An Evaluation of the Main Physical Features and Circulation Patterns in the Black Sea Basin

Abstract

Having as target the semi-enclosed basin of the Black Sea, the main purpose of the present paper is to provide an overview of its general physical features and circulation patterns. In order to achieve this goal, more than five decades of data analysis – from 1960 to 2015 – were taken into consideration and the results were checked against known data, both from satellite data over the last two decades and in-situ measurements from earlier decades. The circulation of the Black Sea basin has been studied for almost 400 years, since the Italian Count Luigi Marsigli first described the ‘two layer’ circulation through the Bosphorus Strait in the year 1681. Since climate change projections for the Black Sea region foresee significant impact on the environment in the coming decades, a set of adaptation and mitigation measures is required, therefore more research is needed. Nowadays, the warming trend adds a sense of immediate urgency because according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centre for Environmental Information, July 2020 was the second-hottest month ever recorded for the planet. Its averaged land and ocean surface temperature tied with July 2016 as the second-highest for the month in the 141-year NOAA’s global temperature dataset record, which dates back to 1880. It was 0.92°C above the 20th-century average of 15.8°C, with only 0.01°C less than the record extreme value measured in July of 2019.