Gulf Of Alaska

Gulf of Alaska, broad inlet of the North Pacific on the south coast of Alaska, U.S. Bounded by the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island (west)
and Cape Spencer (east), it has a surface area of 592,000 square miles (1,533,000 square km).

The coast is deeply indented by fjords and other inlets, including Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound (on either side of the Kenai Peninsula). Tides are semidiurnal, reaching 12 m, and mixed, reaching 6.8 m. The chief ports are Seward in Alaska and Prince Rupert in Canada. The Russian geographer F. P. Litke established the first marine observatory in the Pacific Ocean in 1840 on Baranof Island in the Gulf of Alaska.

There is a fishing industry. The Gulf of Alaska is famous for having two kinds of water – Natural blue water and heavy sediment-laden water from the side of Glacier Bay. The cool blue water tries to merge with the dark slate-blue waters. Rivers of Alaska carry with them huge quantities of sediments.

They empty themselves in the gulf that carries all the heavy clay and sediment. The Gulf of Alaska is also said to have ocean water that meets underwater and not above. Horizontal stratification of water is very common but here we see a vertical stratification.

Thanks to Gulf Stream, while the Okhotsk Sea was "closed by ice in winter", just 10° further north, the "Gulf of Alaska was ice-free throughout the year". In 1977, the Gulf of Alaska started to manifest an unexpected and at that time inexplicable shift on its normal climate regime, resulting in a growth of the mean temperature of the sea surface and increased availability and variety of commercial fish species. A similar volatile climate change was observed during the 1970s in the North Pacific seas.