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Recent changes of the main oceanographic, chemical, and biological parameters of the Okhotsk Sea ecosystem are considered briefly for the last decades (2000–2010s), mostly on the data obtained in marine expeditions conducted by Pacific Fish. Res. Center (TINRO) annually. Since the mid-2000s, anomalous oceanographic conditions were formed there with prevailing heightened temperature in all layers of the sea and lowered ice cover caused by changes in the atmosphere circulation with northward shift of cyclones tracks in winter and weakening of winter monsoon. The ice cover was below the normal value every year since 2004. In the warmer winter conditions, producing of the high-density water on the northern shelf decreased from 3.2–7.8 . 103 km3 in 1998–2002 to 1.2 . 103 km3 on average in 2004–2015, and the water with density sq > 26.8 was not formed at all in 2007–2009, 2011, and 2014–2015. As the result, winter convection, including the slope convection, became weaker and shallower and ventilated worse the water column, so dissolved oxygen content decreased in the lower portion of the intermediate layer, usually ventilated by slope convection. For the core of the intermediate layer (isopycnal surface 27.0 σθ), positive trend of temperature is estimated as +0.04…+0.16 o/decade, by areas, while the trend of dissolved oxygen content is negative: –0.07…–0.14 mL/L.decade, by areas. From the other hand, spring phytoplankton bloom became less intensive, presumably because of poorer upward flux of nutrients in conditions of weaker vertical mixing, and zooplankton biomass decreased, particularly for phytophages. However, these changes did not cause significant response in fluctuations of stocks for the main commercial fish and crab species. The largest stock of walleye pollock had cyclic fluctuations driven mostly by intra-population regulations, the stocks of pacific herring were rather stable, and the stocks of deep-water fish species, as flounders and halibuts had a slight tendency to growth, possibly because of better conditions for reproduction. Indeed, the densest aggregations of greenland halibut shifted from the depth of 600–700 m to 500–600 m that may be caused by de-oxygenizing of the lower portion of the intermediate layer. Crabs abundance also had positive dynamics obviously because of the effect of protective measures for red king crab in the 2009–2012, though its biomass continued to grow even after restoring the commercial landings. There is concluded that recent changes in the macroecosystem of the Okhotsk Sea correspond to the conception of the sub-polar ecosystems transformation under climate warming toward decreasing of their productivity and increasing of their functioning efficiency that was proposed earlier for the Japan Sea. Thus, from position of commercial exploitation of marine biological resources, the modern reconstruction of the Okhotsk Sea ecosystem under the climate change impact could be considered as a positive process.

Habitat conditions, as qualitative and quantitative composition of aquatic vegetation and oceanographic factors, are compared for six populations of sea urchin Strongylocentrotus intermedius with different growth rate and mean size of individuals. The highest growth rate is observed in the areas between Cape Sosunov and Plitniak Bay, between Oprichnik Bay and Cape Grozny, and between Cape Lisuchenko and Kreiser Rock Island; all these areas are distinguished by high density and species diversity of macrophytes. On the contrary, the growth rate is the lowest at Cape Yuzhny where the vegetation is less abundant. All populations of slow-growing sea urchins inhabit the areas exposed to wave action that usually forms flat rocky platforms: at Cape Yuzhny, at Cape Nadezhda, and between the Yezhovaya Bay and Cape Khitrovo. However, density of sea urchin populations in these areas is higher (on average from 9.8 to 20.8 ind./m2) than in the areas with relatively high growth rate (from 0.16 to 7.20 ind./m2). Any signifcant correlation between the water temperature and mean size of sea urchins, by ages, is not detected.

Data of long-term observations on the cold intrusions in the warm intermediate layer of the Okhotsk Sea are overviewed, considering these intrusions as fresh portions of the Intermediate water of local origin. They are formed in the process of the high-density Bottom Shelf water cascading from the northwestern shelf, mainly in the submarine canyon at northwestern Sakhalin. Transport of these new-formed portions is traced in the flows of cyclonic circulation of the Okhotsk Sea waters from the area of their origin to the southern Kuril Straits, that takes from 2 to 6 years. Similar intrusions are found in the Pacific, mainly at southern Kuril Islands, where they penetrate presumably through the Vries and Bussol Straits. Year-to-year variability of the Bottom Shelf water and the new-formed Intermediate water properties are analyzed in dependence on external factors. There is determined that the volume and density of the Bottom Shelf water depend on winter severity that could be quantitatively explained by the ice cover; all these parameters decrease recently. Salinity of the new-formed Intermediate water has similar changes. Besides, tidal mixing influences on its salinity, in particularly at the Kuril Straits, so the tidal 18.6-year cycle is presented in the salinity variations. On the contrary, variations of the minimal temperature in the cold-water lenses of the fresh Intermediate water of local origin do not correlate with the changes in their production because of auto-compensatory effect for temperature in the process of its cascading to different depths. The same effect is obviously applied to dissolved oxygen, that’s why the oxygen content in the upper intermediate layer at the area of cascading is rather stable and doesn’t correlate with the ice cover changes. However, ventilation of the medium and deeper parts of the intermediate layer decreases on the background of recent lowering of the Intermediate water producing, in particularly the production of the water with σq ≥ 26.8. On a distance from the area of cascading, the tendency to deoxygenizing spreads over the whole intermediate layer of the Okhotsk Sea.

Long-term variability of the cold subsurface water (CSW) in the Okhotsk Sea is analyzed on the base of all available oceanographic data collected in March through August of 1946-2015 (total 65,742 stations). The Integral Heat Content (IHC) is calculated for each station and average annual IHC anomalies of the cold subsurface water are determined by month and by 2-degree grid. The IHC anomaly series are analyzed using the EOF analysis. Cycles with period of approximately 30 years are revealed in the variations of the subsurface layer heat content. Thus, in the 1946-1950, its temperature decreased, but it grew since 2009-2010 to 2015. The warming of CSW was also observed in the 1951-1964 and 1978-1994, while the cooling was in the 1965-1977 and 1995-2008. Based on this criterion, the CSW thermal condition in certain years is classified as «extremely cold» in 2001, as «cold» in 1949, 1950, 1951, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1966, 1967, 1969, 1973, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1999, 2000, 2010, 2012, as «normal» in 1946, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1957, 1961, 1962, 1965, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1975, 1979, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2014, as «warm» in 1948, 1956, 1964, 1968, 1974, 1981, 1984, 1987, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1997, 2015, and as «extremely warm» in 1963. Statistically significant correlation is found between changes of the CSW thermal conditions and long-term variations of atmosphere and ocean climate indices, as well as local patterns of the atmosphere-ice-ocean interaction in the Okhotsk Sea and adjacent onshore and offshore areas of Asia and the Pacific Ocean.

Spatial distribution and seasonal and interannual variability are determined for parameters of the upper mixed layer and seasonal thermocline in the western deep basin of the Bering Sea in summer and fall of 2002-2013 and compared with chlorophyll- a concentration at the sea surface. The mixed layer is formed by solar heating of the sea surface and wind mixing. Its thickness doesn’t exceed 10-15 m in summer but increases up to 25-40 m in fall. The thermocline becomes deeper from summer to fall, too, in particular its lower bound that sinks from 37 to 48 m, on average; however, its thickness decreases from 20-25 to 16-22 m and temperature and density gradients increase from 0.23-0.25 to 0.37-0.45 °C/m and from 0.032 to 0.062 units/m, respectively, that means that the thermocline becomes steadier. Tendency to cooling was observed for both layers in the last decade, the process was more visible in autumn, with a shift at the upper bound of thermocline (from the mean temperature of 9.8 °C in 2002-2006 to the mean temperature of 8.4 °C in 2007-2013) and gradual decreasing at its lower bound (from 3.3 °C in 2003 to 2.1 °C in 2013), and not so obvious in summer. Year-to-year fluctuations of salinity in summer/autumn were within the limits 32.77-33.03/32.60-32.96 psu for the upper bound of the thermocline and 32.98-33.14/33.06-33.13 psu for its lower bound and had slight negative tendency. In both seasons, the mixed layer depth has significant negative correlation with the temperature at the upper bound of the thermocline (R2 = 0.6) and the temperature at the lower bound of the thermocline correlates significantly with salinity at its both bounds (R2 > 0.4). Spring bloom of chlorophyll- a has no relationship neither with temperature in the mixed layer in April and May, nor with the rate of warming between these months. Strong fall bloom of chlorophyll- a develops if the fall cooling begins in conditions of high temperature at the sea surface (> 6 °C) that negatively depends on the mixed layer thickness, so slow cooling and delay of the fall mixing are favorable for chlorophyll- a blooming in autumn.