Qualitative Analysis

Saint Lawrence Island is situated in what amounts to a high energy region. It stands just short of Bering Strait, the gateway from the Pacific into the Arctic. Winds over Saint Lawrence Island in general, and over Gambell in particular, are as strong as winds anywhere over the Bering Sea, exceeded only by those winds in the Aleutians (National Weather Service, 1945 et. seq.) Energy exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere reaches high levels in the winter. During major storms in the Bering Sea, combined seas often build to 6 m or more.

The heavy seas so generated in the southern Bering Sea undergo the normal dispersion in the deep waters above the Aleutian Abyssal Plain. Most of the energy comes with the longest waves, those first to arrive at the edge of the pack ice. The edge of the Bering Sea pack ice gravitates toward the edge of the continental shelf as the ice reaches its maximum extent in late winter (Webster, 1981.)

Thus, the deep, ice free portion of the Bering Sea acts to filter out the slower, lower energy waves and swell and to let through the longer wavelength sea and swell which carry more energy. Once over the continental shelf, these waves change character from deep water, dispersive waves to shallow water, non-dispersive waves which can move rapidly northeastward through the Bering.

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