By Wali Rana, Alaska Public Media

A specialized plane, camera and a crew of four are in Alaska to understand the ecosystems of the Bering and Chukchi seas.

Jiaxu Zhang is a research scientist at the University of Washington, and for the last four summers she’s brought a team of researchers to Nome for the Arctic Airborne Investigations and Research project, or Arctic AIR for short.

“Arctic AIR does all sorts of research, ranging from physical oceanography to sea ice surveys to phytoplankton studies and remote sensing,” Zhang said. “And sometimes we also onboard some observers to do some marine mammal surveys.”

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