Report of the
U. S. GLOBEC Georges Bank Program Scientific Investigators' Workshop
16 - 18 October 1995
Acknowledgments
The U.S. GLOBEC Georges Bank Scientific Investigators' Workshop and this report were sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Field work in 1994 involved eight U. S. GLOBEC funded cruises and a
total of 81 days at sea (Table 1). A more intense field season
followed in 1995 and involved twenty-four U. S. GLOBEC cruises and
about 280 days at sea. The NOAA-Coastal Ocean Program's Georges Bank
Predation Study conducted three cruises in 1994 and five cruises in
1995. Independent investigator D. Townsend lead a cruise to Georges
Bank just prior to the onset of U. S. GLOBEC activities in 1994.
Further there were three Canadian cruises (one each in 1993, 1994, and
1995) of five-to-eight-days duration for mooring deployments and
hydrographic work from Browns Bank to the Northeast peak of Georges
Bank. Following the completion of the second field season, the third
U. S. GLOBEC Georges Bank Program scientific investigators' workshop
was held at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on 16-18 October
1995. The objectives were to enable the scientific investigators to
describe their research activities to one another, to exchange data and
information, and to work together toward developing the scientific
products that will fulfill the program's goals and objectives.
The workshop was organized around four major themes:
This workshop report is a compilation of the session summaries
(prepared by the session Chairmen and the rapporteurs) and abstracts of
the presentations (prepared by the presenters). Together these
summarize the status of the work and are intended to facilitate
meaningful collaborations between the investigators in the program.
This report (along with the reports of each of the cruises) also will
provide other scientists and managers, who have a direct interest in
these research activities, with an overview of our work to date.
Session I: Bank-wide Structures
Session II: Stratification and Its Effects
Session III: Population Dynamics of Target Species
Session IV: Hot Topics Discussion
The U.S. GLOBEC Northwest Atlantic Georges Bank Program is a large
multi-disciplinary multi-year oceanographic effort which officially
began field work in the spring of 1994. The proximate goal of the
program is to understand the population dynamics of target species on
the Bank - cod and haddock, and the copepods, Calanus
finmarchicus and Pseudocalanus spp. - in terms of their
coupling to the physical environment and their predators and prey. The
ultimate goal is to be able to predict changes in the distribution and
abundance of these species as a result of changes in their biotic and
physical environment and to anticipate how their populations will
respond to climate change. The U.S. GLOBEC research program is
supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation-Division of Ocean
Sciences, and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration-Office of Global Programs and National Marine Fisheries
Service, and is a component of the U.S. Global Change Research Program.
Each of the sessions was a blend of physics, biology, and modeling
work. Presentations and discussions were designed to improve our
understanding of the coupling of physics and biology of the region.
For each session there was a session chairman and two rapporteurs.
After each session, an open discussion was held. These were guided by
the Chairman of the session who asked particular investigators to
summarize ideas or findings that were particularly pertinent to topics
presented in the sessions. In addition, there was a final talk which
focussed on the data management system and its role in providing a
mechanism for program information, data access, and investigator
interaction. A total of 66 presentations were made over the 2 e days of
the workshop. (See Appendix 1 for the agenda.)