For submission to Deep-Sea Research II: Topical Studies in Oceanography

• Main Authors: S. Allen Macklin, George L. Hunt, James E. Overland
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2002
• Subjects: Bering Sea; ecosystems; oceanography; marine biology; meteorology; climate; fisheries; marine mammals; seabirds; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.553.3632; http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/foci/sebscc/special_issue/manuscripts/macklin.pdf

2ABSTRACT: Two Bering Sea marine research programs collaborated during the final years of the 1990s to forge significant advances in understanding of the southeastern Bering Sea pelagic ecosystem. Southeast Bering Sea Carrying Capacity, sponsored by NOAA Coastal Ocean Program, researched processes on the middle and outer shelf and the continental slope. Inner Front, sponsored by NSF, investigated processes of the inner domain and the front between the inner and middle domains. Program goals were to increase understanding of the southeastern Bering Sea ecosystem, including the role of juvenile walleye pollock, to investigate the hypothesis that elevated primary production at the inner front provides a summer-long energy source for the food web, and to develop and test annual indices of pre-recruit pollock abundance. Research took place during a period when there was unusually large variability in the marine climate, including a possible regime shift. Sea ice cover varied from essentially zero to one of the heaviest ice years in recent decades. Sea surface temperatures reached record highs during summer 1997, whereas 1999 was noted for its low Bering Sea temperatures. Moreover, coccolithophores bloomed on the shelf for the first recorded