Minutes of the US GLOBEC SSC Meeting

Minutes of the U.S. GLOBEC Scientific Steering Committee Meeting
Washington, DC -- April 16-17, 1998

DAY ONE (Thursday, 16 April 1998):

The meeting began at 0845. Present from the SSC were Beardsley, Dagg, Fogarty, Grant, Hollowed, Huntley, Loeb, Lough, Mantua, Pearcy, Powell, Reilly, Stabeno, Strub, and Torres. Taylor (NSF/OCE), Daly (NSF/OCE), Powers (NSF/OCE; day 2 only), Turner (NOAA), Johnson (NOAA), Banahan (NOAA, day 2 only), Penhale (NSF/OPP), and Marinelli (NSF/OPP) attended from the agencies. Other attendees were Batchelder (U.S. GLOBEC), Bill Peterson (NOAA/NMFS), Robert Smith (OSU), Mark Ohman (UCSD, Day 2 only), Robin Ross (UCSB), Dan Costa (UCSC), Ned Cyr (NOAA/NMFS), Mike Roman (U.Maryland; day 2 only), and David Enfield (NOAA/AOML; day 2 only). SSC members unable to attend were Botsford, Francis, Haidvogel, and Hofmann.

Fogarty reviewed the agenda (there were only slight modifications) and noted that the major agenda items were a description and discussion of the Southern Ocean program (on day 1) and of the Northeast Pacific Program (NEP) (on day 2). Fogarty welcomed the three new members of the SSC: Lough, Mantua, and Stabeno, and noted that each would be presenting short summaries of their recent research interests during the Thursday science talks. We set the date for the next spring meeting as 15-16 April 1999 in Washington, DC (EXCO to meet also on 14 April), and reminded the SSC that the fall meeting will be 8-9 October 1998 in Seattle, WA (EXCO to meet also on 7 October). Fogarty asked for the committee to approve adding Anne Hollowed to the EXCO, noting that with the departure of Ortner from the EXCO there was no longer a NOAA/NMFS member on the EXCO. The SSC was asked to email their preference on this issue to Fogarty by April 24. Finally, Fogarty thanked Powell and Batchelder for their service to the SSC and the national office.

SOUTHERN OCEAN:

Huntley provided a detailed update on the status of the GLOBEC Southern Ocean (SO) program, beginning with a review of the process leading to the present planning. In short, the process has been one of continually focusing the scientific questions, beginning from a U.S. GLOBEC workshop held in La Jolla, CA in May 1991. Significant events were the holding of planning meetings in Norfolk, VA in June 1993, Bremerhaven, Germany in June 1994, San Diego, CA in August 1997, and Paris, France in March 1998 (at the GLOBEC International Open Science Meeting). Along the way, the GLOBEC International (GI) SSC was reformed in 1996, and in 1995 the U.S. NSF Office of Polar Programs (OPP) funded initial modeling studies of the southern ocean under a joint AO for GLOBEC and JGOFS.

As discussed most recently at the Paris meeting, krill, their predators and prey are the major focus of the GI SO program. Temporally, the SO program will be a year-round study, but with an emphasis on the winter distribution, behavior and physiology of krill. Spatially, the major effort will be along the Antarctic Peninsula, the only region where sufficient ships can be made available to provide annual coverage, and secondarily along the 70 deg. E (Prydz Bay) region. There remain four zooplankton (primarily krill) questions and three top predator questions in the SO plan. The zooplankton questions are 1) what are the key factors affecting successful krill reproduction; 2) what are the key physical processes affecting krill survival and subsequent recruitment; 3) what are krill's seasonal food supply with respect to their energetic needs, distribution and types of food available; and, 4) what are the geographic variations in krill distribution in relation to between and within season variability in their physical environment. The remaining top predator questions are: 1) what is the winter distribution and foraging ecology of the principal krill predators; 2) how does breeding season foraging ecology relate to krill distribution; and, 3) how does year-to-year variation in population size and breeding success relate to sea-ice and krill availability and cohort strength.

Huntley noted that the major challenge of the SO program has been getting commitments from many nations to put ships in a single region so that the year-round study could be accomplished. Recently there have been tentative agreements to provide year-round coverage of the Antarctic Peninsula region, with U.S. ships covering the deep winter period and ships from several other organizations/nations present in the spring-fall period. A multiship (multinational) study is planned for 2000-2001, with cruises in December 2000 (Alfred Wegener Inst. Polar Stern), Jan-Feb 2001 (CCAMLR), April-September (USA-Nathaniel B.Palmer), and October-November (British Antarctic Survey vessel). Huntley observed that to meet that ship schedule/research program will require the release by NSF/OPP of an AO in ca. March 1999 for a target deadline of 1 June 1999. When questioned about the specifics of the study site, we learned that it will be near the Palmer LTER site, in a region which is presumed to have some retentive features, thus providing an opportunity to track a defined population through time. Nearby regions of the Bransfield Strait are known to be highly advective with large export of animals to the NE (towards South Georgia).

A number of other attendees also spoke briefly about SO activities. Penhale noted that the GLOBEC funding for the SO program would be a joint activity of OPP (Penhale) and the Atmospheric/Physical Polar Program of Bernie Lattau. She noted that the difficulty with providing year-round coverage to the southern ocean is that the US is the only country that can commit to ship operations in the SO during the winter. The other nations have to use their ice-strengthened vessels in their arctic programs during the northern hemisphere summer. Reilly updated the SSC on SO research activities of the International Whaling Commission. IWC's principal focus is baleen whales. They have committed to krill synoptic surveys (whale observing) during the 1999-2000 field season. As part of this they have committed two ships to tag and track individual cetaceans and to conduct a survey grid of intermediate scale (that was intended to bridge the scales of the GLOBEC program and CCAMLR programs). Reilly and Penhale both noted that the CCAMLR Area 48 synoptic survey (organized by Suam Kim of Korea) is fixed in time (1999-2000 season). IWC's planning was to coordinate with that synoptic survey and with any GLOBEC studies that occur. Robin Ross described the sampling that occurs from the Palmer LTER program. Basically, they are studying the region that GLOBEC International has targeted for their SO program, but they sample only inshore (frequently) and conduct one survey grid (ca. 200 km by 400 km) in January-February. They focus on the foraging area of penguins. She noted that during the next four years there will be two special cruise activities of the Palmer LTER. First is a process cruise focusing on ice-formation processes, which will probably occur in May-June 1999. The second is a late-winter to early spring cruise, but the year in which that will occur is not yet known. Penhale noted that there will be a Workshop in Monterey on krill biology in early August 1999. Torres noted that the SO program looked a lot like the Palmer LTER program and that we needed to be sure to maintain a unique identity. Several members responded that the GI SO program could be differentiated from the LTER study by 1) providing sufficient resources to follow a population throughout an annual cycle; 2) a greater emphasis on winter conditions; and, 3) much greater emphasis on physical oceanography in the GI SO program. Strub wondered whether the LTER program and their annual Jan-Feb cruises might offer an opportunity to deploy some drifters to obtain a better description of the physical circulation of the GI SO proposed region (i.e., before the GI plan).

Huntley also described a SO program that might occur sooner than the multiship year-round study of 2001, perhaps as early as next year. The program, GLOBEC Ecosystem Comparison of Krill Overwintering Strategies (GECKOS), would identify where and when the importance of ice-algae feeding, body shrinkage, reduced metabolism, carnivory, and lipid utilization were to successful overwintering. There is sufficient interest internationally in this topic that it could become a focus of interregional comparisons during field studies in 1998-99, and will set the stage for the multiship population studies in 2001.

Finally, Huntley noted that Suam Kim of Korea has been approached to establish a GLOBEC International Southern Ocean Office to coordinate and manage the SO program. He has agreed in principle to do it, but it will require some coordination with his home institution. Penhale and Huntley both felt that it was important for this office to be established as soon as possible. Huntley agreed to involve additional members of the physical oceanography community in finalizing the SO program. To date, most of the program development has been driven by biological oceanographers, and there is a need to involve the PO community. Powell noted that it might be useful to coordinate SO modelling activities through a workshop, but this idea was not developed further at the meeting.

NORTHWEST ATLANTIC PROGRAM:

Beardsley and Lough provided a summary of scientific activities and specific results from the NW Atlantic/Georges Bank Phase II program since our last meeting. Highlights are a very well attended session at the AGU Ocean Sciences meeting in San Diego in February. Many of the GB presentations from that meeting and from the ICES meeting in September 1997 are being prepared for a second special issue of Topical Studies in Oceanography (Deep Sea Research). This years Annual Scientific Investigator (SI) meeting (aka Camp Wiebe) will be held 8-17 September at the University of New Hampshire. Beardsley specifically highlighted the apparent freshening of the water in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank since the GB program began. Salinities in 1997 and 1998 are about 1 ppt less than they were in 1995. Overall, during the GB program there has been significant interannual variability in temperature and salinity patterns. Besides the salinity, fluorescence in 1997 and 98 was less than in 1995 and 96, and larval fish numbers in 1998 appear to be very high--perhaps a significant recruitment event--but that won't be known for several years. Lough highlighted some recent results of the autonomous vertical plankton recorder, developed by Scott Gallager and co-workers, and the results of some biophysical models for Calanus finmarchicus on GB, and potential sources of overwintering stocks. Fogarty noted that in 1996 there were sharp reductions in fishing mortality (i.e., through management), and that this appears to have resulted in a rebuilding of the age structure of some of the stocks, with a higher incidence of larger fish, but that so far there is no documented increase in recruitment to date.

Daly summarized the response to the AO for Georges Bank Phase III studies. Thirty-two proposals were received, requesting ca. $24M for three years. There were 3 retrospective analysis, 2 broad-scale, 10 physical oceanography, 8 zooplankton, 4 larval fish, 4 modeling, and 1 management proposal. Unlike the response to Phase III, few proposals were received from scientists who were not already participating in earlier phases, and there are few proposals with innovative approaches. Decisions on awards for Phase III should be made in approx. June 1998.

SCIENCE TALKS (THURSDAY):

Nate Mantua, Phyllis Stabeno, and Greg Lough each gave ca. 20 minute summaries of their recent research activities. Mantua spoke about large scale climate variability and dynamics, ENSO, and climate prediction, with an emphasis on a recent publication that noted similar temporal and spatial patterns of several climatic indices (Pacific Decadal Oscillation; PDO) and biological aspects (e.g., salmon abundance) of the North Pacific basin. Positive PDO's are periods with warm coastal waters along the eastern Pacific and colder interior SST's. Negative PDO's are the opposite. In the Gulf of Alaska, salmon production in appears to be related to PDO patterns, but the mechanism linking the two is not clearly understood. It is hypothesized that conditions along the coast influence early ocean growth and survival of salmon, but it could occur through various mechanisms including the Chelton/Davis advection hypothesis or the Gargett optimal stability window hypothesis.

Stabeno described some of the studies that she has been involved with for the past decade, particularly her part in FOCI work in the Bering Sea. She described the three hydrographic zones (inner shelf, middle shelf, outer shelf), and results that indicate that interannual variability in timing of the annual production in the SE Bering Sea is strongly tied to the extent of ice cover in the Bering Sea, which is controlled primarily by the strength and direction of winds in the winter. She described how 1997 in the Bering Sea was a very warm anomalous year, with many biological impacts including 1) very poor run of Bristol Bay sockeye salmon, 2) massive deaths of shearwaters, probably from food foraging conditions, and 3) a massive coccolithophorid bloom that lasted many months.

Lough described some of the field and modeling work that he has been conducting within the U.S. GLOBEC Georges Bank program. Specifically, he addressed how animals are moved about the bank between the tidal front and the shelf break front. In the field this was done by sampling along the path of drogued drifters, and it was also numerically modeled. Both field observations and model simulations suggest that onshore (onbank) flow near the bottom is critical to retaining cod larvae on Georges Bank. Larvae located up in the water column are much more susceptible to being advected off the bank than are those deep in the water column.

INTERNAL REVIEW COMMITTEE REPORT:

Powell summarized the internal review committee (IRC) report submitted by John Knauss on behalf of the review team (Knauss, Ed Houde, Ken Denman, Bruce Frost). Overall the report is very positive about U.S. GLOBEC. Specifically, they felt the program 1) was wise to focus on only a few systems, 2) made an excellent choice in selecting GB as their first project (lots of background data, manageable sized region), 3) is doing a good job making the connections between biological and physical observations and processes (both in models and in field programs), 4) has been successful in creating and applying new technology (e.g., VPR, new acoustics), 5) has had strong leadership at both the national and regional level, 6) has been successful in implementing regional programs, and 7) has had a positive impact on marine ecosystem science. They raised a few concerns about the program to date: 1) not sufficient emphasis on primary production and nutrients, 2) little contribution to advancing general ecological theory, and, 3) most importantly, that the goal established by the program "to understand ecosystem dynamical processes in order to be able to predict the response of the ocean ecosystem and the stability of the marine food web to climate change" in not "reasonably attainable" during a program with a finite lifetime. For this latter issue, they suggest that GLOBEC modify its goals statement, since the climate change issue is not addressable. During open discussion there was a lot of resistance toward redefining our goal, except to more clearly state that the "climate change" should be more appropriately viewed as "climate change and climate variability". Mantua and Strub argued that the program is developing the tools needed to address climate variability/change scenarios. Moreover, Loeb opined that the SO and NEP programs could probably more reasonably (than the NW Atlantic) make the link between marine populations and climate variability because in those systems the climate variability is stronger and the impacts on the populations more direct. Hollowed noted that the program focuses more on specific populations rather than on the whole ecosystem. Powell asked that comments on the IRC report be sent to him by 8 May. A subcommittee, consisting of Powell, Fogarty, Mantua, Beardsley and Torres, will prepare a response to the IRC report, including a clarification of the goals of GLOBEC. Huntley suggested that the response be available on the U.S. GLOBEC web site and also published in the U.S. GLOBEC newsletter.

NOAA's FISHERIES AND THE ENVIRONMENT (FATE 2000):

Ned Cyr (NOAA/NMFS) spoke about a fishery oceanography initiative that is a projected year 2000 multiline activity within NOAA, including NESDIS, OAR, NOS/COP, NMFS, and others. Criteria evaluated in developing the initiative were that it 1) examine populations at the basin scale, 2) focus on decadal scale shifts in ecosystems, 3) include studies of seasonal progressions, 4) couple physics and biology, 5) integrate all stages in the life history of the key species, and 6) develop with a consortia of partners. A major observational program is proposed in the North Pacific to examine population scale effects of regime shifts. A goal is to develop ecological indicators to provide early warning of major ecosystem changes, so that management can be adaptive to those shifts. Toward that end, a network of moored buoys is proposed to be deployed along 160W in the North Pacific, with some additional coastal buoys along the west coast. There will also be development of coupled regional to basin scale models. The proposed NOAA initiative in the Northeast Pacific is designed to complement GLOBEC research in this region. A second component of the initiative involves the transition of advancements made during the GLOBEC NWAtlantic program to operational use by the NMFS in making stock assessments. This involves the transition of both technologies and modeling. David Johnson noted that there were other components of the initiative including an effort to examine fisheries/ecosystem status in the Gulf of Mexico within COP. NESDIS proposes to develop a new suite of satellite ocean image products for the open ocean--similar to that done by Coastwatch for the coastal regions.

GLOBEC TRANSITION ACTIVITIES:

Fogarty spoke briefly about efforts to begin transitioning the NW Atlantic program from "GLOBEC research" to "NMFS monitoring/assessment". This planning was initiated by Judy Gray. Fogarty described four areas where GLOBEC research could be transitioned to NMFS: 1) in monitoring groundfish recovery (egg and larval production), 2) in modeling the effects of closed areas (both for finfish and shellfish (scallops)), 3) technology transfer of multibeam acoustics and optical systems, perhaps with NMFS eventually relying primarily on advanced instruments rather than net technologies for assessment, and 4) in the design and statistical aspects of developing a new monitoring program (using results from broad-scale surveys). Beardsley noted that the models that are currently used in the GLOBEC research program rely on field measurements, and that an effort is needed to ensure that a program of sustained measurements continues on Georges Bank to keep the models (transferred to NMFS) accurate and reliable.

NORTHEAST PACIFIC PROGRAM:

Powell provided a very brief overview of the NEP program, describing the already funded projects that have begun retrospective studies, modeling, and pilot monitoring within the two NEP regions. Bob Smith summarized the pilot monitoring efforts that have been occurring off Oregon and northern California--showing transect lines and the types of observations that are being measured. He showed data from November 1997 and early this year from the Newport Line in which very warm temperatures occur nearshore and down to ca. 150m, clearly indicating the influence of the El Nino. Pearcy commented that the 97-98 El Nino has had a different impact (so far) than the 82-83 on the fish exotics. In 82-83, many small pelagics and benthic species were advected far to the north of their usual range. So far in 97-98, most of the northward displacement has been of large pelagics (tunas and the such), capable of swimming to favorable regions, rather than an advective effect.

Bill Peterson summarized the biological monitoring program methods of the Oregon and Alaska efforts. There has been concern that the two sampling programs are not sampling plankton identically, and moreover, there is no presently funded sampling of juvenile salmon (by trawling) or bioacoustics in the Oregon effort. An adhoc group met the night previously to develop a set of protocols that could be used in each region. The solution is for both funded monitoring efforts (and any future funded efforts) to 1) sample plankton using vertical bongos (down to 200 m), 2) sample discrete depths and larger organisms using oblique MOCNESS tows, 3) sample neuston with appropriate gear (this is important since the juvenile salmon seem to preferentially forage at the surface), and 4) preserve a fraction of a selected subsample of the plankton samples in liquid nitrogen, which preserves material not only for genetic analysis, but also enzymatic analysis. It was suggested that the next NEP AO provide information about already funded sampling so that proposers could contact ongoing projects to request additional sampling, if feasible. Peterson surveyed the research groups along the west coast that are sampling or planning to sample juvenile salmon in the coastal zone to determine the most appropriate sampling gear and techniques. He noted that the nearshore OCC program (Joe Orsi), future Oregon effort (Peterson), and NMFS-Tiburon sampling of the Gulf of the Farallones will be sampling juvenile salmon using a NORDIC 264 trawl. He recommended that be adopted as the standard juvenile salmon sampler for the NEP program. Cost of the net and doors is ca. $37K. The Weingartner/Haldorsson GAK program does not have one. If it is selected as the standard gear, one or more additional nets need to be purchased for use by the NEP program. For bioacoustics, the HTI-Model 244 (cost is ca. $110K) is presently used by Wiebe's Biomapper, Coyles system in the Gulf of Alaska, and by one Canadian effort. Daly believed the Model 244 was a state-of-the-art system. Powell suggested that perhaps there could be some way in which a system could be purchased that would become common-use equipment for the NEP program, as opposed to the sole-property of one research group. The system comes complete with faired cable and tow body, and has transducers at 38, 120, 200, and 400 kHz. Ohman and others suggested that it would be worthwhile to survey a broader acoustic community before settling on a standard bioacoustics device for the whole NEP program. Peterson agreed to contact several other groups.

Powell noted that all of the NEP modeling groups met in Seattle in December 1997, and that all seem to be moving forward and making progress. Batchelder distributed a summary of the Dec meeting that was put together by Botsford and Batchelder. Powell also noted that the lack of modeling focused on the Washington coast may be addressed by an extension of the model domain of the Canadian QUODDY model (Mike Foreman and co-workers) southward and of the CoOP funded model (John Allen and coworkers) further north. Powell informed the SSC of a modeling workshop that was organized by he, Brad deYoung and Keith Brander at the North Carolina Supercomputing Center (NCSC) in Research Triangle Park in January 1998. The goal was two-fold: 1) to bring together ecosystem and physical modelers from a number of different projects, including EU funded GLOBEC projects, TASC, Georges Bank and NEP, and 2) to begin to develop a coordinated proposal to be submitted to NCSC to use their facilities for computationally intensive GLOBEC modeling activities. deYoung and Powell are preparing a report of the meeting, that will be available by the end of May.

Ted Strub summarized the eight retrospective studies that have been funded already--what they are doing and what they expect to produce in the next year. He then identified several additional retrospective efforts that we might want to specifically highlight in the next NEP AO: estimates of past growth rates from salmon scales/otoliths; genetic studies of target organisms; paleoceanography studies of the NEP region; and, perhaps other retrospective studies of zooplankton and salmon predators if there are relevant data sets that could be examined.

Batchelder summarized the draft version of the NEP AO that is being developed for release in the fall of 1998. His presentation included material slightly different from that in the draft AO since the NEP Interim Executive Committee (INEC) had met the evening before, and had revised the AO substantially. He focused his presentation particularly on the program structure and components. Five components were presented and discussed: 1) long-term observation programs (LTOP), 2) modeling, 3) retrospective data analysis, 4) mesoscale mapping, and 5) process studies. There are presently 2 LTOP programs funded by GLOBEC--an effort along the Gulf of Alaska (GAK) line off Seward, and an effort that samples several transect lines off Oregon. The purpose of LTOP's is to provide essentially 2-dimensional (vertical slices along offshore extending transects) descriptions of the physical, chemical and biological environment, with annual coverage (ca. 6 cruises per year, encompassing all seasons). The rationale for LTOPS is twofold: 1) they provide the seasonal and sustained measurements to examine large-scale interannual variability in forcing and biological response, and 2) they provide the context for the more detailed mesoscale mapping and process activities that are discussed below. As such, they are needed at several locations along the west coast, but especially in regions where GLOBEC funded NEP process studies and mesoscale mapping will occur. Several specific recommendations were made regarding future LTOP activities in the NEP program. First, the presently funded activity off Oregon does not include sampling of salmon (trawling) or bioacoustics. This should be a high priority for funding in the next AO. Second, since the NEP IP recommends a comparison of Oregon and Northern California regions of the CCS, there is a need now to begin an LTOP at the site in Northern California that will be the focus of future mapping and process studies.

Presently, there are four modeling projects funded by GLOBEC in the NEP program, plus one coupled biophysical modeling study by CoOP. There are no specific identified needs for future modeling, but it is recommended that the AO solicit additional proposals that complement existing projects. Forage fish were noted as one important component of juvenile salmon diet that are presently not addressed by either modeling or field components. Eight retrospective data analysis (RDA) projects are now funded. Identified future needs in RDA are directed on historical salmon stocks--abundances, growth rates, and genetics. Specific recommendations were for efforts using fish scales or otoliths to examine past growth rates, and for genetic studies of the target species.

The two program components that are not funded at all in the existing NEP program are mesoscale mapping and process studies. A mesoscale mapping component was described which would provide a 3-dimensional description of the physical, chemical, and biological fields for regions of approximation 100 km offshore and 300 km alongshore at each of the GLOBEC funded LTOP sites. Mapping should include all biologically important fields including the juvenile salmon sampling and bioacoustics. The mapping rationale is to 1) provide the 3D spatial context to the LTOP observations (e.g., how representative of the larger alongshore region are 2D cross-shelf descriptions), 2) provide context to the detailed process studies, and 3) to provide fields/data sets for model validation and eventual data assimilation. It was recommended that the AO solicit proposals to begin mesoscale mapping activities in 2000 at three sites: 1) the presently funded Oregon LTOP region, 2) the presently funded GAK region, and 3) an as yet unfunded LTOP site in Northern California. It was proposed that the mesoscale mapping occur twice per year at each of these sites and that they continue for ca. five years at each site. In the California Current system it was recommended that the mapping occur in May and August. May is the period when juvenile salmon are first entering the coastal ocean from their natal streams. August is near the end of the first summer's growth period, which is thought to be most crucial in establishing survival of the year-class. The mesoscale mapping is somewhat analogous to the broad-scale mapping of the Georges Bank program. The specific months for the two mesoscale mapping surveys each year in the Gulf of Alaska were not specified.

Finally, the first year of process studies in the CCS (specifically, off Oregon) were presented. The focus will be on the population dynamics and trophic relations of the juvenile salmon, and also on the vital rates of the euphausiids, which are probably important prey for both the salmon and most other fish in the CCS. Process studies should occur concurrent with or immediately following the mesoscale mapping of the system in 2000. The spring transition process and how it influences biological productivity and the distribution of zooplankton and juvenile salmon, is the key physical phenomena to be examined in the first field process studies off Oregon.

There was lively discussion of the AO--what it should include and how much emphasis should be placed on LTOP's as opposed to process studies and mesoscale mapping activities. The mesoscale mapping was probably the most widely discussed component of the NEP program outlined by Batchelder. Some felt that mesoscale mapping should occur every year, but only 2X/year as presented by Batchelder. Others wanted the mesoscale mapping to occur more frequently (perhaps 4-6X/year), but only during the years in which focussed process studies occurred. There was also discussion of perhaps extending LTOP activities to other sites along the west coast, even if GLOBEC never intends to fund process-oriented or mesoscale mapping activities at those sites. The rationale for that is that complete spatial coverage is needed in order to document the forcing and responses in the marine ecosystem at the largest (basin) scale. These and several other issues remain to be worked out before the AO can be released. SSC members and other guests are invited to send their comments to Batchelder by 8 May. After that, he will prepare a revised draft of the AO, attempting to address most of the concerns raised at the INEC and SSC meetings. The next draft will be developed and circulated to the already funded NEP PI's prior to the next NEP PI meeting, which will be held on July 8-9 in Seattle. At that time the draft will be made available on the NEP web site also. The intent is to revise the document following the July meeting and get a final version to the SSC Office in Maryland by the end of July.

RELATED NEP ACTIVITIES:

Mike Roman updated the committee on CoOP's plans for a wind-driven study off the U.S. west coast. CoOP will be publishing an updated science plan in June following the next CoOP SSC meeting (June 16). They expect to have about $3M/yr for each of 5 years of the wind-driven study, with the study to begin field operations in 2000. The IP for the wind-driven study is process driven, not region driven, so it is not known yet whether the study will occur off Oregon, California or perhaps in both regions. There will be an open CoOP workshop on Buoyancy Driven Transport on October 6-8 in Salt Lake City, UT. CoOP is considering two regions, the Gulf of Mexico and Gulf of Alaska, as study sites dominated by buoyancy currents. With GLOBEC's interests in the Gulf of Alaska, Roman encourages participation at the meeting by GLOBEC scientists.

Sue Banahan of NOAA's COP summarized the scientific activities that will occur during the Pacific Northwest Coastal Ecosystem Research Study (PNCERS). PNCERS is another of COP's regional ecosystem programs, this one focused especially on nearshore marine and estuarine ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest. Most work will occur in Grays Harbor and Willapa Bay in Washington and in Tillamook Bay and Coos Bay in Oregon. Ideally, the program results will be used to create flexible strategies for managing resources/ecosystems--i.e., this is a very applied program. She reviewed the principal components of PNCERS, focussing on the physical oceanography and estuarine observations that will be most directly relevant to GLOBEC. The PNCERS PI's met in December 1997 and there will be a report issued this year from that meeting.

Anne Hollowed spoke briefly about a new Bering Sea initiative that is funded by industry money to the tune of ca. $7-8M/yr for an approximate 10 years. One idea that has been put forward to the trustees of that program is to conduct GLOBEC like science in the Bering Sea, to include examination of physics and all trophic levels of the biology.

Anne Hollowed also briefed the committee about the results of the PICES Regional Experiment (REX) workshop that was held in Pusan, Korea last fall. The workshop discussed a number of topics including types of experiments/observations that might be appropriate for different trophic levels, standardization of methods to ensure intercomparability of observations from different regions, and produced recommendations from a number of the working groups. A report of the workshop is in preparation and will be published by PICES. The next PICES Annual Meeting is 14-15 October 1998 in Fairbanks, AK. Three symposia at that meeting are relevant to GLOBEC: 1) impacts of the 97/98 El Nino on the No. Pacific Ocean and its marginal seas; 2) decadal variability of the North Pacific climate; and, 3) climate change and carrying capacity of the No. Pacific: recent findings of GLOBEC and GLOBEC-like programs in the North Pacific.

SCIENCE TALK (FRIDAY):

David Enfield of NOAA/AOML in Miami, FL talked about decadal to multidecadal variability in global ocean climate. The British data set on SST used in the analysis covered the period 1856-199?, with a horizontal resolution of 5 x 5 degrees. This is coarser resolution than the COADS data set which is summarized on 2 x 2 degrees. The motivation for the analysis was prediction of ocean conditions through recognition of repeated, consistent teleconnection patterns. ENSO and long-term trend components were removed from the dataset prior to analysis, since those were the two dominant signals in the data. The residuals remaining were then examined for consistent patterns in space and time. Several were observed. The first (largest) mode has a 10-20 year periodicity in the Pacific, with high loadings along the entire west coast of North America to the Bering Sea, thus appears similar to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. This mode loads negative in the Aleutian Low pressure region, and highly positive in the U.S. southwest, and spatially appears similar to the PNA and ENSO pattern, but with longer time scales. The second mode also has a Pacific focus, with an approximately 100 year cycle. It correlates with low pressure in the polar vortex and with high pressure regions in the Pacific and Atlantic, and looks somewhat like the NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) pattern. The third mode has loads strongest spatially in the Labrador Sea, but is also high in the Gulf of Alaska, and is suggestive of some sort of teleconnection linking these two regions. This mode has a periodicity of ca. 60 years, which is seen also in some of the air temperature data generated from tree ring data, particularly along the Northeastern Pacific.

GLOBEC INTERNATIONAL:

Fogarty and Batchelder attended the March 1998 GI Open Science Meeting. Dan Lynch provided an overview of the NW Atlantic program, Batchelder an overview of the NEP program, and Fogarty spoke about large scale teleconnections as a possible basis for linking regional GLOBEC programs into a common framework. Overall, the Open Science meeting appeared to be quite successful. There were representatives from ca. 40 countries. It was especially valuable as a venue for coordinating future Southern Ocean activities as described earlier in these minutes. Finally, the GI SSC is eager to obtain input about the draft GI Implementation Plan (available in the SSC briefing book). Comments and additional text on the IP can be sent to Roger Harris for consideration in the revision that will be done in the next few months. Fogarty and Batchelder have already provided comments on the IP to Harris from a national programmatic standpoint.

CHAIR'S REPORT:

Fogarty informed the committee that the transfer of the national office from U.C. Berkeley to the University of Maryland was underway. A person has been identified, but not yet hired to replace Kay Goldberg, and several persons have expressed interest in becoming the scientific coordinator. The time-frame for the completion of the transfer of the office is not yet established, but Batchelder has agreed to spend some time in Maryland assisting the new office staff get up to speed.

Fogarty informed the SSC that the proposal that he and Powell submitted to the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) to examine Dynamics of Pelagic Marine Populations by Comparative Analysis had been declined. NCEAS provided few details on the reason for the decline, and Powell and Fogarty will attempt to learn more details. In the meantime, Fogarty will pursue other avenues for supporting this meeting, including perhaps having GLOBEC fund much of it if necessary.

OTHER BUSINESS:

At the request of Thomas Hayward (UCSD/SIO), the committee reexamined the existing U.S. GLOBEC data policy. At issue is whether the policy as stated on page 6 of U.S. GLOBEC Report No. 10 (U.S. GLOBEC Data Policy, 1994) is too restrictive in allowing access to data generated by the GLOBEC program. Representatives of the Georges Bank program at the SSC meeting were unanimous in their opinion that the existing data policy has served the program well, and that there have been no known problems to date. The committee decided that no changes are warranted in the data policy at this time, but that if problems do occur in the future, the policy could be changed if needed.

Phil Taylor noted that NSF has a new foundation-wide, multidisciplinary initiative this year, "Knowledge and Distributed Intelligence" (KDI) that might be of relevance to GLOBEC and several of the other large oceanography programs. $50M are available for FY98, and $100M is expected to be available for FY99. KDI will have three foci: knowledge networking, learning and intelligent systems, and new computational challenges. The first of these may be most relevant to GLOBEC, since it emphasizes the integration of knowledge from different sources and domains across space and time--very similar to the scaling up of GLOBEC regional studies to basin and global scale. More information on KDI is available at http://www.nsf.gov/kdi.

Mike Dagg informed the committee of a workshop on the Gulf of Mexico that will probably be held in November 1998. A variety of fisheries and ecosystems related issues will be discussed and priorities set for potential future research in the Gulf of Mexico. Funding for the workshop will come from a variety of sources, most notably the Coastal Ocean Program of NOAA.

Huntley provided an update on the infamous "ICES Zooplankton Methodology Manual". This book has been under development for ca. 5 years, but recently, Roger Harris assumed the lead on getting it produced. Most chapters are now written and out for review, and the manual will be published this year. This manual will be important in providing standard methods that could be the basis for regional comparisons and larger scale syntheses of GLOBEC and GLOBEC-like investigations.

The meeting adjourned at 1510.

QOTM...

"The zooplankton manual will be published by the end of the year" - Mark Huntley

"I congratulate you [Mark] for sticking with this these many years. For as long as I've been involved with the SSC, this issue has been discussed at these meetings." - Bill Peterson