Climate Central: Earth’s warmer? Well how come the Bering Sea is so much colder?
We’ve checked in every once in awhile on the Arctic adventures of freelancer Wendee Holtcamp, who enterprisingly snagged a ride aboard a research vessel last year (previous posts One, and Two). On that second post I wondered about an observation she reported – a recent and marked chilling of the Bering Sea between Alaska and Siberia, north of the Aleutions and south of the narrow Bering Strait gateway to the Arctic Ocean. Why’s it so cold lately?
Holtcamp went out and answered the question:
- Climate Central: The Big Chill in the Bering Sea ;
The answer is that it is complicated. There is the Arctic Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, sea ice advection from winds that shift as the AO and PDO interact, the Aleution Low, and the Russian High. This is a story demanding a slow read, but it reflects the difficulty scientists have in finding glib and convincing replies when average citizens and average members of Congress demand to know how things work. Or as she writes, “the simple answer is that there are no simple answers”.
By the way, she sold a long feature on her visit to the Bering Sea, which ran earlier this year:
- BioScience Magazine – Rime of the Bering Sea Mariners , where she took that pic of a rare short-tailed albatross, which is much nice full-fame than in this crop I did, sandhe takes readers aboard her ship and a look at the see-saw populations swings as sub-arctic and arctic-ecosystems slosh in and out of those stormy waters.
- Charlie Petit
