The Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is the body of water that meets Sweden on the south and east coast. The annual river runoff into the Baltic is 440 km³/year, precipitation is 225 km³/year and evaporation is -185 km³/year. The net difference of 480 km³/year runs out through the Sound.

The Baltic Sea

If the Belt and the Sound were closed, the sea level would change by 114 cm due to land drainage, by 58 cm from precipitation and by -48 cm from evaporation, each year, calculated for the whole surface of the Baltic which is 386700 km2. The net gain is 124 cm per year or a rise of about 0.3 cm per day.

The inflows have very little effect on daily sea level observations since water flows continually out through the Danish Straits.

Read more about the Baltic Sea, see the links to the right.