EXCO Minutes April 5, 1997
Below are the minutes from last month's ExCo meeting. Sorry these are
late in getting out, but a broad scale cruise intervened and this
spent some time at the bottom of the electronic pile.
David
Executive Committee Meeting - April 5, 1997
The GLOBEC Northwest Atlantic/Georges Bank Executive Committee meet on
April 5 in the Smith Building conference room at WHOI. The meeting
began a 10:00 AM and was attended by committee members Peter Wiebe
(chair), Karen Wishner, Ted Durbin, Jim Bisagni, David Mountain, Bob
Beardsley and Larry Madin. Bob Groman also attended. A draft agenda
had been circulated to ggball, and no additional topics were added to
it.
Development of an A.O. for Phase III:
The first topic was the continued development of an Announcement of
Opportunity for Phase III of the program. A first draft had been sent
out to all SI's. Peter handed out a revised version of the A.O. and
comments he had received on the original version. While not many
comments were received, some common points were made. In particular,
concern was raised whether all of the topic areas in the draft A.O.
could realistically be addressed (or should be addressed) given the
funding limitations. Considerable discussion ensued by all attendees.
Conclusions included that:
The original intent was that the various topic areas identified not be
viewed as separate, but that proposed work should integrate or include
a number of these areas;
Assimilative modeling was not to be a topic, in and of itself, but a
potentially useful tool that investigators might use;
The future development of ecosystem indices should become part of
thinking during proposed work, but not separate activity for proposal;
Synthesis of Phase I and II results was still felt to be a valid topic
area, although it would be indicated that a synthesis phase of the
program would be the focus of a subsequent A.O.;
Regional studies and integrated Scotian Shelf/GOM, GB should be
identified in program goals. The regional and basin comparisons are
really a way to gain understanding of the effects of climate change.
The intent is for researchers on Georges Bank to be aware of and
interacting with researchers working on the Scotian Shelf and in
Canadian GLOBEC;
The need for continued vital rates work should be specifically
identified;
In describing the process work, the aggregation organisms associated
with frontal processes should be added;
In the description section, the Sea Technology article, which has a lot
of background information, should be cited;
The structure of the draft A.O. would be revised to follow more closely
the previously identified program areas: broad-scale, process, modeling
and retrospective analyses. Bob Beardsley and Ted Durbin broke off to
draft a revised section describing the process oriented research. Peter
and Bob Groman would take any input received and draft a final version
to be presented at the GLOBEC Scientific Steering Committee meeting in
Boulder the next week (10 April 97).
Presentations for the Scientific Steering Committee Meeting:
At the GLOBEC Scientific Steering Committee Meeting to be held in
Boulder on April 9-11, a series of presentations are scheduled to
describe the Northwest Atlantic/Georges Bank program and its progress.
The schedule of presentations was suggested as:
Peter Wiebe - overview
David Mountain - broad scale physics
Ted Durbin - zooplankton
Bob Beardsley - process physics (with some associated process
larval results)
Dale Haidvogel - modeling
Peter, David, Ted, and Bob each described and/or showed what they
intended to present in Boulder. It was agreed to meet in Boulder on
Wednesday night to review all of the presentations.
Scientific Investigators Meeting:
The next Scientific Investigators meeting is scheduled for July 21-23 in
Woods Hole. The last time (fall of `95) the meeting had short
presentations by all who wanted - which allowed everyone to talk, but was
a lot to digest and synthesis. For the coming meeting it was suggested
that the first morning be dedicated to synthesis talks in different
topic areas. The idea would be for one presenter (a hero yet to be
identified) on a topic area, and for all who have some results in that
area supply that person with input. An initial list of topics:
Interannual variability in physical fields
Interannual variability in biological fields - target species,
predator fields source - retention - loss
Stratification PO/Biology
Intrusions
Coupled physical/biological modeling
This would be followed by about 2 hours of discussion. Then sessions
with individual presentations would begin:
Day 1 2 hours at the end
Day 2 8 hours (24 talks)
Day 3 4 hours (12 talks)
Discussion
Among the topics for the Discussion section would be the Announcement of
Opportunity (which hopefully would have been issued), the Baltimore ICES
meeting in September/October, and the Ocean Sciences Meeting in February
1998. Including night time presentations and/or discussion periods will
be considered. Additional work in organizing the PI workshop will occur
at the next EXCO meeting.
This basic outline for the meeting will be sent to GGBALL to ask for
comment, input, suggestions. Rooms have been reserved at WHOI, and
blocks of rooms at hotels are set aside. More info will be passed to
SI's in the near future.
Ship Schedule For 1998:
The vessel needs for the program in 1998 were identified and the
appropriate requests will be made to obtain the ship time: six broad
scale surveys (January - June with ALBATROSS IV to be used in Jan, May
and June), two process cruises for Chuck Greene in the Gulf of Maine,
and two mooring cruises for Irish. In addition, time on ALBATROSS IV is
available in November 1997, with the specific purpose yet to be
determined.
The meeting adjourned at 4:00 PM.