amount of low-salinity water along the coast, especially north of Pt. Hope, was observed 

 between the two series. Little change was observed at the 80-foot level except a 

 slight salinity decrease very near the coast. 



In the Kotzebue Sound region the warmer low-salinity Alaskan Coastal Water can 

 easily be followed flowing around the Sound parallel to and near the coastline. However, 

 as the distance from the shore is increased the temperature and salinity patterns dis- 

 sociate, a phenomenon not observed in the shallow Bering Sea. The surface temperature 

 west from Kotzebue Sound decreases continuously to the westward while the salinity 

 increases until it reaches a maximum of about 31.50 °/oo an d tnen decreases sharply 

 to less than 30.00 °/oo- The latter salinity occurs directly north of the Bering Strait 

 and is caused by the cold Siberian Coastal Water which flows southeastward along 

 the Siberian Coast but is turned northward near East Cape by the strong flow through 

 the Strait. This turning point must fluctuate with the strength of the flow along the 

 Siberian Coast and would account for the rare observations of a southerly current 

 at Cape Deshneva. At the 80-foot level, both the horizontal temperature and salinity 

 gradients are more pronounced than at the surface. The salinity distribution, in par- 

 ticular, shows that the shelf waters persist over the greater part of the shelf at the 

 bottom even in late summer. Thus, large seasonal variations occur only very near 

 the coast and in the surface waters. 



Figure 1 1 (foldout) presents schematically the distribution of the water masses 

 along a section extending from Shishmaref Inlet (C) to the northwest into the central 

 part of Kotzebue Sound (C) and back northeastward to Pt. Hope (C"). Alaskan 

 Coastal Water extends at the surface some 40 miles seaward near Shishmaref Inlet. 

 A large region of Intermediate Water is associated with the maximum salinity in 

 the surface distribution, and the Siberian Coastal Water intrudes as a shallow layer 

 in the western apex of the section. Modified Shelf Water occupies most of the deeper 

 region. 



The second part of the section (C to C") northeastward to Pt. Hope shows 

 that the Alaskan Coastal Water is concentrated within less than 10 miles of the coast 

 and the zone of the Intermediate Water tends to be narrower than in the first part. 

 Both the Siberian Coastal Water and the Modified Shelf Water water masses intrude 

 much closer to Pt. Hope than to Shishmaref Inlet. It will be recalled that a similar tendency 

 for the Intermediate Water zone to become narrow on the south side of a point of 

 land was observed in the section running southwestward from Cape Prince of Wales 

 (fig. 9). 



Figure 12 (foldout) presents schematically the distribution of the water masses 

 along a section northwestward from near Cape Lisburne. The Alaskan Coastal Water 

 occupies an extensive region at the surface. The Intermediate Water is associated 

 with a weak salinity maximum at the surface and beneath it lies Modified Shelf Water. 

 At the seaward limit of the section Modified Ice Melt appears as a shallow surface layer. 

 This location suggests that the boundary of the ice lies southwestward from station 90, 

 although the boundary of the ice may have moved south in the two weeks since the 

 ice was actually reached at station 90. 



Figure 13 (foldout) shows the distribution of the water masses from Cape 

 Lisburne northward to 73° N where the ice pack was encountered on this survey. The 

 sections in this figure were taken following a period of high southerly winds, Beaufort 

 force 5 to 7, and while the winds still remained at about force 4. The drift ice had 

 moved northward with the wind and very little ice was encountered prior to reaching 

 the definite boundary of closely packed drift ice into which the wooden-hulled vessel 

 could not penetrate. 



16 



