Distribution and inter-annual variations of the cold water on the northern shelf of Bering Sea in summer

WANG Xiao-yu; ZHAO Jin-ping

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WANG Xiao-yu, ZHAO Jin-ping. Distribution and inter-annual variations of the cold water on the northern shelf of Bering Sea in summer[J]. Haiyang Xuebao, 2011, 33(2): 1-10.

Citation:

WANG Xiao-yu, ZHAO Jin-ping. Distribution and inter-annual variations of the cold water on the northern shelf of Bering Sea in summer[J]. Haiyang Xuebao, 2011, 33(2): 1-10.

WANG Xiao-yu, ZHAO Jin-ping. Distribution and inter-annual variations of the cold water on the northern shelf of Bering Sea in summer[J]. Haiyang Xuebao, 2011, 33(2): 1-10.

Citation:

WANG Xiao-yu, ZHAO Jin-ping. Distribution and inter-annual variations of the cold water on the northern shelf of Bering Sea in summer[J]. Haiyang Xuebao, 2011, 33(2): 1-10.

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Distribution and inter-annual variations of the cold water on the northern shelf of Bering Sea in summer

Key Laboratory of Physical Oceanography,Ocean University of China Qingdao 266100,China

Received Date: 2010-11-15

Abstract

Abstract

Using the high resolution CTD data between 1982 and 2008,we investigate the property and inter-annual variations of the summer cold water on the northern shelf of the Bering Sea. The results indicate that the waters in this area can be divided into four masses by the differences in temperature and salinity: Bering Shelf Cold Water (BSW_C), Bering Slope Current Water (BSCW),Mixing Modified Water(MW) and Bering Shelf Surface Water(BSW_S).-1 ℃,2 ℃ and 4 ℃ isolines can be used properly to identify the boundary of the different water masses. In summer, the cold water(T<-1 ℃) is generally located on the bottom of the shelf with depth less than 70 m north of 61.5°N. But in some years on the southern side of the cold water a phenomenon called "cold intermediate" may appear and it is related to the interaction of the Bering Slope Current Water and the Bering Shelf Water. Based on the historical data, we define two different physical parameters, which are called "the lowest temperature on the edge" and "the lowest temperature in the core", to investigate the inter-annual variations of the cold water: the long-term average temperature of the cold bottom water on the northern shelf in summer is -1.61 ℃ which is less than 0.2 ℃ compared to the average freezing point, fully demonstrating that the cold pool in summer still keeps the winter shelf waters characteristics of low-temperature; The distribution range of the cold pool in the year of 1989,1994,2002,2003,2004 and 2005 is smaller than the long-term average level, and this situation is called "warm year". Such changes of the cold pool in summer between "warm year" and "cold year" took place on the whole Bering Shelf over the past ten years.
- Bering Sea,
- northern shelf,
- cold water in summer,
- inter-annual variations

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