“Soundings” Science from the bering sea:

A series of 12 podcasts documenting the science from the North Pacific Research Board’s 7-year study of the Bering Sea ecosystem.

The Bering Sea Research Project is a partnership between the North Pacific Research Board and the National Science Foundation that seeks to understand the impacts of climate change and dynamic sea ice cover on the eastern Bering Sea ecosystem.

Producer Elizabeth Arnold was commissioned to create “SOUNDINGS,” short-form audio stories and podcasts featured on National Public Radio. The series provides a basic understanding of research by more than a hundred scientists engaged in field studies and ecosystem modeling. Their collaborative work links climate, physical oceanography, plankton, fish, seabirds, marine mammals, humans, traditional knowledge, and economic outcomes, in an effort to understand the mechanisms that sustain this highly productive region.

WALRUS:

Scientists radio-tagged and tracked the movements of Pacific walrus that spend winter and spring in the Bering Sea where they breed and calve. As sea ice receded into deeper water, due to a warming climate, walrus lost their platforms and began hauling out in huge numbers on land. Researchers are trying to find the tipping point , when walrus energy stores might become too depleted and begin to affect mortality.

*“We do science to be able to predict, and the real value of it is so that we can make better management decisions in the future.”*
*Chad Jay, USGS Research Ecologist*

Subsistence:

Scientists studied five Indigienous Alaskan coastal communities over 7 years, interviewing elders and using household surveys of the subsistence harvest of marine mammals, fish, birds, and plants. They compared the results at the northernmost and southernmost points of the ice edge and found some surprising results.

*“You have to be able to find a way forward. It takes a certain amount of imagination. It’s going to take a lot of learning and observing to adapt down the road.”*
George Noongwook, Savoonga Whaling Captain

Seabirds:

Radio tagging Black- legged Kittiwakes and Thick-billed Murres as they searched for prey and fed their young on the Pribiliof Islands led researchers to question how climate change was affecting chick survival.

*“We’ve been studying the birds for decades. We’ve always waved our arms and thought the changes just had to do with what was going on in the food web.”*
Heather Renner, Biologist, Maritime National Wildlife Refuge

Young Pollock:

Researchers used plankton nets to examine Walleye Pollock eggs and larvae from the Bering Sea. Pollock is a two-billion-dollar commercial fishing industry in Alaska and scientists wanted to know how young pollock might be affected by ocean temperature changes. The initial hypothesis was that cold conditions would not be conducive to mortality. But that was not the case.

“Surprisingly, what we found was that in cold conditions the prey base is lipid-rich and while these fish grow slowly they are packing on a lot of fat, not just growing long, and so they are better able to survive the winter.”
Janet Duffy Anderson - NOAA Marine Scientist

ICE ALGAE:

Rolf Gradinger and his team study marine polar ecology and have been drilling and measuring core samples of the sea ice all across the Eastern Bering Sea. They are trying to determine what might happen to ice algae, a critical component of the benthic system, and the basis of food for everything from clams to walruses, as the sea ice melts faster.

“The sea ice itself is one of the habitats that is changing at the fastest rate in the Arctic…what does that mean to the biology here?” And if we don’t know what the biology is within the ice we can’t address that question.”
Rolf Grandinger - Sea Ice Scientist University of Alaska Fairbanks

moorings:

For 20 years NOAA scientists have tracked physical and biological information from moorings anchored to the ocean floor that make hourly measurements on a year-round basis. As part of the Bering Sea study researchers used these measurements to determine how climate may impact the Bering Sea over time.

*“That’s one of the biggest things that came out of the Bering Sea study, there is a huge difference between the North and South of the Bering Sea and it is forced by physical mechanisms.”*
Phylis Stabeno - Oceanographer NOAA

calorie sheds

Coastal residents along the Bering Sea gather and hunt subsistence foods close to home, but researchers expanded that range and created the concept of “calorie sheds” to study how the larger Bering Sea ecosystem, and what occurs thousands of miles away, plays an important role in what foods residents may be able to harvest as the climate changes.

“When you put it on a map it’s quite stark. If you are thinking about this in terms of food security, potentially anything that occurs in any of those waters can have an effect on what’s on your plate.”
Henry Huntington - Social Scientist Ocean Conservancy

ice matters

The entire 7-year Bering Sea study is supported by a huge floating laboratory, the icebreaker “Healy.” The massive shelf of sea ice it backs and rams through is one of the key elements of the research. Scientists are looking at how weather and climate affects the zooplankton that is found on the underside of the sea ice, and the repercussions of warming temperatures.

*“It’s the presence or absence of sea ice in the Southern Bering Sea that structures the productivity and what animals are going to be able to survive in the future.”*
Jeff Napp - Biological/Fisheries Oceanographer NOAA

modeling

Part of the Bering Sea study involves a vast mathematical effort based on physical oceanography to understand the potential impacts of climate change. Researchers created a dynamic supercomputer model of every aspect of the Bering Sea from currents, temperatures, and chemical properties, to biology and economics with data points every 10 kilometers from the sea floor to the sea ice surface.

*“One of the main things I want to find out is how fast this is going to happen, not the endpoint, but how fast we are going to get there.”*
Nick Bond - Climatologist NOAA

FISHERIES

Half of the fish caught by US commerical fisherman are harvested from the Bering Sea. As part of the Bering Sea study, a team of fisheries economists examined the fishing industry and analyzed how climate change might impact seafood harvesting over time. The results were not as predicted.

“It’s always surprising to see the many ways that fishermen adapt. They like fish and they like money as well as fish, but it’s more expensive to go a long way.”
Alan Hainey - Fisheries Economist NOAA

patch dynamics

In the Bering Sea study, the Pribilof Islands served as a giant laboratory for researchers looking at the impacts of a warming climate on marine mammals and seabirds. Scientists closely followed two species of sea birds and fur seals and compared their health with the same species 150 miles south on Bogoslav Island where a more energy-rich diet translated into more reproductive success.

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“The fur seals and seabirds on the Pribilofs have gone through an incredible decline and we don’t understand it. The only way we are going to figure it out is to get on their backs as they head into the sea.”
Andrew Trites - Director Marine Mammal Research UBC

collaboration

One of the benefits of the Bering Sea study cited by participating scientists was the benefit of shared research. Seabird and marine mammal biologists, climatologists, economists, oceanographers, social scientists, and others all gathered often over the seven-year study to discuss winners and losers, what the long-term consequences of a warming climate might be in terms of productivity and eventual predator prey relationships.

*“The big thing I learned out of the Bering Sea Study is that everything is more complicated in this ecosystem than any of us think it is.”*
Phyllis Stabeno - Physical Oceanographer NOAA

“ENCOUNTERS NORTH” Long-form podcasts

The Encounters series brings the science of the North to the radio through long-form, sound-rich audio stories. Elizabeth Arnold was commissioned to produce 10 narrative podcasts from the Russian and Alaskan Arctic as part of a ten-year collection of over 100 award-winning National Public Radio Encounters episodes.