Posted on behalf of Wendee Holtcamp, blogging for Nature aboard the research vessel Thomas G. Thompson.
I’m flying in a 30-seater SAAB 340 turboprop to the international port of Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island, part of the Aleutian Island Chain, and the number one commercial fishing port in the United States. For the next 28 days, I’ll be the sole journalist on the research vessel Thomas G. Thompson, reporting on the science being done by 29 scientists, grad students, and technicians as we venture into the notoriously rough and wildly productive Bering Sea.
The Bering Sea Project partners the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) with Alaska’s North Pacific Research Board (NPRB) in a comprehensive, multi-year and multi-disciplinary study of how climate change is affecting the Bering Sea ecosystem from top to bottom. NSF oversees the portion known as the Bering Ecosystem Study (BEST) which examines how changing sea ice conditions affect chemical, physical, and biological characteristics of the
region. NPRB oversees the Bering Sea Integrated Ecosystem Research Program (BSIERP), which focuses more on how marine organisms, such as fish, marine mammals and seabirds, are being affected by both natural and human-induced changes to the Bering Sea, particularly related to climate change.
This is year four of the six-year project, in which more than 100 scientists having received funding to study various aspects of the Bering Sea. I’m joining the “summer” cruise of the Thompson’s 2010 expedition.
The vessel’s lead co-PI, Nancy Kachel – a hydrologist who works both at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Lab and University of Washington – had greeted me at Anchorage Airport’s PenAir terminal with an enthusiastic hug. She introduced me to her husband, Dave Kachel, also a NOAA scientist joining the cruise. Several people have warned of the crazy landings and boomerang flights which turn back halfway through due to bad weather. What should one expect from a place with an airport named Emergency Field? When flights land or take off, they gate off the main road because the very short landing strip runs straight across it. Pilots have two possible entries, depending on winds, and with one of them, the plane wings come perilously close to the volcanic mountain faces that jut from the sea. One guy called it “the scariest flight of my life.”
The Kachels seem undaunted. “Right now, it should not be too bad,” Nancy reassured me. “It all depends on the weather.” It’s not storming but it is drizzly both in Anchorage and in Dutch Harbor– one of the rainiest places in the US at nearly 250 days per year. I marveled at the fact there was no security screening for passengers or carry-ons on the flight. PenAir flies throughout the Aleutian and the Pribilof Islands, and at the Anchorage airport their terminal is located away from other airlines. Nancy regaled me with the story of the PenAir terminal at St. Paul Island in the Pribilofs, which has a sign simply saying, “Declare firearms. Antlers prohibited.”
Welcome to Alaska, America’s Last Frontier!
When I get to Dutch Harbor (technically the name of the city of Unalaska’s port, though it has become the unofficial name for the town), I’ll meet the cruise’s chief scientist, David Shull, an oceanography professor at Western Washington University and all the others. Dutch Harbor has been made famous by the Discovery Channel show Deadliest Catch, which chronicles the lives of crab fishermen – by all accounts one of the world’s most dangerous jobs in some of the world’s roughest seas. The data being collected on board not only provides insight into climate change, but also helps in a practical sense in terms of knowing how best to manage these globally important fisheries. Bering Sea fisheries provide 50% of the commercially caught seafood consumed in the US and much gets sent worldwide, as well.
Although scientists have documented much variability in sea ice extent in these subarctic waters from year to year, the trend is that the ice shelf is melting earlier. These teams of scientists have begun documenting how the earlier melting of sea ice shifts the balance – affecting everything from the iconic polar bear to benthic invertebrates, and ultimately affecting nitrogen and phosphorus nutrient cycles as well.
The ship will stop at hundreds of stations along approximately ten transects throughout the eastern Bering Sea – mostly back and forth along the continental shelf – to collect water, bottom sediment, and plankton using tools with strange names like the MOCNESS, CTD, and multi-corer. Certain teams of scientists will be conducting experiments in the labs and ‘cold rooms’ on board, and I’ll report on various projects as data gets collected and compiled. Once the Thompson leaves Dutch Harbor, it will be the last time we’ll step foot on land until July 16th.
Images: Wendee Holtcamp