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Lynn Lauerman
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Bering Sea

The Bering Sea is a semi-enclosed sub-arctic body of water that comprises the northernmost reaches of the Pacific Ocean. Geographically, the sea is located between 52° N and 66° N and 162°E and 157°W. Bounded by Alaska, the Bering Strait, and northeastern Siberia to the north and by the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands to the south, the Bering Sea spans 2,274,000 square kilometers (877,996 square miles) with some of the most productive waters on earth.

The Bering Sea exchanges water with the Arctic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. The Alaskan Stream, the Aleutian North Slope Current, the Bering Slope Current, the Anadyr Current, and the Kamchatka Current flow through the Sea and influence its overall circulation patterns. It contains two distinct bathymetric (depth) regions: an extremely wide and relatively shallow [less than 150 meters (492 feet) deep] continental shelf [500 kilometers (311 miles) wide in SE to 800 kilometers (497 miles) wide in North] lies to the northeast and a deeper [3700 to 4000 meters (12,139 to 13,123 feet)] plain lies to the southwest. The shelf is smooth and featureless, except for the many islands and seven of the world's largest submarine canyons. Eight major sedimentary basins can be found in the Bering Sea, including Aleutian Basin, Komandorsky (Commander) Basin, Bowers Basin, Anadyr Basin, Chirikov Basin, Norton Basin, Briston Basin, and Beringian Shelf.

Ice cover also affects physical and biological processes in the Bering Sea; the ice edge retreats into the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas during the summer but can extend more than 1700 kilometers (1056 miles) over the shelf during winter.

Bathymetry, ice cover, temperature, circulation, water mixing, timing of the spring phytoplankton bloom, and other factors make the Bering Sea an extremely complex ecosystem. In studying the Bering Sea, researchers have subdivided the area into smaller distinct ecosystems, such as the eastern Bering Sea, the Aleutian Islands, the Gulf of Alaska, the Aleutian Basin, and the western Bering Sea. Others recognize seven physically and biologically distinct habitats in the Southeastern Bering Sea alone. Biological and physical characteristics differ among regions and these differences affect growth and survival of marine organisms.

The Bering Sea is one of the richest and most productive marine ecosystems on earth. It supports over 450 species of fish and shellfish, 50 species of seabirds, 25 species of marine mammals, and the world's largest eelgrass beds. The ecosystem, which had long supported the indigenous peoples of the region, became a mecca for large-scale commercial fishing for shellfish and fish in the early 1950s. Currently, about 25 species of fish, crustaceans, and mollusks are commercially important. Over 2000 fishing boats from the United States, Canada, Russia, Japan, Norway, China, Taiwan, Poland, and the Koreas reap an annual seafood harvest worth over $1 billion. Fifty-six percent of the United States' total annual seafood harvest comes from the Bering Sea.

Since the 1950s, researchers have documented dramatic changes in the Bering Sea ecosystem such as declines in marine mammal and seabird populations and declines and increases in fish and shellfish populations. Determining what drives huge interannual variations in physical and biological parameters, however, is a difficult task. The intensity of fishing efforts as well as natural climate-driven changes in the area have led to concerns about whether the richness and productivity of the Sea can be sustained. Some researchers fear that overfishing will lead to collapse of fisheries, as has happened in so many other locations in the world; in some areas of the Bering Sea, certain fish stocks already are depleted.