North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission

Technical Report 18

Table of Contents

Oceanographic Conditions During the Gulf of Alaska 2019 and 2020 Expeditions

Authors: 
Evgeny A. Pakhomov, Alexander Figurkin, Brian P.V. Hunt, Alexei Somov, Natalie Mahara, and International Team 2019–2020

International Team 2019–2020:
Tristan Blaine, Christoph Deeg, Svetlana Esenkulova, Gerard Foley, Tessa J. Frost, Sabrina Garcia, Igor V. Grigorov, Arkadii Ivanov, Hae Kun Jung, Gennady Kantakov, Anton Khleborodov, Rebecca V. LaForge, Jacob E. Lerner, Chrys Neville, Vladimir Radchenko, Igor Shurpa, Alexander Slabinsky, Wesley W. Strasburger, Shigehiko Urawa, Anna Vazhova, Perumthuruthil Vishnu, Charles Waters, Laurie Weitkamp, and Mikhail Zueveam

Abstract Excerpt:
Pacific salmon Oncorhynchus spp., depending on species, spend 1 to 4 years foraging in the Gulf of Alaska (GoA) before returning to their native rivers for spawning. It has been documented that the GoA harbors salmon stocks from both western and eastern parts of the Pacific Rim. However, there is limited information available of general oceanographic conditions in this area, its spatial and temporal variability. The GoA region had been recently influenced by large-scale warming events (the “Blob”) that may have altered salmon foraging habitats and underlined a possibility of short- and long-term changes in the pelagic realm. To investigate oceanographic conditions as well as their inter-annual variability, two winter expeditions were conducted in 2019 and 2020 as major contributions to the International Year of the Salmon. During February 19–March 17 of 2019 and March 12–April 7 of 2020, ~1 x 1-degree survey grids covering ~ 650,000–700,000 km2, which mainly overlapped in their southern parts, were conducted onboard the R/V Professor Kaganovskiy and FV Pacific Legacy (Fig. 1). At over 100 stations, oceanographic profiles using CTD, zooplankton using Bongo and Juday nets, and micronekton using midwater trawls were collected. Preliminary findings of both expeditions were summarized in Pakhomov et al. (2019) and Somov et al. (2020). Here the major emphasis is given to the inter-comparison of the winter oceanographic conditions in 2019 and 2020 in the Gulf of Alaska.

*This is the first paragraph of an extended abstract. Download the full abstract below.

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.23849/npafctr18/20.24.

Citation

Pakhomov, E.A., A. Figurkin, B.P.V. Hunt, A. Somov, N. Mahara, and International Team 2019–2020.  2022.  Oceanographic conditions during the Gulf of Alaska 2019 and 2020 Expeditions.  N. Pac. Anadr. Fish Comm. Tech. Rep. 18: 20–24.  https://doi.org/10.23849/npafctr18/20.24.