Echoes from the Past: A Healthy Baltic Sea Requires More Effort
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Integrated sediment multiproxy studies and modeling were used to reconstruct past changes in the Baltic Sea ecosystem. Results of natural changes over the past 6000 years in the Baltic Sea ecosystem suggest that forecasted climate warming might enhance environmental problems of the Baltic Sea. Integrated modeling and sediment proxy studies reveal increased sea surface temperatures and expanded seafloor anoxia (in deep basins) during earlier natural warm climate phases, such as the Medieval Climate Anomaly. Under future IPCC scenarios of global warming, there is likely no improvement of bottom water conditions in the Baltic Sea. Thus, the measures already designed to produce a healthier Baltic Sea are insufficient in the long term. The interactions between climate change and anthropogenic impacts on the Baltic Sea should be considered in management, implementation of policy strategies in the Baltic Sea environmental issues, and adaptation to future climate change.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Book series | Ambio |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Pages (from-to) | 60-68 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| ISSN | 0044-7447 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Feb 2014 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:
This study is part of the INFLOW (The Holocene Saline Water Inflow Changes into the Baltic Sea) project, funded by the European Commission 7th Framework Programme (FP/2007–2013) under Grant agreement No. 217246 made with BONUS, the joint Baltic Sea Research Programme, and by the Academy of Finland. Partners of the project were from—Germany: Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW); Denmark: Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS); Sweden: Department of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences—Division of Geology, Lund University, and Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI); Poland: Faculty of Earth Sciences, Department of Palaeoceanology, University of Szczecin; Norway: Unifob AS, Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research (BCCR); Russia: A. P. Karpinsky Russian Geological Research Institute (VSEGEI); and Finland: GTK and Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki. Anonymous reviewers provided very constructive and valuable comments on this manuscript, which are gratefully acknowledged.
- Baltic Sea, Climate change, Holocene, Inflow, Modeling, Multiproxy analyses
Research areas
ID: 362326100