Boris Sirenko of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Sergey Yarosh of the Russian Federal Service For Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring haul in a benthic trawl during the 2004 RUSALCA mission. In the background is Russia's Big Diomede Island, which is situated in the Bering Strait and is separated by only 2.5 miles from America's Little Diomede Island. Credit: NOAA.
Click image to view a slide show.
Russian-U.S. Arctic Census 2009
November 2 - November 30, 2009
(Expedition dates: August 22 - September 30, 2009)
The RUSALCA mission set sail from Nome, Alaska on the Russian Research Vessel Professor Khromov on August 22, for a 40-day voyage into the Bering Strait and northwards to the Pacific side of the Arctic Ocean. RUSALCA stands for Russian-American Long Term Census of the Arctic, and also means mermaid in Russian.
This mission is possible because NOAA and the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding for World Ocean and Polar Regions Studies in 2003. From July 23 to September 6, 2004, the initial collaborative expedition studied the Bering and Chukchi Seas. The area is thought to be particularly sensitive to global climate change because steep temperature, salinity and nutrient gradients in the ocean meet equally steep temperature gradients in the atmosphere. The Bering Strait acts as the only Pacific gateway into and out of the Arctic Ocean and as such is critical for the flux of heat between the Arctic and the rest of the world. Monitoring the flux of fresh and salt water as well as establishing benchmark information about the distribution and migration patterns of the life in these seas are also critical pieces of information needed prior to the placement of a climate-monitoring network in this region. Arctic scientists are continuously finding new, interesting, and sometimes even alarming information about changes in the sea ice over time.
The ice in the Chukchi Sea sometimes resembled hills. Click image for larger view and image credit.
Russ Hopcroft of University of Alaska, Fairbanks displays one of the larger and more festive starfish brought up in a benthic trawl. Click image for larger view and image credit.
The 2009 expedition consists of two legs. On the first leg, from August 22 to August 31, scientists will replace eight mooring buoys – the complete mooring chain across the Bering Strait from the USA to the Russian Federation. Data from this mooring array have revealed that water pouring in the Arctic from the Pacific is warming and freshening, and that it is likely contributing to the diminishment of sea ice cover on the Pacific Side of the Arctic Ocean. Partners in this Arctic Gateway flux program include NOAA, National Science Foundation, RAS, Roshydromet and the Russian Federation Hydrographic Services.
The second leg will carry a team of about 50 scientists from the U.S., Russia, and South Korea. On the second leg, scientists will track multiple environmental parameters, including seafloor flux of methane from thawing sub-sea permafrost, ocean currents, nutrient pathways, and changes in the benthic (bottom) and water-column ecosystems.
A small urchin collected in benthic trawls. Click image for larger view and image credit.
A pile of starfish (species Ctenodiscus crispatus) from a benthic trawl. Image courtesy Bodil Bluhm, University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Click image for larger view and image credit.
Russian scientists participating in RUSALCA come from many institutions, including the Zoological Institute, VNIIOkeangeololgia, Roshydromet, the Shirshov Institute, the Institute of Microbiology, and the Pacific Oceanological Institute in Russia. U.S. scientists participating come from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, The University of Maryland, The University of Washington, Pt. Stephens Laboratory, and the Bermuda Institute for Ocean Science. The Korean scientists aboard hail from the Korean Polar Institute.
RUSALCA is managed by NOAA’s Arctic Research Program with contribution from Ocean Exploration and Research, and in Russia by Group Alliance.
Additional Information
Click here 
for more information on previous RUSALCA activities.
Click here for a list of blog posts by Reuters reporter Jeffrey Jones, who is onboard the first leg of the 2009 RUSALCA expedition.
Click here 
to read a blog by Betty Carvellas, who is working with Jackie Grebmeier of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences and is aboard the expedition.
(Note: By following some of the links found on these pages, you will leave the U.S. Government's NOAA Ocean Explorer Web site.)
You can access the Ocean Explorer Russian-U.S. Arctic Census 2009 News Feed here: 
Updates & Logs
Click images or links below for detailed mission logs and updates.
September 30 Log RUSALCA is an excellent example of how working together across borders leads to far greater scientific outcomes than either one of our countries could have achieved by themselves.
September 29 Log Phytoplankton is a very important basic food source in the marine ecosystem. In recent years, many different environmental conditions that affect phytoplankton growth have changed in the Arctic Ocean.
September 28 Log It's cold and windy, a typical night in the Chukchi Sea. We are on the back corner of the deck hauling our elaborate “butterfly net” in by hand, anxious to see what tiny creatures – known as zooplankton – that it has swept from the ocean’s depths.
September 27 Log Several things almost certainly occur over the course of a long cruise. A moment comes when things are going so poorly that you ask yourself, “Why do I keep coming out to sea and doing this to myself?”
September 25 Log Why go to the cold Arctic when you live in warm and sunny Bermuda? To study CO2, of course!
September 24 Log “Nyet fish!” says Nikolai, as we sift through our living treasures freshly brought up from the muddy depths. Actually, there are quite a few small fish mixed in with our haul, but their numbers are overwhelmed by the mound of other critters we have retrieved. 
September 21 Log Lucky 13: the only sighting of bowhead whales on the RUSALCA cruise so far occurred the morning of 13 September, the 11th day of the mission.
September 18 Log On the map of proposed stations for the RUSALCA expedition, six sites sit near 75 and 76 degrees north – far north of the other sites. Early this week, satellite maps revealed that the ice had been blown north of these sites, allowing a rare chance to visit them.
September 15 Log Scientists’ gear and methodologies have been previously tested and proven. Access to Russian waters in the EastSiberian Sea and Chukchi Sea is something these scientists value highly and take seriously. So what is going wrong?
September 14 Log The sampling stations for the RUSALCA expeditions have been planned and precisely pinpointed in advance, but which ones we actually get to is another question entirely – all because of the ice.
September 11 Log Aleksey Ostrovskiy, Representative of Group Alliance, the coordinator of the Russian side of RUSALCA, describes his role in Russian-American RUSALCA project.
September 10 Log For over a day, we have been plowing through what’s estimated to be 6-8 foot swell in the Chukchi Sea. Heading into it has meant the ship has cut its speed to about 6 knots (nautical miles per hour). It has also meant that a number of people have felt the effects of seasickness.
September 9 Log You're going to sea in the Arctic for 30 days: what to pack? It’s an interesting problem to know you need enough stuff for a month away from home, while also knowing your space onboard will be very limited.
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