Kristine S. Madsen

Recent Change—Sea Level and Wind Waves

This chapter describes observed changes in sea level and wind waves in the Baltic Sea basin over the past 200 years and the main climate drivers of this change. The datasets available for studying these are described in detail. Recent climate change and land uplift are causing changes in sea level. Relative sea level is falling by 8.2 mm year−1 in the Gulf of Bothnia and slightly rising in parts of the southern Baltic Sea. Absolute sea level (ASL) is rising by 1.3–1.8 mm year−1, which is within the range of recent global estimates. The 30-year trends of Baltic Sea tide gauge records tend to increase, but similar or even slightly higher rates were observed around 1900 and 1950. Sea level in the Baltic Sea shows higher values during winter and lower values during spring and this seasonal amplitude increased between 1800 and 2000. The intensity of storm surges (extreme sea levels) may have increased in recent decades in some parts of the Baltic Sea. This may be linked to a long-term shift in storm tracks.

Blending of satellite and tide gauge sea level observations and its assimilation in a storm surge model of the North Sea and Baltic Sea

Coastal storm surge forecasts are typically derived from dedicated hydrodynamic model systems, relying on Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) inputs. Uncertainty in the NWP wind field affects both the preconditioning and the forecast of sea level. Traditionally, tide gauge data have been used to limit preconditioning errors, providing point information. Here we utilize coastal satellite altimetry sea level observations. Careful processing techniques allow data to be retrieved up to 3 km from the coast, combining 1 Hz and 20 Hz data. The use of satellite altimetry directly is limited to times when the satellite passes over the area of interest. Instead, we use a stationary blending method developed by Madsen et al. (2007) to relate the coastal satellite altimetry with corresponding tide gauge measurements, allowing generation of sea level maps whenever tide gauge data are available. We apply the method in the North Sea and Baltic Sea, including the coastal zone, and test it for operational nowcasting and hindcasting of the sea level. The feasibility to assimilate the blended product into a hydrodynamic model is assessed, using the ensemble optimal interpolation method. A 2 year test simulation shows decreased sea level root mean square error of 7–43% and improved correlation by 1–23% in all modeled areas, when validated against independent tide gauges, indicating the feasibility to limit preconditioning errors for storm surge forecasting, using a relatively cost effective assimilation scheme.

Impact of assimilation of sea-ice surface temperatures on a coupled ocean and sea-ice model

We establish a methodology for assimilating satellite observations of ice surface temperature (IST) into a coupled ocean and sea-ice model. The method corrects the 2 meter air temperature based on the difference between the modelled and the observed IST. Thus the correction includes biases in the surface forcing and the ability of the model to convert incoming parameters at the surface to a net heat flux. A multi-sensor, daily, gap-free surface temperature analysis has been constructed over the Arctic region. This study revealed challenges estimating the ground truth based on buoys measuring IST, as the quality of the measurement varied from buoy to buoy. With these precautions we find a cold temperature bias in the remotely sensed data, and a warm bias in the modelled data relative to ice mounted buoy temperatures, prior to assimilation. As a consequence, this study weighted the modelled IST and the observed IST equally in the correction. The impact of IST was determined for experiments with and without the assimilation of IST and sea-ice concentration. We find that assimilation of remotely sensed data results in a cooling of IST, which improves the timing of the snow melt onset. The improved snow cover in spring is only based on observations from one buoy, thus additional good quality observations could strengthen the conclusions. The ice cover and the sea-ice thickness are increased, primarily in the experiment without sea-ice concentration assimilation.