El Niño Effects on Adult Northern Fur Seals at the Pribilof Islands

Abstract

El Niño-Southern Oscillation (EN) events apparently affect the Bering Sea through their effects on the intensity and position of the Aleutian low pressure system during the northern winter (Niebauer 1988). During the 1982–83 EN event, this low was displaced farther eastward than usual which allowed cool northerly winds to prevail across the Bering Sea instead of the warm, southerly winds that lesser displacements of the low pressure system foster. It was because of these northerly winds that the strong 1982–83 EN event had little apparent effect on the Bering Sea (Niebauer 1988). The sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly in the Bering Sea peaked at +2 °C from January to April 1983, declined to +1.5 °C through March 1984, and thereafter declined to +0.5 °C (U.S. Dept. Commerce 1983).