Baltic Sea Needs Immediate Action to Tackle Climate Change

5 February 2013, Warnemünde, Germany – How to advise the decision makers to more effective actions to tackle impacts of climate change in the  Baltic marine environment, is a key aim of the HELCOM workshop kicking off today at the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research. Environmental managers and international scientists will share and discuss the latest findings on Baltic climate change and its implications on the ecosystem, feeding into more targeted environmental policies.

The final conclusions of the workshop, organised in partnership with the scientific network on climate change Baltic Sea Experiment (BALTEX), will be utilized by the coastal countries in the preparations for the 2013 HELCOM Ministerial Meeting on 3 October. The advice on adequacy of the current measures in the context of the climate change can be essential in the revision of the nutrient load reduction scheme of the Baltic Sea Action Plan, expected to be adopted by the ministers.

Climate change has so far not been taken into account in setting the actions and measures of the Action Plan, first adopted in 2007. However, the HELCOM Ministers, on the occasion of their meetings in 2007 and 2010, clearly expressed awareness of climate change as well as of the significant supplementary impact it will have on the Baltic Sea ecosystem, hence requiring even more stringent and supplementary actions. Now, after one of the warmest years in records, it is time to start specifying at the expert level what the more stringent and supplementary actions associated to climate change could mean.

"The common final statement of the workshop is expected to include concrete proposals and solid justification to decision makers on how the effects of climate change on the Baltic Sea marine environment might be counteracted," says Maria Laamanen, Professional Secretary of HELCOM.

Climate change with its foreseen impacts on the Baltic Sea ecosystem may undermine or counteract the efforts that the Baltic coastal countries are taking to reach good environmental status of the sea by 2021, as agreed in the 2007 HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan. 

The Baltic Sea region has in recent decades warmed up faster than the global average. There has been a warming trend over the 20th century. Much of the sea bottom and water column in the deep basins are currently deprived of oxygen and this condition also occurs in coastal areas and further exacerbates eutrophication through release of nutrients from oxygen deprived sediments. The current size of the area with oxygen shortage is larger than Denmark. Warming of the sea water causes further deterioration of the oxygen conditions.

HELCOM will publish a thematic assessment on the climate change and its effects on the Baltic Sea based on the results of the second Baltic Assessment on Climate Change in the Baltic Sea Region produced by BALTEX (BACC II report). This assessment aims at providing the most relevant up-to-date information targeting the Baltic decision-makers and will be submitted to the ministers of the environment as supporting information at the 2013 HELCOM Ministerial Meeting.

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Note for editors:

The research focus of BALTEX (the Baltic Sea Experiment) is primarily on the hydrological cycle and the exchange of energy between the atmosphere and the surface of the Earth, because they control and regulate the climate in a fundamental manner. The study region of BALTEX is the Baltic Sea and its catchment area, creating specific demands on models and scientific concepts.

BALTEX was launched in 1992 as a Continental-scale Experiment of the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment within the World Climate Research Program.

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The Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission, usually referred to as HELCOM, is an intergovernmental organisation of all the nine Baltic Sea countries and the EU which works to protect the marine environment of the Baltic Sea from all sources of pollution.

HELCOM is the governing body of the "Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area," known as the Helsinki Convention.

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For more information, please contact:

Ms. Maria Laamanen

Professional Secretary

HELCOM

Tel: +358 46 850 9198

Skype: helcom101

E-mail: maria.laamanen@helcom.fi

Ms. Johanna Laurila

Information Secretary

HELCOM

Tel: +358 40 523 8988

Skype: helcom70

E-mail: johanna.laurila@helcom.fi