Gulf of Alaska | Climate and Oceanography
Southeast Alaska Trolling Vessel Ocean Measurement Program Presenter: Tyler Hennon , tdhennon@alaska.edu, University of Alaska Fairbanks Sunny Rice , sunny.rice@alaska.edu, Alaska Sea Grant James Moore , aljac47@yahoo.com, Alaska Trollers Association Dana Bloch , dbloch@alaska.edu, UAF-CFOS
Throughout Southeast Alaska, coastal communities depend on commercial and subsistence fisheries for their livelihood. Despite this reliance on the local marine environment, historical oceanographic measurements in much of Southeast Alaska are either limited to the surface or are relatively sparse and irregular, with most effort going to short-term focused studies. We have initiated an observation program aimed at establishing regular, long term measurements at a number of key sites distributed from the outer waters near Sitka to the inner waters near Petersburg. The program is community-led, where conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) instruments are provided to members of the Alaska Trollers Association (ATA), who use the CTDs to collect vertical profiles of temperature and salinity extending up to 200 m depth. Measurements began in August, 2022, and we have begun to characterize the seasonal thermohaline evolution in time and depth. Continued observations will allow us to assess the annual cycle (and anomalies from the baseline), the existence of any long term trends, and spatial heterogeneity. This project can serve as a proof-of-concept for further collaboration among researchers and the ATA, including through the upcoming Alaska Trollers Electronic Logbook Project.
Alaska Marine Science Symposium 2023 108
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker