Distribution and interannual variation of water masses in the Bering Sea basin in summer

Abstract

The Bering Sea is a marginal sea of the North Pacific located in middle and high latitudes. It can be divided into almost two equal part. The northern one called the Bering Sea Shelf whose depth less than 200 m, meanwhile, the other southwest part is the Bering Basin which is deeper than 3000 m. There is a cyclonic circulation in the basin, which consists of the Kamchatka Current in the west, the Aleutian North Slope Current in the south and the Bering Slope Current in the east. As a transitional area connecting the Pacific Ocean and the Arctic Ocean, the variations of hydrological environment directly affect the properties of Pacific inflow, which not only is the key factor of the Shelf-Slope-Basin system in the west of the Arctic Ocean, but also can expand its impact to the north of Atlantic through the Arctic. What’s more, the broad Bering Sea is a productive ecosystem that has great economic and cultural value, the changes in the physical environment are capable of reorganizing the ecosystem.