An Assessment of Seasonal Forecasts for the Bering Sea Cold Pool

The formation of seasonal sea ice in the Bering Sea leaves behind a footprint of cold, dense bottom water that persists through the early summer months. This "cold pool" is associated with high nutrient concentrations and productivity, and can influence the spatial distribution and recruitment of higher trophic level species, including key commercial target species. Because the cold pool has a noted biological relationship with groundfish and crab recruitment, a skillful forecast of its summer extent could be used alongside other indicators during the fall management process for determining appropriately-precautionary quotas that take into account anticipated biological production the following summer. Here, we assess whether a skillful forecast of summer cold pool extent is possible for this region, using a series of seasonal (1- to 9-month) retrospective forecasts from the North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME), dowscaled via a regional ocean model.