Bering Slope Current
The Bering Slope Current is a current that flows from southeast to northwest along the northeast continental slope of the Aleutian Basin of the Bering Sea, parallel to the continental slope of the eastern Bering Sea shelf.
The arrows with large heads represent currents with mean speeds >50 cm/s. The Alaskan Stream, Aleutian North Slope Current (ANSC), Bering Slope Current (BSC) and Kamchatka Current are indicated. Depth contours indicate 1000 m isobath and in the Bering Sea the 200 m isobath. Source: NOAA According to Johnson et al. [2004]:
Water property distributions, direct velocity measurements at the 1000-dbar float park pressure, and geostrophic transport estimates relative to near that park pressure all reveal robust signatures of the Bering Slope Current. The mean along-slope velocity estimates made at 1000 dbar from direct measurements within the current region yield an along-slope transport of 3.0 (+/-0.9) Sv when applied uniformly in the vertical to the upper 1900 dbar from the 1000-m isobath to 120 km offshore of that isobath. This value can be combined with the geostrophic transport estimates relative to 990 dbar, between the surface and 990 dbar and between 990 and 1900 dbar. The result is an absolute geostrophic estimate of the current transport, 5.8 (+/-1.7) Sv above 1900 dbar and offshore of the 1000-m isobath.
| This article is written at a definitional level only. Authors wishing to expand this entry are inivited to expand the present treatment, which additions will be peer reviewed prior to publication of any expansion. |
Further Reading
- Seas of the world on Encyclopedia of Earth
- T. H. Kinder, L. K. Coachman, and J. A. Galt. The Bering Slope Current system. JPO, 5:231–244, 1975.
- Gregory C. Johnson, Phyllis J. Stabeno, and Stephen C. Riser. The Bering Slope Current system revisited. JPO, 34:384–398, 2004.
