Note: You need to enable scripting and Javascript in your browser settings to best view and navigate our website. Otherwise, use our keyboard navigation and search page. For keyboard tabbing on this page you can bypass the top menu bar navigation and jump to the page sidebar navigation (if applicable), or jump to the page body. Our print link for screen media is scripted. Your computer's normal print command will print this page. Please contact us if you have difficulty in accessing our web pages.

Mobile users can use the Site Map to access the principal pages

EMA: Arctic / Chukchi Sea Ecosystem Assessment

ABL Home

Ecosystem Monitoring & Assessment:

BASIS

Gulf of Alaska Ecosystem Assessment

Chukchi Sea Ecosystem Assessment

Salmon Ocean Ecology & Bycatch Analysis

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Program Activities:

Sampling with bongo nets in Arctic/Chukchi Sea

NOAA places a high priority on research in the Arctic. The North Pacific Ocean is warming and the thickness and extent of the Arctic ice is shrinking. Loss of sea ice is having a profound effect on the distribution, migration, energetics, and survival of commercially important fish species in the Bering Sea/Chukchi Sea. Scientists within the EMA Program partnered with the University of Alaska Fairbanks, School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences to provide a comprehensive assessment of the northeastern Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea (NEBS/CS) ecosystems including the physical environment, the primary and secondary producers that support Arctic marine food webs, and the numerous fish species utilizing the area. Research is planned to begin during 2012.

Goals:

Collect baseline fisheries and oceanographic data to enable resource managers to better predict effects of climate and human impacts on ocean productivity and on the ecology of marine and anadromous fish species within the northeastern Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea.

Assess the distribution, relative abundance, diet, energy density, size, and potential predators of juvenile salmon, other commercial fish, and forage fish within the northeastern Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea.

Evaluate the effect of climate change on the health and status of pelagic fishes within the northeastern Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea.

Funding for this work comes from the Coastal Impacts Assistance Program (CIAP). Partners include the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and the MACE, Genetics, HAMC, and HEPR Programs within AFSC.

Fish sample from the Arctic/Chukchi Sea

Contact:
Lisa Eisner and Jim Murphy
Auke Bay Laboratories
Alaska Fisheries Science Center, NOAA Fisheries

Ted Stevens Marine Research Institute
17109 Pt Lena Loop Rd
Juneau AK 99801
(206) 526-4060 and (907) 789-6651
Lisa.Eisner@noaa.gov and Jim.Murphy@noaa.gov