| Summary: | The water cycle of the Baltic Sea has been estimated from Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and GRACE Follow-On satellite time-variable gravity measurements, and precipitation and evaporation from ERA5 atmospheric reanalysis data for the periods 06/2002 to 06/2017, and 06/2018 to 11/2021. On average, the Baltic Sea evaporates 199 ± 3 km 3 /year, which is overcompensated with 256 ± 6 km 3 /year of precipitation and 476 ± 17 km 3 /year of water from land. This surplus of freshwater inflow produces a salty water net outflow from the Baltic Sea of 515 ± 27 km 3 /year, which increases to 668 ± 32 km 3 /year when the Kattegat and Skagerrak straits are included. The Baltic net outflow reaches an annual minimum of 221 ± 79 km 3 /year in September and a maximum of 814 ± 94 km 3 /year in May, mainly driven by the freshwater contribution from land. At interannual scale, the annual mean of the Baltic net outflow can vary up to 470 km 3 /year from year to year. This variability is not directly related to the North Atlantic Oscillation during wintertime, although the latter is well correlated with net precipitation in both continental drainage basin and Baltic Sea. Acknowledgements: AB is funded by the Algerian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. MIV, DGG and JMS are partially funded by Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities grant number PID2021-122142OB-I00, and Generalitat Valenciana (GV) grant numbers GVATHINKINAZUL/2021/035. MIV and DGG are also funded by GV grant number PROMETEO/2021/030.
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