 The Bering Sea is a wildly productive ecosystem. U.S. and Russian fishing fleets pull hundreds of millions of pounds of fish and crab from its waters each year. All that productivity is because a particular combination of melting sea ice and currents brings in nutrients that fertilize blooms of algae. The algae is food for tiny zooplankton, which are eaten by larger animals, and so on through the food web. Whales travel from far away to feed in the Bering Sea, and millions of seabirds breed in the region every summer. How is climate change affecting the delicately balanced ecosystem? On April 3, 2009, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy (pictured at right) will pull out of Dutch Harbor, Alaska, with 41 scientists on board. They'll spend 38 days traversing the Bering Sea, looking for answers to this question. We're hoping to catch the ice edge bloom, an event that happens every spring. In winter, the Bering Sea is covered in thick sea ice. As the ice begins to break up and melt, sun hits the open water for the first time in months, providing energy that spurs the growth of photosynthetic marine plants and setting the whole ecosystem in motion. Join photographer Chris Linder and writer Helen Fields this spring as we learn about the scientists' work, how they collect data, and life on the icebreaker. For more about this expedition, visit the Woods Hole Oceanographic: Polar Discovery Web site. |
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