The purpose of this experiment was to obtain time series of physical and biological variables to characterize the changing nature of the shelf waters in spring and summer. Surface floats supported instruments that measured a variety of atmospheric variables. The nearby ADCPs provided time series of currents through most of the water column. A map of the eastern Bering Sea continental shelf indicating the locations of the three moorings. Maximum ice extent during 1995 is shown by a dashed line.
Depth contours are in meters.
While it has long been desirable to measure a suite of oceanographic parameters under an advancing ice field, this experiment was not designed to accomplish this. Mooring 3 met a similar fate on April 8, when it was dragged 2 km southward by the advancing ice. The ice did not reach the southernmost mooring. Wind velocity derived from atmospheric pressure and interpolated to a point midway between moorings 1 and 2. North is along the y-axis.