Abstract The wind-produced variability of temperature, salinity and velocity in the coastal zone of the southern Baltic Sea have been investigated with the help of a three-dimensional F-coordinate baroclinic model. The model was based on the Princeton Ocean Model code of Mellor (1993), known as POM. The main intention of this study was to reproduce the variability of the hydrological conditions as the response of stratified seawaters to the model atmospheric forcing of three successive storms. Winds of constant speed from eight directions over the Baltic during each storm were considered. The presentation of results is limited to the area along the Polish coasts of the Baltic Sea, where the complicated bottom topography exerts a crucial influence on water movements. The numerical model runs show that winds can play an important role in the water exchange between the coastal region and the open sea, generating intense fluctuations of hydrological parameters. When winds are from the SE, E and NE, coastal upwelling is frequent along the Polish Baltic coast (Bychkova and Victorov 1987, Bychkova et al. 1988, Urbanski 1993). The results calculated with the use of the POM code are in agreement with the results obtained using the z-level model (Krauss and Br?gge 1991) and from studies in the Great Lakes and in other upwelling areas (Bennet 1974, Krauss 1979, Fennel 1986).
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