RECENT CHANGES IN THE OKHOTSK SEA ECOSYSTEM (2008–2018)

• Published in: Izvestiya TINRO
• Main Authors: Yu. I. Zuenko, N. L. Aseeva, S. Yu. Glebova, L. M. Gostrenko, A. Yu. Dubinina, E. P. Dulepova, A. O. Zolotov, S. V. Loboda, A. V. Lysenko, V. I. Matveev, L. S. Muktepavel, E. E. Ovsyannikov, A. L. Figurkin, T. A. Shatilina
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Russian
• Published: Transactions of the Pacific Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography 2019
• Subjects: потепление климата; температура воды; конвекция; деоксигенизация; весеннее «цветение»; зоопланктон; минтай; сельдь; биологические ресурсы; охотское море; Aquaculture. Fisheries. Angling; SH1-691; Okhotsk; Pacific; okhotsk sea
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.26428/1606-9919-2019-197-35-61; https://doaj.org/article/0698e8333d7145cba66b649a2d02f289

Recent changes of the main oceanographic, chemical, and biological parameters of the Okhotsk Sea ecosystem are considered briefly for the last decades (2000–2010s), mostly on the data obtained in marine expeditions conducted by Pacific Fish. Res. Center (TINRO) annually. Since the mid-2000s, anomalous oceanographic conditions were formed there with prevailing heightened temperature in all layers of the sea and lowered ice cover caused by changes in the atmosphere circulation with northward shift of cyclones tracks in winter and weakening of winter monsoon. The ice cover was below the normal value every year since 2004. In the warmer winter conditions, producing of the high-density water on the northern shelf decreased from 3.2–7.8 . 103 km3 in 1998–2002 to 1.2 . 103 km3 on average in 2004–2015, and the water with density sq > 26.8 was not formed at all in 2007–2009, 2011, and 2014–2015. As the result, winter convection, including the slope convection, became weaker and shallower and ventilated worse the water column, so dissolved oxygen content decreased in the lower portion of the intermediate layer, usually ventilated by slope convection. For the core of the intermediate layer (isopycnal surface 27.0 σθ), positive trend of temperature is estimated as +0.04…+0.16 o/decade, by areas, while the trend of dissolved oxygen content is negative: –0.07…–0.14 mL/L.decade, by areas. From the other hand, spring phytoplankton bloom became less intensive, presumably because of poorer upward flux of nutrients in conditions of weaker vertical mixing, and zooplankton biomass decreased, particularly for phytophages. However, these changes did not cause significant response in fluctuations of stocks for the main commercial fish and crab species. The largest stock of walleye pollock had cyclic fluctuations driven mostly by intra-population regulations, the stocks of pacific herring were rather stable, and the stocks of deep-water fish species, as flounders and halibuts had a slight tendency to growth, possibly because of ...