Modelling the exceptional Baltic Sea inflow events in 2002-2003

During 2002 and 2003 exceptional inflow events have been registered. In January 2003 a massive inflow of highly saline, cold and extremely oxygen-rich water from the North Sea was recorded at Darss Sill. This event is considered to be the most important inflow since 1993. A coupled model system for the Baltic Sea region, called BALTIMOS, was developed in the frame of DEKLIM/ BALTEX by linking existing model components for the atmosphere ( model REMO), for the ocean including sea ice ( model BSIOM), for the hydrology ( model LARSIM) as well as for lakes. The model system consists of high resolution model components: 1/6degrees (similar to18 km) with 20 vertical levels; ocean-ice 5 km with 60 vertical levels, hydrology 1/6degrees. The model domain covers the whole drainage basin of the Baltic Sea as well as major parts of Europe. The exceptional inflow events have been simulated successfully with BALTIMOS. The simulation was initialized at 1st of February 2002 and the model has been run until October 2003. This period includes the exceptional warm water inflow in autumn 2002 and the major Baltic inflow in January 2003. Different inflow characteristics are presented and discussed. The simulated volume transport for the major inflow in January 2003 amounts to about 250 km 3, half of which was of salinity 17 PSU which corresponds to a salt transport of 2.7 x 10(12) k