A ruggedized CTD attached to the bottom trawl net. Photo credit: Ned Cokelet/NOAA
The North Pacific Research Board’s multi-year Bering Sea Project strives to understand the effects of climate change and dynamic ice cover on the eastern Bering Sea ecosystem. Project Headlines make scientific results available to the general public. A recent PMEL contribution entitled Circulation on the Bering Sea Shelf Revealed by Temperature and Salinity Measurements summarizes research in which PMEL scientists augmented NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center bottom trawl surveys with instruments to measure ocean temperature and salinity profiles at over 350 sites in the Bering Sea. From those measurements, scientists inferred the ocean currents in this ecologically and economically rich region during the summers of 2008-2010. Those observations help us to understand the ecosystem, measure its variability, and calibrate predictive computer models that estimate future conditions under different climate scenarios. More Bering Sea Project Headlines are available here.