An issue of special importance is the relationship between the shelf circulation and nutrient fluxes. Little if any nutrient enrichment of the shelf would then occur. This is likely the case on such shelves as the adjacent Laptev Sea. An important question is how this productivity might change under an altered climatic regime. Measurements in Long Strait give the annual mean northward transport there as 0.1 Sv, but there is no measurement of the southward flow.
Historic literature suggests the mean flow through the strait is zero.
The annual mean transport through Bering Strait is c. Thus, mass conservation in the Chukchi Sea system implies that the flow through the Hanna Trough must be comparable to flows through the canyons. Between 1990 and 1991, an upward looking ADCP in the eastern channel of Bering Strait recorded time series data of ice and water velocity and ice thickness.