According to the report studied by scientists says that climate warming in the Bering Sea caused major migration of fish species such as Pacific cod and walleye pollock would move north toward the Bering Strait and into the Arctic Ocean. The report also states that a pool of cold water in the northern Bering Sea has been a locked door to the northward migration of pollock and cod, the fish harvested for America’s fish sticks and fast food sandwiches.
Mike Sigler of Juneau, a marine biologist with the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, part of NOAA, said that their original hypothesis was wrong, as they think they won’t have habitat to occupy northward in the northern Bering Sea. Water along the ocean floor where pollock live has been kept cold by the layer of sea ice that forms every winter on the surface of the northern Bering Sea.
Physical oceanographer Phyllis Stabeno of NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, said that that layer of ice persist even with climate warming. Cold water sets up below the ice layer and remains cold throughout the summer. Commercial fishermen in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands this year were allowed to catch 1.27 million metric tons (2.8 billion pounds) of pollock, and nearly 228,000 metric tons (510 million pounds) of Pacific cod.
Scientists said that fish species would move north for the coldness. And that would have complicated matters for the commercial fishing fleet, increasing calls for a Coast Guard base, a deep water port and other infrastructure in northwest Alaska, which has remained remote because it’s covered by ice so much of the year. The northern Bering Sea is hemmed in by Russia on the west and Alaska on the east likely contributing to colder water.
