Ocean circulation and exchanges through the northern Bering Sea—1979–2001 model results

We have developed and run a model with sufficiently high resolution (∼9 km and 45 levels) and a large enough spatial domain to allow for realistic representation of flow through the narrow and shallow straits in the northern Bering Sea. This is potentially important for quantification of long-term mean and time-dependent ocean circulation, and water mass and property exchanges between the Pacific and Arctic Oceans. Over a 23 year interval (1979–2001), mean transport through Bering Strait is estimated to be 0.65 Sv. Comparison of our model results with published observations indicates that ocean circulation is not only variable at seasonal to interdecadal scales but it is also responsive to short-term atmospheric forcing. One of such events occurred during the winter of 2000–2001 with reversed oceanic flow in some areas and much reduced sea-ice cover. Analyses of eddy kinetic energy fields identify some high biological productivity regions of the Chirikov Basin coincident with persistent high energy (up to 2700 cm2 s−2 in the surface layer and up to 2600 cm2 s−2 at mid-depth) throughout the annual cycle. Model output in the Bering Strait region is validated against several time series of moored observations of water mass properties. Comparison with shipboard observations of near-bottom salinity from late winter through autumn indicates that the model reasonably represents the major water-mass properties in the region. The modeled vertical water-column structure in the northern Bering Sea allows increased understanding of the mechanisms of water transformation and transport northward through Bering Strait into the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. We conclude that the long-term model results for the northern Bering Sea provide important insights into the ocean circulation and fluxes and they are a useful frame of reference for limited observations that are short-term and/or cover only a small geographic region.