EXCO Minutes March 7, 1997
Below are minutes from the recent ExCo meeting.
David Mountain
March 7, 1997
GLOBEC Georges Bank Executive Committee Meeting
A meeting of the Georges Bank Executive Committee was held on March 7,
1997 in the Smith Building conference room at WHOI. In attendance were
Peter Wiebe (Chair), Greg Lough, Ted Durbin, Bob Beardsley, Jim Bisagni,
and David Mountain. Bob Groman and Donna Busch also attended as guests.
Phase III AO:
Peter Wiebe reviewed recent activities to develop a draft Announcement
of Opportunity for Phase III of the Georges Bank program. Last December
Greg Lough, David Mountain and Peter met at Dartmouth College with Dan
Lynch and his co-workers to develop an outline for the AO and to begin
writing sections of it. The research issues identified at Dartmouth
were:
1a. cross-frontal exchange of Physics and Biology
1b. abundance and distribution of target species
1c. interactive modeling at sea
2a. assimilative hindcasting and forecasting modeling
2b. synthesis of phase I and Phase II data sets
3a. comparative regional studies
3b. integrated study of Scotian Shelf, Gulf of Maine and Georges
Bank
4. Development of indices of ecosystem status
Assignments were made for preparing a draft section for each of these
issues. Peter took the draft sections and substituted them into the
recent California Current AO framework to see how our AO would look.
This draft AO was handed out at the ExCo meeting and discussed.
First it was pointed out that these issues are not separate topics, and
the AO should convey the need to have integration between them. The
choice of the words Cross frontal exchange in section 1a was
discussed. Lack of exchange and secondary circulation associated with
fronts are also of interest. The general interest is in frontal
processes and their implications for the biology. Peter pointed out
that the choice of frontal exchange had resulted from considerable
discussion. The draft section could be rewritten to more clearly state
the overall interest within the context of frontal exchange . Other
short time scale processes, not included in the original Implementation
Plan, have been observed in Phase I and II (e.g, internal waves and
secondary circulation cells) and the AO might identify these as possible
areas for investigation.
The AO should make clear that the interactive modeling at sea should to
be part of the process work, not for modeling in and of itself. This
section of the AO has not yet been written.
The question was raised whether anything specific should be said in the
AO about a final data archive and the data management office? The
consensus was no.
The question was raised whether support for analysis of Phase I and
Phase II data should be included, since most PI were funded for three
years - which should cover analysis. It was generally felt that to get
real synthesis between disciplines some funding specifically for
synthesis will be needed. However the wording in the AO should not be
explicitly limit the pathway for synthesis to be only through modeling.
To revise the draft AO, Peter asked the committee to look over section A
on page 3. Under Research Approach - Peter will revise the introduction
- with any comments he receives. For section 1a, Bob Beardsley will
consider adding more physics and pass his comments on to David Mountain
to revise. Under 1b, Ted Durbin will look it over and revise. For 1c,
Peter will pass it to Dale Haidvogel and Dennis McGillicuddy for input
and revision. Bob Beardsley will review section 2b on Synthesis Phase I
and II. Peter asked all of the committee to look over section 3a
(Comparative Regional Studies) and 3b (Integrated Study of Scotian
Shelf, Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank). Peter will revise section 4
(Development of Indices), with input from Donna Busch,
who will follow up with Ken Sherman on his efforts to identify ecosystem
indices. Bob Groman will rewrite the references to data policy in the
AO. If all revisions can be sent to Peter by Wednesday (March 12), a
revised draft of the AO will be sent to GBSI for comment.
Steering Committee meeting in April:
The next GLOBEC Steering Committee meeting is April 9-11. A committee
has been established by the SSC to review the Georges Bank program. Its
members are J. Knauss, E. Houde, K. Denman and B. Frost and they will be
at the SSC meeting. A series of presentations describing the Georges
Bank program have been scheduled for the first day of the meeting, with
tentative speakers being Wiebe (overview), Beardsley & Mountain
(physics) and Haidvogel & Lynch (modeling). An additional speaker may
be needed to more specifically address the biology in the program. Mike
Fogarty is also scheduled to speak on plankton and fisheries, but it is
not clear if he will address only the COP predator/prey work or also
include the GLOBEC investigations. One topic of particular interest for
the SSC and the review committee will be: what new things have been
learned? Request will be sent to GGBALL to have the SI s identify and
briefly describe any new things to highlight.
The speakers identified will begin preparing their talks and overheads.
These talks will need to be coordinated and integrated to insure a good
and complete picture is presented. A dry run of the talks will be done
at the next ExCo meeting, scheduled for April 4.
Cruise Activities:
Two of the broad scale moorings had problems and were pulled last
December. They were re-deployed on February Broad Scale cruise. That
cruise also picked up a Schlitz mooring that had broken loose. That
mooring was re-deployed on the SEA SOAR cruise, currently at sea.
The protocol to log start and end times of all operations in the Event
Log was restated, as was the need to log aborted tows only if some
samples kept. If no samples are kept, then the aborted tow is indicated
only as comment in the entry for the good tow.
It was felt that the protocol for Reeve net sampling on Broad-Scale
cruises needs to be revisited. As presently written, it calls for
visual observation of the sample in the cod-end. The question was
raised whether, in the absence of a person from the Madin group,
consistent qualitative observations could be made (and if so, by whom)?
On the February cruise the large (2m) net caused some problems on
deployment and recovery because of its large sail area when the winds
were high. Peter will revisit this with Larry Madin.
Ship Schedule for 1998:
The ship requirements for 1998 need to be identified soon. The required
cruises are for 6 Broad-Scale surveys (January - June), three mooring
cruises (one in the spring and two in the fall) and two fall cruises for
Chuck Greene. The request for ALBATROSS IV time in FY98 has already been
made and identified 14 day cruises in Oct/Nov (1997), Jan, May and June
(1998).
Data Management Issues:
Bob Groman reviewed data management issues. There is a lot of missing
of data - event logs, along track data, physics from MOCNESS tows. Chip
will be contacting appropriate parties. Bob will be trying to get
ship s data when it gets to the dock, which may reduce problems in the
future. He is starting a data inventory, to identify data expected be
in the database. He may send a letter to chief scientists to have them
identify samples collected that would not be evident from the event log
- e.g., when more than one PI takes samples from MOC net, the event log
won t capture that more than one data set is being generated. The
inventory will indicate what has been collected, what is online, what is
in final form, and what has been archived.
Biological data are getting in to the system. Data from Durbin and from
Madin are on-line in preliminary form. The date needs to be added to
Madin s and location and data to Durbin s. Bob will be adding these
parameters soon.
A new release of the JGOFS software is coming. Version 1.5 will have a
new look to directory page with more on-line help. Faster plotting and
data display will also be included, as will support for clickable links
within data comments (i.e., to other URL s).
Subsequent enhancements have also been proposed. For the JGOFS system
at large these are: improved analysis and display; improved interface to
data options and data manipulation; support for local to utc time
conversion; support for objects of objects; and data decimation
options. Additional proposed local enhancements to our system are:
access to data via the data inventory; query searches against inventory
and/or on-line documentation; and an SQL method.
Data sets currently being served will not need to be changed to be
used/accessed with these enhancements.
Laboratory and process-oriented data is more difficult to get on-line,
since it is not generally in the event logs from cruises and not the
same format or type of data as many of the distribution/abundance type
data sets. Some work in this area needs to be done.
SI Meeting in July:
This meeting (July 21-23) will be a show-and-tell format for all SI s.
The Program Managers and GLOBEC Review Committee likely will be there.
It was felt that Clark 507 is best facility for this type of meeting. It
was decided that the July meeting will be in Woods Hole. An agenda for
the meeting will need to be developed soon. Meeting rooms at WHOI and a
block of rooms in a couple of local motel are being held for meeting
participants coming from out of town.
Other Business:
The upcoming meetings in Baltimore (September 25 to October 3)
associated with ICES and next year s ASLO/AGU Ocean Science meeting (in
February 1998) were discussed. Peter pointed out the differences
between the meetings in relation to our program. It was recommended
that he send a paragraph to the SI s highlighting the differences. ICES
is more international and will have representation from Europe. It
should be a good forum for regional inter-comparisons and an opportunity
to communicate directly with GLOBEC investigators working in the eastern
Atlantic. The ASLO meeting will be the next chance for a focused and
integrated presentation of the results from the entire Georges Bank
program. Both the ICES and ASLO meetings could be a good opportunity
for putting together another volume (or two) of papers.
All investigators are reminded that when submitting a paper for
publication, get a GLOBEC contribution number from Batchelder; and that
titles and abstracts of papers, talks, etc. should be sent to Chip.