Internal and external forcing of sea level variability in the Black Sea

The variability of sea level in the Black Sea is forced by a combination of internal and external processes of atmospheric, oceanic, and terrestrial origin. We use a combination of satellite altimetry and gravity, tide gauge, river discharge, and atmospheric re-analysis data to provide a comprehensive up-to-date analysis of sea level variability in the Black Sea and to quantify the role of different environmental factors that force the variability. The Black Sea is part of a large-scale climatic system that includes the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic. The seasonal sea level budget shows similar contributions of fresh water fluxes (precipitation, evaporation, and river discharge) and the Black Sea outflow, while the impact of the net surface heat flux is smaller although not negligible. We find that the nonseasonal sea level time series in the Black and Aegean seas are significantly correlated, the latter leading by 1 month. This lag is attributed to the adjustment of sea level in the Black Sea to externally forced changes of sea level in the Aegean Sea and to the impact of river discharge. The nonseasonal sea level budget in the Black Sea is dominated by precipitation and evaporation over the sea itself, but external processes such as river discharge and changes in the outflow can also cause some large synoptic-scale sea level anomalies. Sea level is strongly coupled to terrestrial water storage over the Black Sea drainage basin, which is modulated by the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). We show that during the low/high NAO southwesterly/northeasterly winds near the Strait of Gibraltar and southerly/northerly winds over the Aegean Sea are able to dynamically increase/decrease sea level in the Mediterranean and Black seas, respectively.