Physical oceanographic data in the Gulf of Alaska/Shelikof Strait, September 2001

Fisheries-Oceanography Coordinated Investigations (FOCI) is an effort by NOAA and associated academic scientists. At present, FOCI consists of a Shelikof Strait (western Gulf of Alaska) walleye pollock project, and a NOAA Coastal Ocean Program project: Southeast Bering Sea Carrying Capacity. FOCI also supports associated projects, such as the Arctic Research Initiative, U.S. GLOBEC and North Pacific Marine Research Program, that address scientific issues related to FOCI's mission. FOCI's goal is to understand the effects of abiotic and biotic variability on ecosystems of the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea in order to discern the physical and biological processes that determine recruitment variability of commercially valuable finfish and shellfish stocks in Alaskan waters. The late-summer FOCI cruise is designed to address biological and methodological questions regarding age-0 walleye pollock in the western Gulf of Alaska. The primary cruise objective is to map age-0 pollock density over an area of high environmental heterogeneity, and to relate variations in fish density with environmental variability to provide some insight regarding pollock nursery suitability. Preliminary findings indicate that age-0 pollock are best sampled in the midwater at night. Therefore, to accomplish the primary objective, nighttime samples of age-0 pollock, their prey, temperature, and salinity will be collected at 39 "grid" stations between Shelikof Strait and the Shumagin Islands (Figure 1, Table 1). These stations, many of which were sampled during September 2000, are situated along ten acoustic transects and form a grid from nearshore to the outer shelf. Transits between stations will emphasize the collection of acoustic data along these transects; acoustic data will be collected continuously throughout the cruise.