Statistical downscaling of monthly mean North Atlantic air-pressure to sea level anomalies in the Baltic Sea
Hauke Heyen
Max-Planck-Insitut für Meteorologie, Hamburg, Germany
Eduardo Zorita
LODYC, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France
Hans von Storch
Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorlogie, Hamburg, Germany

ABSTRACT

A relationship between the North Atlantic air-pressure at sea-level and the anomalies of sea level at several Baltic gauges is identified. Monthly means from twenty observed winters are used to fit a statistical model and further observations from this century are used to validate it. The model is able to estimate sea level anomalies from the air-pressure field to a good level of approximation. As main forcing for the sea level anomalies, zonal wind-stress is identified. For the past 89 years, we found that a slight decrease of sea level anomalies was induced by air-pressure. A slight increase is found when air-pressure from a GCM-"greenhouse"-experiment is downscaled.