| Summary: | The Arctic Ocean ecosystem may respond dramatically to climate change through already observed modification of the physical environment (e.g., hydrography and ice cover). A better understanding of the coupled biological-physical ocean ecosystem, and its inter-annual variability, is necessary to predict and understand these potential impacts of climate change on the Arctic ecosystem. The Chukchi-Beaufort Sea region near Barrow, AK, including coastal waters, has been identified as key because it lies at the junction of several ocean regions and downstream of the Pacific Arctic gateway and hence is influenced physically and ecologically by input from Bering Strait. We have conducted oceanographic sampling of the coupled physical and biological marine environment in the Chukchi and near-shore Beaufort Seas for the past five years (2005 - 2009), including coastal waters, using boat-based surveys during late summer and short-term (month) and year-long bottom-mounted moorings and have observed significant inter-annual variability. This project continues this oceanographic sampling. Oceanographic surveys are being conducted during August of 2010-2014 across three-four transect lines that we have identified, based on our previous field work, as being sentinel or indicative of the overall ocean conditions associated with the Chukchi-Beaufort confluence. A range of biological and physical parameters including hydrography, currents, plankton standing stocks, nutrients, and plankton genetics are being measured. We also have deployed a year-round mooring to measure ocean currents, near bottom temperature and salinity, and acoustic backscatter (zooplankton proxy) in Barrow Canyon at a location typically within/beneath the Alaska CoastaCurrent, with final recovery in 2014.
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