The Eastern Bering Sea Shelf : oceanography and resources / edited by Donald W. Hood and John A. Calder easternberings00hood Year: 1981 Recent short-period wintertime climatic fluctuations 25 flows into the southeast Bering Sea. This cold arctic air appears to cool the underlying Bering Sea (McLain and Favorite 1976). The onset of the decline of SST coincided with anomalous southward penetration of the ice pack (Kukla and Kukla 1974) and had adverse effects on Alaska fisheries (Johnson and Seckel 1976). A subsequent rise in SST in the middle to late 1970's in the Bering Sea appears to be rel
The Eastern Bering Sea Shelf : oceanography and resources / edited by Donald W. Hood and John A. Calder easternberings00hood Year: 1981 Recent short-period wintertime climatic fluctuations 25 flows into the southeast Bering Sea. This cold arctic air appears to cool the underlying Bering Sea (McLain and Favorite 1976). The onset of the decline of SST coincided with anomalous southward penetration of the ice pack (Kukla and Kukla 1974) and had adverse effects on Alaska fisheries (Johnson and Seckel 1976). A subsequent rise in SST in the middle to late 1970's in the Bering Sea appears to be related, again, to large-scale changes in the atmospheric circulation, which caused southerly flow over the Bering Sea (Niebauer 1978). Fig. 3-5 illustrates the mean 700 mb contours for January 1978, and shows the Aleutian Low over the western Aleutians and strong meridional flow into the southeast Bering Sea from the North Pacific. These patterns are similar to those of the mid-6O's and have generally persisted through much of the late 1970's. Namias (1978) has suggested that SST patterns in the North Pacific in November 1976 foretold the strong and persistent air flow from the south over the Bering Sea during winter 1976-77. These air-flow patterns can explain, to a large extent, the high SST in the Bering Sea during this period. DISCUSSION That fluctuations in the mean atmospheric circulation are the driving force behind the observed large interannual fluctuations in SST is consistent with the shelf circulation patterns deduced by Coachman and Charnell (1979) and by Reed (1978). Coachman and Charnell point out that the shorter time-scale circulation (~25 cm/sec) of this shelf is dominated by tides and wind events, but that the longer time-scale mean flow is weak. Seaward of the 100 m isobath flow is ~2-5 cm/sec; between the 100 m and 50 m isobaths it is nearly zero. This weak flow on the shelf has the effect of decoupling the transport of mass characteristics, such as heat, fro
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