A five-year, $52 million study of the Bering Sea ecosystem has turned up a surprise.
Scientists had thought valuable commercial fish species such as Pacific cod and walleye pollock would move to the north Bering Sea and on into the Arctic Ocean as climate warming increased.
That conjecture is apparently premature.
Scientists now say a pool of cold water in the northern Bering Sea that forms every winter below sea ice is inhospitable for pollock and cod and is keeping them out of northern Bering Sea waters and will likely be around for at least three decades.