EXCO Minutes June 6, 1997
Below are the minutes of the recent ExCo meeting. Note: important
preparations for the upcoming Scientific Investigators Meeting
(July 21-23) were discussed ... be ready!
David Mountain
Northwest Atlantic GLOBEC Executive Committee Meeting
June 6, 1997
University of Rhode Island
The meeting began at 9:10 AM. In attendance were P. Wiebe, L. Madin, G.
Lough, S. Gallager, D. Mountain, E. Durbin, J. Bisagni, K. Wishner, D.
Lynch, D. Busch. Peter reviewed the agenda:
1. SI meeting preparations
2. Review data base structure and inventory
3. Status and planning for ICES and ASLO/AGU meetings
4. Plans for future volumes of papers
5. Outside attendance at the SI meeting
6. Including non-GLOBEC cruises in our data base
7. Phase III funding and related issues
and asked for any additions. Jim Bisagni tabled an item relating to his
future involvement in the program. Donna Busch added an item about
cruise operations. Peter added a brief review of the GLOBEC Scientific
Steering Committee (SSC) meeting in Boulder.
SSC meeting
On April 10-11 the SSC met in Boulder, CO. Peter Wiebe, Bob Beardsley,
Ted Durbin, Dale Haidvogel and David Mountain represented the Georges
Bank program and make presentations summarizing the status of the
program and major results. The Advisory Committee that will conduct an
overall review of the GLOBEC program was attending (J. Knauss, K.
Denman, B. Frost, E. Houde). The presentations seem to go well.
Initiating a Phase III of the Georges Bank program was supported, as
well the need for a final synthesis phase. A draft Announcement of
Opportunity for Phase III was presented and comments were requested from
the SSC members. The SSC and the Advisory Committee were very
interested in the extent to which the Geoges Bank work was, indeed,
related to climate change. Peter presented a figure from Benjamin
Planque of the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Sciences showing a
tight relation between variations in the North Atlantic-wide calanus
abundance and the NAO index. The implication is that variations we are
dealing with are part of larger, climate variability. Hydrographic data
from the Georges Bank program and from the Gulf of Maine region also
suggest larger, climatic scale variability occurring during our Georges
Bank studies.
In addition, the SSC and COP are considering the design of monitoring
programs that will be the outgrowth of GLOBEC. More will be heard about
this in the future - it will be an important topic for the GLOBEC
program.
Jim Biasgni's Move to UMASS
Jim has moved from NMFS to UMASS. He is not able to take funding with
him or, according to NOAA General Council, receive any government
funding at UMASS directly related to what he was doing at NMFS. Jim has
a need for support during this summer and requested a letter from ExCO
to NMFS supporting his desire to be hired by NMFS on a summer
appointment. David Mountain said that from recent discussions in Woods
Hole it appeared that an arrangement had been made in which UMASS would
cover Jim's summer salary to maintain his official status as a GLOBEC
PI. Jim will check on this.
SI Meeting Preparations
The next Scientific Investigators' Meeting is scheduled for July 21-23
in Woods Hole. The initial structure developed at the last ExCo meeting
had summary talks with a `hero' for each during the first day. Bob
Groman had received a few comments about the proposed structure -
generally supporting the new layout. Ideas for structuring the rest of
the meeting were discussed - e.g., have an informal poster session? The
general desire of the discussion was to allow individual investigators
to present some results, while also having the time to follow up on
points of interest. The meeting will be a good opportunity to lay the
ground work or make the connections for integrated papers to be
presented at ASLO/AGU next winter and to be published in the next volume
of papers.
Five summary, introductory areas were identified and `heros' were
suggested for each:
Interannual variability in physical fields: Primary intent is
year-to-year during our 3 years of sampling, but it also relates to
decadal or longer term variability. The presentation should make some
reference to source-retention-loss, if possible. Suggested heros: P.
Smith/D. Mountain/R. Limburner..
Interannual variability in biological fields: This primarily deals with
distributional and abundance results. Suggested heros: T. Durbin/L.
Madin/S. Gallager;
Stratification PO/Bio: PO Hero: R. Beardsley; Biological, including
vital rates, heros: G. Lough/C. Davis/D. Gifford.
Intrusions: This refers to both Scotian Shelf cross over events and to
the intrusions of Slope Water along the southern flank of the Bank. PO
heros: J. Manning/J. Irish; Bio heros: K. Ashjian/J. Sibunka
Coupled physical/biological modeling: Heros: D. Lynch/C. Miller/D.
McGillicuddy/C. Werner
The intent will be for the `heros' put together a summary talk on the
topic, incorporating results from all investigators. For this to
succeed, there needs to be a dual responsibility for both the heros to
contact the various investigators who might have something to contribute
and for any investigator who has something to contact the hero. Lead
hero to contact for each area are (in order of the above topics: Smith,
Durbin, Beardsley, Manning, and Lynch. Individual investigators with
results that go beyond what can be covered in the summary talks will be
encouraged to make either an oral or poster presentation. The posters
are not intended to be full, formal posters - but small, informal, with
a few figures - pointing out some interesting or unusual
result/observation, to promote discussion and interaction with other
investigators. Investigators who want to make a presentation or have a
poster that does not fit within the above topic areas will be asked to
notify Peter Wiebe/Bob Groman. Since time will limited, some split
between oral and poster will have to be made. For all presentations an
abstract will be requested - to help everyone know what is being
presented and for a meeting report document.
A draft agenda was developed for the three days of the meeting:
Day 1
0815 Start
0830 Summary Talk 1
0915 Discussion
0930 Summary Talk 2
1015 Discussion
1030 Break
1050 Summary Talk 3
1140 Discussion
1200 Lunch
1330 Summary Talk 4
1415 Discussion
1430 Summary Talk 5
1515 Break
1535 Discussion
presentation by Canadian and Japan GLOBEC (?)
1630 Plenary Discussion by fishers
1700
Evening ?
Day 2
0815
0830 Talks by individual investigators - 15 min (including questions)
1000 Break
1020 Talks (12 total)
1205 Lunch
1330 Poster Session
1530 Plenary Session
focused discussion on synthesis papers
and presentations(ICES, ASLO/AGU)
1700 Discussion TBD
Evening Phase III discussion & other GLOBEC programs
Day 3
0815
0830 Start talks
1000 Break
1020 Talks
1205 Lunch
Bob Groman will follow up on these minutes with a memo that will restate
in more detail how the meeting will be organized.
ICES meeting in Baltimore
Peter has received 55 contributions, about 2/3 from Georges Bank
GLOBEC. One decision is how many talks can really be given - and how
many posters. While ICES has indicated that there could be enough time
to have all presentations be given orally (over a number of days), Peter
would like to limit the session to two days. Peter is leaning toward
having about 20 given orally and the rest posters. There will also be a
session on the future of GLOBEC studies in the North Atlantic during the
ICES meeting.
ASLO/AGU in Feb 1998
Peter has submitted a request for a special session on climate
variability, fisheries resources, and the dynamics of plankton
populations in the Georges Bank/Gulf of Maine/Scotian Shelf region of
the Northwest Atlantic. The intent is for the presentations at this
meeting to form the basis of the next volume of papers for the program.
By the fall (i.e., after ICES) we should have a pretty good idea of what
the papers would be - at least by title - so that final form could be
ready for ASLO/AGU.
Review of Database Structure and Inventory
Some changes are being made to the database structure. An inventory
button has been added to get summary of what is in the database. This
also allows Bob Groman to identify what is NOT in the database.
Improved searching capabilities are being planned, but not yet coded. A
lot of data has still not been entered. Bob and Chip will be contacting
SI's about getting their data into the system.
A brief discussion was held on whether data from non-GLOBEC cruises
that are related to GLOBEC should be included in the GLOBEC data base.
Examples are the COP cruises and David Townsend's cruises in 1993 and
1994. The general feeling was to include them, with some code to
indicate that they are from other programs. Bob Groman felt that this
would not be a problem.
Phase III Funding Issues:
NOAA/COP appears to have committed all of its funds for GLOBEC through
1999 and this has made it difficult to see how phase III is to go forward
in the planned time frame if there is no other funding. Complicating this
is the fact that current planning has the west coast program moving from
the pilot phase which is about to start into a full-blown effort in 2000
(after the field phase of the Georges Bank Program should have been
completed). We have been told that NSF/NOAA doesn't have enough funding
to support both Georges Bank (if the final process field work were
delayed a year) and the west coast GLOBEC. One question then is how much
is presently committed to Georges Bank PI's in the third year of the
current proposals? How much more is really needed to have a viable 1999
program? A review of phase II funding was done by EXCO in an attempt to
determine for each current proposal if existing funding already supports
field work in 1999. Peter will follow up on this discussion with Phil
Taylor.
June Broad Scale Cruise:
For the upcoming broad scale cruise needs a male body for flying MOCNESS
- the cruise leaves on June 18. Donna Busch and Ted Durbin will work
this out.
Next ExCo meeting will be July 7 - either at UMASS/Dartmouth or Woods
Hole.
The meeting adjourned at 3:05.