University researchers to take part in six-year $50 million study

11/02/07 - Two University of Rhode Island researchers have recently been awarded $1.1 million in grants to study the ramifications of global warming in the Bering and Arctic Seas.These grants, five in total, have been awarded to professor of oceanography Bradley Moran, and associate marine research assistant Robert Campbell. Both work with the URI Graduate School of Oceanography.

These grants come from a new partnership between the North Pacific Research Board and the National Science Foundation as part of a much larger $50 million program of study entitled the Bering Sea Integrated Ecosystem Research Program. BSIERP, according to its Web site, is aimed to "determine how the eastern Bering Sea shelf - the area between the Aleutien Islands and St. Lawrence Island, Alaska - will respond to climate change."

The Web site also said that Moran and Campbell will be working with over 80 scientists from universities worldwide, including the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences, University of Miami, University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Oregon State University, and the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth.

The project focuses on "understanding the key processes regulating the production, distribution and abundance of marine organisms in the Bering Sea."

Located between Alaska and Russia, the Bering Sea and the Arctic Sea are home to some of the world's most important fisheries. NPRB and NSF have focused their attention on it because of the fame surrounding the areas.

"Warmer water temperatures in the Bering Sea in spring due to climate warming could result in an earlier and more rapid seasonal ice retreat, with potentially harmful effects on one of the world's richest and more productive fisheries," Campbell said in a an Oct. 23 URI press release.

The BSIERP is set to begin in spring 2007 and last until 2012 when the results of the research are set to be released. They will be at sea for 70 days each spring and summer for the next three years conducting their investigation.

Moran and Campbell were selected to receive the five grants after answering the NPRB and NSF's open request for applications.

"We're going to measure prior production, that is phytoplankton production, phytoplankton community structure, and the export of carbon . to learn how those parameters change with changing sea ice condition," Moran said regarding the planned research in the Bering Sea.

The URI news release also outlined the second half of the research to be done in the Arctic Ocean. The NSF Shelf Interaction Study has been accumulating data on the Arctic Ocean for the past decade. Moran will use this data to construct biological-physical models to help determine "climate warming scenarios."

URI will also use the grants to host an international workshop on the carbon cycle of the Arctic Sea. The workshop is slotted for sometime in the 2008-2009 academic year.

"[The workshop] will bring together scientists," Moran said, adding that the workshop will be open to both domestic and international scientists.