Circulation of the Baltic Sea and its connection to the Pan-Arctic region — a large scale and high-resolution modeling approach

The Baltic Sea has traditionally been considered as a semi-enclosed marginal sea with little or no inß uence on the adjacent oceans. We employ an eddy-permitting, coupled ice-ocean model of the Pan-Arctic region to study the Baltic Sea, especially its circulation and property exchanges with the North Sea and other regions. Using this high-resolution and large scale model we focus here on the freshwater export from the Baltic Sea and its transport by the Norwegian Coastal Current (NCC) into the Norwegian and Barents Sea. We hypothesize that the freshwater outß ow from the Baltic Sea plays a signiÞ cant role in modiÞ cation of Atlantic Water properties along its northern pathway from the North Atlantic, through the Nordic seas, and into the Arctic Ocean. Recommendations are made for more realistic model representation of the Baltic Sea circulation to advance understanding of this region s inß uence on the large-scale northern polar ocean circulation and climate change.