Last July, researchers detected high concentrations of a toxin-producing algae offshore in the Bering Strait region.

In coming decades, the ocean conditions that triggered the snow crab crash and harvest closure are expected to be common.

Researchers are predicting low fish runs in the Norton Sound and Northern Bering Sea region again next year, according to research biologist Jim Murphy.

NOAA Fisheries' summer trawl survey shows Norton Sound red king crab are moving, Arctic cod numbers have dropped significantly, and Pacific cod are continuing to increase as the Northern Bering Sea ecosystem undergoes drastic change.

The “thermal curtain” is another expression for “cold pool” that acts as a barrier to keep some species—pollock and Pacific cod, for example — from migrating across the eastern Bering Sea shelf and northward toward the Bering Strait. For the first time in 37 years of surveying the Bering Sea, we could not find the cold water barrier.