Little Diomede Island, Bering Strait

1. ARC-0632154 The Pacific Gateway to the Arctic- Quantifying and Understanding Bering Strait Oceanic Fluxes - Rebecca Woodgate (University of Washington), - Tom Weingartner (Univ. of Alaska, Fairbanks), - Terry Whitledge (Univ. of Alaska, Fairbanks), - Ron Lindsay (University of Washington) ARC-0528632 Comparison of Water Properties and Flows in the U.S. and Russian Channels of the Bering Strait - 2005 to 2006 Rebecca Woodgate, University of Washington in collaboration with - NOAA RUSALCA (Russian-American Long Term Census of the Arctic) program, (Kathy Crane, and John Calder) - Russian PIs at Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI), especially the team of Igor Lavrenov - Knut Aagaard (UW). Ed Carmack (IOS, Canada) .... and others .. With thanks to Jim Johnson, Seth Danielson, Dave Leech, Mike Schmidt, and crews of the Alpha Helix, the Laurier, and the Sever BERING STRAITTHROUGHFLOW Little Diomede Island, Bering Strait

2. STATUS AND PROGRESS 85km wide, 50m deep, split US-Russia ~ 0.8 Sv, large seasonal & interannual variation (TS) Important fluxes of heat, freshwater, nutrients FW flux strongly f(volume) Heat flux mostly f(volume) Comparison of Water Properties and Flows in the U.S. and Russian Channels of the Bering Strait - 2005 to 2006 Moorings 1990 - present 1 year of moorings (A2, A3, A4) 2005-2006 = 3 years of concurrent US-Russian data (1990-1991, 2004-2005, 2005-2006) Hypothesis: A3 is a “useful” proxy of total flow MODIS SST 26th Aug 04, courtesy NASA Velocity – v good, just needs calibration Temperature – fair, need to get mechanisms Salinity – poor, need to get mechanisms Transport – v good (r>0.97), just needs calibration Freshwater – ditto, (r>0.94), but needs calibration Heat – better than just T (r>0.93), but needs calibration Woodgate, Aagaard, Weingartner, 2007, FIRST STEPS IN CALIBRATING THE BERING STRAIT THROUGHFLOW: Preliminary study of how measurements at a proposed climate site (A3) compare to measurements within the two channels of the strait (A1 and A2), UW Technical Report, 20pp, /psc.apl.washington.edu/BeringStrait.html

3. STATUS AND PROGRESS WORK: == 8 MOORINGS (2007-2009) - velocity profiling (ADCP) - upper layer T-S (ISCAT ice-avoidance sensors) - bottom pressure gauges - nitrate and biooptics sensors == ANNUAL CTD SECTIONS == SATELLITE SST and SSH Your instrument here!!!! The Pacific Gateway to the Arctic- Quantifying and Understanding Bering Strait Oceanic Fluxes AIMS: 1) UNDERSTAND DYNAMICS 2) QUANTIFY FLUXES heat, freshwater, nutrients,chlorophyll (WITH Alaskan Coastal Current and stratification) 3) DESIGN MONITORING NETWORK (including remote data sources)

4. COORDINATION AND INTEGRATION The Pacific Gateway to the Arctic http://psc.apl.washington.edu/BeringStrait.html

5. COORDINATION AND INTEGRATION The Pacific Gateway to the Arctic http://psc.apl.washington.edu/BeringStrait.html WITHOUTACC/Stratification

6. COORDINATION AND INTEGRATION The Pacific Gateway to the Arctic http://psc.apl.washington.edu/BeringStrait.html

7. COORDINATION AND INTEGRATION The Pacific Gateway to the Arctic http://psc.apl.washington.edu/BeringStrait.html WITHOUT ACC/Stratification COMBINE WITH - SST - SSH - model results INPUT FOR - model forcing and validation - local observational work - theory studies

8. FUTURE DIRECTIONS AND 2008 PLANS The Pacific Gateway to the Arctic FIELD WORK Bering Strait mooring cruise - Leg 2 of RUSALCA 2008 Russian Vessel “Lavrentiev” Nome to Nome ~ August 15 – 25th 2008 - mooring recoveries and redeployments - high resolution CTD sections 1) Understanding Physics 2) Quantifying Fluxes 3) Designing monitoring system http://psc.apl.washington.edu/BeringStrait.html