Narrative

The meeting started at 1000 on 11 July 2002 in Smith conference room at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. After opening remarks by Peter Wiebe and Bob Beardsley, the rest of the morning and early afternoon were devoted to talks by the lead PI's for each of the projects. An open discussion ensued during the latter half of the afternoon covering a variety of topics including what do people need from other funded groups, what's missing from the synthesis effort, and what NSF/NOAA might have in mind for next call for proposals on modeling. Also discussed were what topics should be the focus of special working sessions scheduled for the morning's sessions.

Widely recognized as essential was the development of a chronology of physical and biological events that took place during the GLOBEC field years. This chronology has already been started as part of working group sessions held in 2000 and will be completed during the first year of the synthesis effort. The gridding of data sets was also the subject of considerable discussion, in particular the need for a common set of grid points and possibly a common gridding methodology. A group ( D. McGillicuddy, J. Quinlan, T. Durbin, J. Bisagni, and D. Mountain) was formed to come up with a plan for how to do this by the Broad-scale workshop in late October. Time Series products for Georges Bank that rely on gridded data include data sets of zooplankton species and biomass, temperature, salinity, nutrients, chlorlophyll, POC/DON, ADCP currents, acoustic backscatter (several sources), and the position of fronts. For the ADCP currents there is an issue of the synoptic time-scale for Bank wide currents and whether it is even possible to create accurate maps given the temporal variability that occurred in the current field within the measurement period of an individual cruise.

Two items were specifically addressed as "missing" from the synthesis effort that would likely be needed. The absence from the synthesis of larval fish process work and the development of a more realistic metabolic models for larval fish could significantly affect the trophodynamic modeling of the target fish species. Similarly, the absence of cross-frontal zooplankton studies with MOCNESS, VPR, and SeaSoar were considered liabilities.

The second day of the meeting (12 July) was held in the conference room at the National Marine Fisheries Service Aquarium in Woods Hole. There was first an open discussion to outline a proposed plan of workshops and meetings followed by two working group sessions. The first working group session involved almost all of the investigators and again focused on sharing information about how each of the projects intended to carry out there synthesis plans. During the second session, the zooplankton modeling group met separately to coordinate their internal activities while general discussions amongst the other groups continued.

In developing a time line, discussions focused the occurrence of individual project workshops to be held early in Phase IV year one and a larger jointly held data workshop to be held in the latter half of year one. After considerable discussion about the nature of "Phase IV Symposia" that were described in the proposal coordination document prepared by the Georges Bank Executive Committee for use in Phase IV proposals, the term was dropped. Instead the first yearly meeting would be used as a follow-up to GLOBEC Georges Bank data workshops to see how work promulgated there had progressed and to work on synthesis volume publications. Several National and International Meetings (listed below) were targeted as especially important forums in which Phase IV investigators should be encouraged to present the synthesis results.

Time Line for Phase IV Workshops/Meetings
and Relevant Scientific Meetings

2002
October 15-18 International GLOBEC open meeting in China.
October 28-? Broad-scale Workshop back to back with a PO Modeling Workshop.
November 15 Abstracts Due for the Third International Zooplankton Productivity Symposium
2003
January 7-10 IGBP Post JGOFS/GLOBEC planning meeting in Paris.
February ASLO Aquatic Science Meeting
March Phase IV Data Workshop - 3.5 days
May 20-23 Third International Zooplankton Productivity Symposium.
July Second Joint Phase IV meeting.
2004
February AGU/ASLO Ocean Science Meeting.
July U.S. GLOBEC Symposium (this would be a symposium organized by the National Office for all of the investigators in the U.S. Program - Georges Bank, Northeast Pacific, and Southern Ocean).

Before closing, the subject of a Phase IV Executive Committee was discussed. During each previous phase of the program, a committee was formed by nomination of a slate of candidates and an election of the top 8 to 10 candidates. For this phase, given that only five science projects existed, it was decided that each project, at their discretion, should elect one or two individuals to the Executive Committee, a process that has been initiated.

The meeting ended around 1300 on 12 July.