential to recalibrate individual hindcast models due to differences in sediments, bed forms, and underlying bathymetric data.
River engineering measures greatly changed tidal dynamics in the Weser estuary. We studied the...