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The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on earth, covering approximately 4×105 km2 and sharing its coast with five countries (Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan). Because it has no outlet to the ocean the Caspian Sea level (CSL) has undergone rapid shifts in response to climatic forcings, and these have been devastating for the surrounding countries. In this paper we present the initial results of a modeling effort aimed at building a regional climate model for the Caspian Sea basin suitable to study the response of the CSL to interdecadal climate variability and anthropogenic climate change. Simulations are performed using the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) regional climate model RegCM at a 50 km grid spacing for the period 1948–1990. During this period an abrupt shift occurred in the sea level after 1977, when the CSL rose about two meters until the early 1990s. Using a simple equation of hydrologic balance for the Caspian Sea basin to predict the CSL, we show that the model is able to reproduce the observed CSL changes at interannual to multidecadal scales. The correlation coefficient between the simulated and observed annual CSL changes is 0.91 and the model is able to reproduce the abrupt shift in CSL which occurred after 1977. Analysis of the climatologies before and after 1977 indicate that the CSL rise was mostly due to an increase in precipitation over the northern basin and a decrease in evaporation over the sea, primarily during the warm season. We plan to apply our model to the investigation of the response of the CSL to anthropogenic climate forcings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses application of active and passive microwave data for assessment of time and space variations of first- year ice cover. The Caspian and Aral Seas are chosen as main study areas. The Caspian Sea evolution is primarily climate driven, while for the Aral Sea there is a mix of anthropic and climate factors. We analyze ice cover con lions using a novel method that combines active and passive satellite measurements for ice discrimination. This method uses the synergy of simultaneous data from active (radar altimeter) and passive (radiometer) microwave instruments onboard the TOPEX/Poseidon (T/P) satellite, launched in 1992. The benefits,' drawbacks, and potential of ice cover studies using the proposed method are discussed. We analyze in detail how this method is influenced by the difference in footprints of the T/P sensors and by the radiometric properties of Ice and snow at different stages of ice cover evolution. In order to link the T/P-derived results to historical observations that end in the mid-1980s, long time series of passive microwave data from SMMR and SSM/I sensors have also been analyzed. Satellite time series of ice cover extent and duration of ice period have been obtained for the Caspian and Aral Seas since 1978. A good agreement is obtained between historical and satellite data, with significant spatial and temporal variability of ice conditions. There is a marked decrease of both duration of ice season and ice' extent during the winters 1998/1999-2001/2002. These satellite-derived tithe series of sea ice parameters are very valuable in view of the heterogeneous and mostly unpublished data on ice conditions over the Caspian and Aral Sea since the mid-1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This article presents a climatology of total cloud cover ( TCC) in the area of the three inland Eurasian seas (Black, Caspian, and Aral Sea). Analyses are performed on the basis of 20 years of data (1991-2010), collected from almost 200 ground stations. Average TCC is 49%, with broad spatial and seasonal variability: minimum TCC values are found in summer and to the southeast, whereas maximum values correspond to winter and to the northwest. For the whole area, linear trend analyses show that TCC did not vary during the study period. We only detected a statistically significant positive trend (+1.2% decade−1) in autumn. We obtained different results for the regions delimited by means of a principal component analysis: a clear decrease, both for the annual, spring, and summer series, was detected for the south of Black Sea, while increasing TCC was found for the annual, autumn, and winter series in the north Caucasus and the west and north of Black Sea. We also analysed the TCC data from global gridded products, including satellite projects [International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project ( ISCCP), Pathfinder Atmospheres Extended ( PATMOS-x), cLoud, Albedo & Radiation ( CLARA)], reanalyses [ ERA-interim, National Centers for Environmental Prediction/Department of Energy ( NCEP/ DOE), Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications ( MERRA)], and surface observations [Climatic Research Unit ( CRU)]. Although all these products capture the seasonal evolution over the study area, they differ substantially both among them and in relation to the ground observations: reanalyses produce much lower values of TCC, while ISCCP and CLARA provide a summer minimum that is too high. Trend analyses applied to these data generally showed a decrease in TCC; only CRU and NCEP/ DOE tally with the ground data as regards the absence of overall trends. These results are discussed in relation to previous studies presenting trends of other variables such as sunshine duration, diurnal temperature range, or precipitation; we also discuss the connections with changes in synoptic patterns and environmental changes, in particular in the Aral Sea region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical literature may constitute a valuable source of information to reconstruct sea-level changes. Here, historical documents and geological records have been combined to reconstruct Caspian sea-level (CSL) changes during the last millennium. In addition to a comprehensive literature review, new data from two short sediment cores were obtained from the south-eastern Caspian coast to identify coastal change driven by water-level changes and to compare the results with other geological and historical findings. The overall results indicate a high-stand during the Little Ice Age, up to -21 m (and extra rises due to manmade river avulsion), with a -28 m low-stand during the Medieval Climate Anomaly, while presently the CSL stands at -26.5 m. A comparison of the CSL curve with other lake systems and proxy records suggests that the main sea-level oscillations are essentially paced by solar irradiance. Although the major controller of the long-term CSL changes is driven by climatological factors, the seismicity of the basin creates local changes in base level. These local base-level changes should be considered in any CSL reconstruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe the development of a coupled regional atmosphere-ocean model (RegCM4-ROMS) and its implementation over the Caspian Sea basin. The coupled model is run for the period 1999-2008 (after a spin up of 4 yr) and it is compared to corresponding stand alone model simulations and a simulation in which a distributed 1d lake model is run for the Caspian Sea. All model versions show a good performance in reproducing the climatology of the Caspian Sea basin, with relatively minor differences across them. The coupled ROMS produces realistic, although somewhat overestimated, Caspian Sea Surface Temperature (SST), with a considerable improvement compared to the use of the simpler coupled lake model. Simulated near surface salinity and sea currents are also realistic, although the upwelling over the eastern coastal regions is underestimated. The sea ice extent over the shallow northern shelf of the Caspian Sea and its seasonal evolution are well reproduced, however, a significant negative bias in sea-ice fraction exists due to the relatively poor representation of the bathymetry. ROMS also calculates the Caspian Sea Level (CSL), showing that for the present experiment excessive evaporation over the lake area leads to a drift in estimated CSL. Despite this problem, which requires further analysis due to many uncertainties in the estimation of CSL, overall the coupled RegCM4-ROMS system shows encouraging results in reproducing both the climatology of the region and the basic characteristics of the Caspian Sea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A three-dimensional primitive equation model including sea ice thermodynamics and air-sea interaction is used to study seasonal circulation and water mass variability in the Caspian Sea under the influence of realistic mass, momentum and heat fluxes. River discharges, precipitation, radiation and wind stress are seasonally specified in the model, based on available data sets. The evaporation rate, sensible and latent heat fluxes at the sea surface are computed interactively through an atmospheric boundary layer sub-model, using the ECMWF-ERA re-analysis atmospheric data and model generated sea surface temperature. The model successfully simulates sea10 level changes and baroclinic circulation/mixing features with forcing specified for a selected year. The results suggest that the seasonal cycle of wind stress is crucial in producing basin circulation. Seasonal cycle of sea surface currents presents three types: cyclonic gyres in December-January; Eckman south-, south-westward drift in February-July embedded by western and eastern southward coastal currents and transition type in August-November. Western and eastern northward sub-surface coastal currents being a result of coastal local dynamics at the same time play an important role in meridional redistribution of water masses. An important part of the work is the simulation of sea surface topography, yielding verifiable results in terms of sea level. Model successfully reproduces sea level variability for four coastal points, where the observed data are available. Analyses of heat and water budgets confirm climatologic estimates of heat and moisture fluxes at the sea surface. Experiments performed with variations in external forcing suggest a sensitive response of the circulation and the water budget to atmospheric and river forcing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]