Findings and Results

 

Distinct differences in regional temperature regimes, fish distribution, and chlorophyll production have been identified between the eastern and central GOA through retrospective data analysis. In a given year the GOA is anomalously warm or cool; however a secondary pattern of differential warming and cooling was apparent in the eastern vs. central regions of the GOA with a transition zone occurring somewhere around 145°W.

A multi-year analysis on chlorophyll concentration as measured by satellites revealed 3 regions with distinctly similar production dynamics.

A faunal break in groundfish species diversity using smoothed trends in catch per unit effort from NMFS bottom trawl surveys was identified at 148°W.

Summer Catches of age-0 arrowtooth flounder, rockfish, Pacific cod, sablefish, and Pollock were low in 2011 and preliminary analyses indicate that the body sizes of both larval and juvenile fish were atypically small.

Low catches and small body sizes for fish may have been related to late bloom timing in the GOA causing a mismatch in prey availability, suitability, and overlap with young of the year marine fishes.

Drifters were released to study currents in the Gulf of Alaska in 2011. Click on the following links to watch animations of trajectories for drifters released near Cross Sound, Yakutat, and Shelikof Strait.