A Bering Strait Ocean Observing System for the Pacific Inflow to the Arctic: A Fundamental Part of the Arctic Observing Network

This project will support a comprehensive observationally-based measurement scheme for the Bering Strait, which will combine in situ observations with traditional knowledge from the Bering Strait communities and results from a 4km resolution ice-ocean model, ECCO2 (Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean phase II). Temperature, salinity and velocity data from the Bering Strait and data products of oceanic fluxes will be measured to meet the needs of numerous scientific, climate and industrial (e.g., oil/gas exploration, shipping) studies in the region. Via a "one-stop" website (with permanent archiving at national archives), the project will provide these data and data products to all interested parties. It will develop a two-way exchange of information with native communities, drawing on results from a separately funded project (led by the native corporation Kawerak, Inc) documenting traditional knowledge of ocean currents and change in the Bering Strait region. Furthermore, bridging the traditional gap between observationalists and modelers, it will undertake a pilot study for future AON observational strategies which must surely combine observations and high quality modeling. The effort continues and expands upon decades of measurements in the Bering Strait region and constitutes an NSF contribution to the interagency Russian-American Long-term Census of the Arctic (RUSALCA) partnership.