Georges Bank ExCo meeting - Thursday, April 20, 2006
Cabell Davis' Office, Woods Hole, MA

The Phase IVB Executive Committee met for the first time since the final Phase IVB awards were known. The membership consists of two representatives from each of the 5 funded projects. Cabell Davis was elected by the representatives to be the Chair of ExCo. This is the first meeting of an ExCo for the program without Peter Wiebe as its Chair. All felt that Peter will be greatly missed, but that we will do our best to see that the program continues forward successfully during its final phase. Cabell will continue to consult with Peter during this final phase.

The meeting began at 1:00 PM, with Cabell Davis, Greg Lough, Robert Beardsley, David Mountain, Jim Bisagni (via phone) and Jeff Runge (via phone) attending. The other members were not available for the meeting, but Andy Pershing just missed our phone call and emailed comments during the meeting.

The primary topic for the meeting was preparation for the SSC meeting in late May. Cabell presented a draft outline of the presentation he would make. Progress on the Phase IVA projects would be included (with input from the PI's). Progress under Phase IVB will be presented, but be modest, since most of the projects have yet to receive their funds. Cabell will obtain a revised time line for each of the projects, reflecting their delayed start time.

The next part of the outline included future plans for the GB Program. This included:

1. The status of the DSR volume and list of papers, which Beardsley will provide,


2. The schedule for Exco meetings, Cabell suggested monthly meetings via conference call and all agreed,


3. Phase 4B PI meeting: Cabell proposed a Phase 4B PI meeting during the fall, which all agreed would be a good time. Dave and Bob suggested that the meeting be held before the fall panGlobec meeting, and Dave would find out when that is planned. (Dave emailed later to say it was late November).


4. Preparation of a book synthesizing the GB Program. Beardsley mentioned that the SSC may be discussing the format of the book after a presentation by Jon Hare to the SSC showed that several formats could be used. It was felt that for proper synthesis of the GB work, the best format would be for a few authors to be responsible for major sections of the book, rather than a large number of chapters each with different authors. It was agreed to discuss this with the SSC.

The last item on the outline was the conclusion of GB Program. This part dealt with the following:

1. Legacy issues (approach, data sets, models, publications, book)


2. Application of GLOBEC GB results to applied problems such as resource-based fishery management.


3. Transition to new programs (BASIN, IMBER, ORION, Ecofore, PanGLOBEC synthesis)

After reviewing the outline for the SSC meeting, we discussed the goals and achievements of the program as a whole.

Cabell asked the Exco what they thought were the major contributions of the GB program thus far. It was felt that one of the main contributions of the program is its overall approach. The program led the way in studying ecosystem dynamics by focusing on key species population dynamics and the biological/physical interactions controlling them, rather than studying the system in terms of biogeochemical dynamics (e.g., GOFS). Many other contributions of the program also were recognized, including: 1) the target species interactions, especially the bioenergetics of larval cod and haddock and the importance of Calanus and Pseudocalanus and other copepod species, Oithona and Centropages, to their growth and survival, 2) the role of mortality in controlling population dynamics of copepods, 3) the better understanding of Calanus and Pseudocalanus population dynamics, 4) the development of new biological/physical models was a huge advance and is of major importance to new ocean observing systems, 5) large perspective issues including the large degree of interannual and decadal variability (via retrospective analyses) and relationships to NAO and climate change, 6) the broadscale data set and the combination of using broadscale and process cruises together provides a unique and valuable data set for present and future work, 7) a major contribution of program is the understanding of local processes in order to better understand and predict how long term climate changes may change the system. 8) a major contribution of the program is that we have established building blocks that will be continued into the future, in terms of approaches and methods, scientific findings, and personnel (students and postdocs). Andy Pershing pointed out in his followup email that the GB project was the first to examine the relationship between GB/GOM and climate and that this has important implications for design and implementation of upcoming observing systems.

We discussed the tentative funding situation for next year and decided to leave that discussion for the SSC meeting. Finally we discussed the funding model that has been used to support the GB program and felt it would be worthwhile to bring this up as an issue with the SSC for further evaluation and recommendations.

The meeting adjourned at 2:15 PM.