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A Synthesis of Year-Round Interdisciplinary Mooring Measurements in the Bering Strait (1990-2014) and the RUSALCA Years (2004-2011)

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  • The flow through the Bering Strait, the only Pacific-Arctic oceanic gateway, has dramatic local, regional, and global impacts. Advanced year-round moored technology quantifies challengingly large temporal (subdaily, seasonal, and interannual) and spatial variability in the ~85 km wide, two-channel strait. The typically northward flow, intensified seasonally in the ~10–20 km wide, warm, fresh, nutrient-poor Alaskan Coastal Current (ACC) in the east, is otherwise generally homogeneous in velocity throughout the strait, although with higher salinities and nutrients and lower temperatures in the west. Velocity and water properties respond rapidly (including flow reversals) to local wind, likely causing most of the strait’s approximately two-layer summer structure (by “spilling” the ACC) and winter water-column homogenization. We identify island-trapped eddy zones in the central strait; changes in sea-ice properties (season mean thicknesses from <1 m to >2 m); and increases in annual mean volume, heat, and freshwater fluxes from 2001 to present (2013). Tantalizing first results from year-round bio-optics, nitrate, and ocean acidification sensors indicate significant seasonal and spatial change, possibly driven by the spring bloom. Moored acoustic recorders show large interannual variability in sub-Arctic whale occurrence, related perhaps to water property changes. Substantial daily variability demonstrates the dangers of interpreting section data and the necessity for year-round interdisciplinary time-series measurements.
  • This is the publisher’s final pdf. The published article is copyrighted by the Oceanography Society and can be found at: http://tos.org/oceanography/article/a-synthesis-of-year-round-interdisciplinary-mooring-measurements-in-the-ber Bering Strait physical oceanographic data are available via http://psc.apl.washington.edu/BeringStrait.html and the National Oceanographic Data Center (https://www.nodc.noaa.gov); ocean acidification data, via http://aoncadis.org; and marine mammal acoustic data, via http://aoncadis.org and http://AOOS.org.
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  • Woodgate, R. A., Stafford, K. M., & Prahl, F. G. (2015). A Synthesis of Year-round Interdisciplinary Mooring Measurements in the Bering Strait (1990-2014) and the RUSALCA years (2004-2011). Oceanography, 28(3), 46-67. doi:10.5670/oceanog.2015.57
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  • 28
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  • 3
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  • This article was funded by NOAA-RUSALCA and draws on logistics, data, and results from RUSALCA, NSF-ARC (0632154, 053026, 1107106, 1023264, and 1304052) and ONR (N00014-13-1-0468) projects.
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