GLOBEC Phase IV ExCo Meeting
April 3, 2003
University of Rhode Island

Attending:  Dian Gifford, Ted Durbin, Jamie Pringle, Bob Beardsley, Robert Groman, David Townsend, Charlie Flagg, Peter Wiebe and David Mountain.

Unable to attend were:  Greg Lough and Jeff Runge.

Jim Bisagni also attended.

Note: The meeting minutes are also availabe as a MS Word document.

This was the first meeting of the ExCo for Phase IV. The different funded proposals each selected two members their teams to be on the Committee. Peter Wiebe, as the outgoing chair, called the meeting to order. The election of a new chair was delayed until Charlie Flagg could arrive. Peter reviewed the agenda and asked for additional topics.

1.  JGR Special Issue: 

Bob Beardsley gave an update on the JGR special section on the physical oceanography of Georges Bank:  At least half of the papers have been accepted.   Some have been resubmitted and are in second review.  The hope is for this to be completed by June, although he is uncertain about when actually publication will occur.  John Klink is the JGR Editor.  Peter Smith, Bob Beardsley and Craig Lee are the guest editors.  (N.B., the guest editors only recommend reviewers;  the whole review process is being handled by JGR).   There are about 15 manuscripts for the special section.

2.  Mini reports and updates from the different proposal groups:

2a) Physical Oceanography of Georges Bank and its Impact on Biology:  Bob Beardsley gave the update.  In the fall the PO group had a meeting to review status of data sets.  The big gap was in the data from the long-term moorings.   ADCP data from the moorings has been reprocessed.  The rest of the data from the first four deployments also is done.  The 1999 data should be done soon, and then the focus will be on the data from the remaining period.  All of the met data is done. 

Charlie Flagg indicated that the shipboard ADCP has been done for a long time.  He now is looking at the backscatter intensity.  To do this he is going back to review the calibration of the various ADCP units to get calibrated backscatter intensity. 

When the PO data are done, the group will get back to completing the chronology of physical events that was begun last fall.

The work on the 1999 tidal mixing front array data (Ron Schlitz) is being done in collaboration with a soon to be assistant scientist at WHOI.

Chen has made the transition to his finite volume model, and all future analyses will be done with that model.   Preliminary work has shown that knowing the wind field over the whole Gulf of Maine region is important to the modeling.   The surface forcing field will be derived using the MM5 model.  This assimilates data (e.g., SST, scatterometer) during the analysis to give the atmospheric forcing fields that ultimately are input to his finite volume model.   Chen is working with a colleague in Boston  who uses MM5 routinely.   Jamie indicated that there also is a major MM5 effort at UNH.

Jamie added to the summary of the modeling work underway by Chen:  he has two domains – 300m and full depth.  The first has problems with the tides, but is very efficient.  Chen has developed climatologies for the tides, for the tides plus winds, and for the tides with quickscat winds.  He now has modified MM5 with a new marine boundary layer and is planning to rerun the 1995 period and then do the 1999 period.  It is not certain how output will be made available. He also will be doing dye experiments with the model (with Houghton), and is developing an 8 component NPZ model incorporated with the physics model.

Peter asked if the models could handle changes of the Northeast Channel inflows.  This would require getting the upstream boundary conditions right.

2b)  Zooplankton Population Dynamics on Georges Bank:  Model and Data Synthesis

Jamie gave the summary for this group.   Much of the work by Chen mentioned above applies here.  Jamie has recently published a paper on turbulence and avoidance of it by zooplankton. A post-doc will be working on copepod life history modeling.   Ted is working with Chen's student who is doing modeling for this project.

2c)  Patterns of Energy Flow and Utilization on Georges Bank

Dian gave the summary for this group.   The group has meet bi-monthly.   Various data sets have been or are being prepared.  Much of the initial effort has been on defining the spatial and temporal boundaries.   Data formats for input into the model have been determined and will encompass bacteria to marine mammals.   Steele and Beat have a preliminary model framework under development.  The energy flow is based on tracking nitrogen and carbon through the trophic structure, during three time stanzas associated with the 1960's, the MARMAP years, and the GLOBEC years. The group is also looking at seasonal differences and regional differences on the Bank.

The discussion digressed into a ranging discussion of marine snow and the transport of phytoplankton to the seafloor on the Bank.

2d)  Tidal Front Mixing and Exchange on Georges Bank

David Townsend gave the summary for this group.   The group meet last fall.   David has worked with Chen’s student on developing the model.  And as mentioned above, Houghton will be working with Chen to do modeling dye experiments. David discussed his ideas about the bottom up control of production that may be affecting trophic structure on the Bank as a result of switches between Atlantic Slope Water and Labrador Slope Water coming into the Gulf of Maine. The latter has about half the nutrients loading compared to that of the Atlantic Slope Water.  Long-term changes in source waters could have a significant impact.

2e)  Integration and Synthesis of Georges Bank Broad-Scale Survey Results

Peter gave the summary. The group met last fall.   One of the major issues to be addressed was to decide on a common grid and methods for interpolating data to that grid.   David Mountain described the gridding exercise that is in progress.  A grid was developed for an area surrounding the Broad Scale stations, using a 5 minute separation in latitude and longitude.  Areas associated with each grid point were determined, so that an integrated value for a parameter could easily be determined.   Example data sets for each of the primary parameters were created.  Three techniques will be used to interpolate the observed values to the grid points – krigging, oax and 1/r2 interpolation.  Characteristic variograms will be determined for each parameter using the EasyKrig software for the krigging.  The exercise has been done for example larval fish distributions.   While the estimated number of larvae for a particular survey varied with the different interpolation methods, the differences were very consistent.  The ratio of abundance between two surveys was essentially the same for all of the methods, so that cruise to cruise comparisons would be independent of the interpolation method used.

3.  Election of a Chair:

Before breaking for lunch, the Committee elected Peter Wiebe to be its chair, recognizing his persistent dedication and effort to keep us going in the right direction.  David Mountain was selected to be the rapporteur.

4.  Coordinate activities:

At the program meeting last fall it was recommended to have a full program meeting the summer of 2003.   Peter showed a list of open dates at Alton Jones during July through mid-August.  After some discussion it was decided to try for later August, after the NSF deadline on August 15.   The intent would be for four days, with arrival by noon on the first day, then two full days and a half day at the end.  Bob Groman will check for available dates.

5.  Discuss presentations at national and international meetings:

5a)  The ICES Annual Science Conference will be 24-27 September in Tallinn, Estonia.   There are a number of sessions that are relevant to our program.  Abstracts are due May 5.

Three sessions were noted in particular.

Transport of Eggs and Larvae Relevant to Cod Stocks of the North Atlantic.
Co-Conveners: Bjørn Ådlandsvik (Norway) and Joel Chasse (Canada)

Physical-Biological Interactions in Marginal and Shelf Seas.
Co-Conveners: Wolfgang Fennel (Germany), Charles Hannah (Canada), and Henn Ojaveer (Estonia)

On the State and Stability of the northern North Atlantic: Patterns and Trends.
Co-Conveners: Alicia Lavín (Spain), Harald Loeng (Norway), and Tom Rossby (USA)

5b)  The next Ocean Sciences meeting will be January 26-30, 2004 in Portland, Oregon.   We have until 7 May to request a special session for GLOBEC.  This meeting is now run by AGU alone.  The Oceanography Society and ASLO are holding the Ocean Research Conference on February 15-20 in Honolulu.  The Committee decided to focus on the Ocean Sciences meeting.  Peter will talk to the other GLOBEC programs to consider requesting a special session for GLOBEC-like presentations.  

6.  Basin scale modeling and new RFP for Georges Bank

Peter has been working to have a collaborative effort with the Europeans for a workshop on “The impact of basin scale oceanographic and climate-related on the dynamics of plankton and fish populations in the North Atlantic Ocean:  integration, synthesis and modeling of North Atlantic data sets”.   After discussions at a series of meetings over the past few years, a formal mechanism for joint funding of projects by NSF and the EU was signed.  As a first trial of this mechanism, Peter is proposing a workshop this fall in Reykjavik on the above topic.  The outcome of the workshop would be an implementation plan for a North Atlantic Basis-Scale program.  The target timing for the workshop is the near the end of October.

The tentative timing for the next RFP for Georges Bank (Phase 4.5).   The focus/wording of that RFP is yet to be determined.  But ideas from the Reykjavik workshop could help guide how some of the Georges Bank synthesis proposals are formulated.

An energetic discussion took place about basin scale transport and exchange of Calanus across the North Atlantic.

7.  Future Publications:

Should we be targeting a collection of papers?   The August meeting would be a time to layout a list of expected manuscripts and identify a deadline for a special issue in some journal.  An alternative would be to have a collection of reprints bound together, as was done for CODE.   These questions will be addressed at the August meeting.

The meeting adjourned at 3 PM.

Contributed by D. Mountain
April 4, 2003