The Alaska Fisheries Science Center website is now part of NOAA Fisheries.
Information on this archive may not be up to date. Join us at our new location, www.Fisheries.NOAA.gov/region/alaska
or contact afsc.webmaster@noaa.gov with any questions.




link to AFSC home page
Mobile users can use the Site Map to access the principal pages

link to AFSC home page link to NMFS home page link to NOAA home page

AFSC News
September 30, 2015

A Warming Bering Sea: NOAA Scientists Monitor Impacts of Historic Changes in Alaska

graphic of climate ecosystem interactions
Graphic of Climate-Ecosystem Interactions

In 2014, the Bering Sea warmed suddenly and dramatically after a 7-year cold spell. Scientists at sea that year noticed the beginnings of change: lower nutrients, abundant small copepods, and a large bloom of coccolithophores – tiny creatures that, in large numbers, turn patches of the grey Bering Sea a tropical turquoise.

Warmer than normal conditions are continuing this year in the Bering Sea.  NOAA scientists are in the midst of a “special” fall research cruise to see how the ecosystem is responding to this second year of warmer than normal water temperatures.  They are especially eager to learn how this might be affecting Alaskan pollock, which support the nation’s largest commercial fishery in volume.

Join us for a Tweet Chat with three leading NOAA scientists: oceanographer Phyllis Stabeno, biologist Janet Duffy-Anderson and biologist Ed Farley. You?ll have a chance to ask questions and learn more about what scientists are seeing on the water.

Catch Highlights of our Tweet Chat October 7th, 2015

Read more about this study

Learn more about our NOAA scientists

Ed Farley

Ed Farley is the Program Manager for the Ecosystem Monitoring and Assessment Program at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, Auke Bay Laboratories in Juneau, Alaska. Program scientists conduct integrated ecosystem research (oceanography to fish) in Alaska?s large marine ecosystems (Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea, and Chukchi Sea) to examine the impact of climate change and variability on recruitment/survival of commercially important groundfish and salmon populations.

Ed?s interest in fisheries began during the 1980s to 1990s, when he commercial fished for sockeye salmon in Bristol Bay. Since that time, Ed completed a BS in Mathematics at the University of Washington and a MS and PhD in Fisheries from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Ed?s current research examines the impact of climate change and variability on fish fitness and survival during critical life history stages.




Janet Duffy-Anderson

Janet Duffy-Anderson heads the NOAA/AFSC Recruitment Processes Program and co-leads the Ecosystems and Fisheries Oceanography Coordinated Investigations (EcoFOCI) program. She is interested in the biology and ecology of the early life stages of marine and estuarine fishes, the interactions of these species with prevailing atmospheric and oceanographic processes, and implications for recruitment and ecosystem functioning. She is interested in processes from organism to ecosystem level.

Janet has worked on ecosystem projects in the Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and the Chukchi Sea.






Phyllis Stabeno

Phyllis Stabeno is a physical oceanographer at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, Washington, where she is co-leader of the Ecosystems and Fisheries Oceanography Coordinated Investigations (EcoFOCI). For the past 25 years, she has worked on physical oceanographic, climate and ecosystem projects in the Gulf of Alaska, Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and more recently Chukchi Sea. Recently she has focused on climate change impact on the subarctic seas around Alaska. She is the lead investigator in maintaining the biophysical mooring array in the Bering Sea. She is a Principle Investigator for the North Pacific Research Board sponsored Bering Sea Integrated Ecosystem Research Plan (BSIERP) Project and NSF Bering Ecosystem Study (BEST) and has served on the Science Advisory Board for the BEST/BSIERP program since its inception.

For more information please contact Marjorie Mooney-Seus,
206-526-4348 (office), 774-392-4865 (cell)


            | Home | Site Map | Contact Us | FOIA | Privacy | Disclaimer | USA.gov | Accessibility | Print |           doc logo