Report
of the
U.S. GLOBEC Northeast Pacific
California Current
November
12 - 14, 2000
Edited by Harold P. Batchelder and P. Ted Strub
This workshop was organized by the U.S. GLOBEC Northeast Pacific
Coordination Office.
The scientific investigators who attended the workshop provided
the abstracts, posters, and figures for this report. Hal Batchelder, Ted Strub,
and Linda Hunn put this report together.
The U.S GLOBEC Northeast Pacific California Current Scientific Investigatorís Workshop and this report were sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Introduction
The U.S. GLOBEC Northeast Pacific (NEP) Program is a large
multidisciplinary, multi-year oceanographic effort focusing on the biology and
ecology of juvenile salmon, euphausiids, large copepods, and forage fish in
coastal regions of the North Pacific, and how these populations are controlled
by physical and biological processes at large- to meso-scales. Two specific
regions have been targeted for intensive
field studies and long-term observations: (1) the wind driven,
coastal upwelling California Current
System (CCS), especially the region extending from central Oregon
south to Northern California, and,
(2) a coastal Gulf of Alaska (CGOA) shelf region southwest of
Prince William Sound. U.S. GLOBEC studies in the NEP have been phased in
gradually. NEP research began in 1997 with integrated, multi-investigator,
interdisciplinary programs of modeling, retrospective analysis, and long term
observation programs (LTOPs). Focused process-oriented and field surveys of the
CCS were planned for the summers of 2000 and 2002; these will alternate with
intensive field studies in the CGOA in 2001 and 2003. The U.S. GLOBEC research
effort in the NEP has an ultimate goal of improving the predictability and
management of living marine resources in the region by developing better
insights and under-standing of ecosystem interactions and the coupling between
the physical environment and the living resources at multiple temporal and
spatial scales. The physical environment and biological populations of the
eastern Pacific respond strongly to climate variability at several temporal
scales: interannual
changes like El Nino-La Nina oscillations; and, longer-term, lower
frequency, probably atmospherically forced, changes like the regime shift that
occurred in the winter of 1976-77, and perhaps more recently in the late
1990ís. The U.S. GLOBEC research program is supported primarily by the U.S.
National
Science Foundation Division of Ocean Sciences, and by the U.S.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationís Coastal Ocean Program and
National Marine Fisheries Service. Ancillary funding for some projects within
the program is provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
U.S. GLOBEC is a component of the U.S. Global Change Research
Program.
This U.S. GLOBEC Northeast Pacific Scientific Investigatorís
workshop was held at the International Forum Room on the campus of Oregon State
University in Corvallis, Oregon. The meeting goals were:
ď To share mesoscale and process, LTOP, retrospective and modeling
results
ď To begin to integrate and synthesize findings
ď To prepare for national and international meetings
ď To interact with other investigators who might have insights
into interesting, but unexplained, results
ď To identify research nuggets of particular interest and broad
appeal for early investigations
ď To discuss future (2002) field (LTOP, mesoscale, process)
research in light of observations/knowledge gained from the 2000
investigations. Specifically, what went well in 2000; what needs to be
improved; and, to begin logistical planning for 2002.
There were four mechanisms for communicating results during the
meeting:
ď Short Oral Presentations
ď Posters
ď Structured Working Groups
ď Informal Discussions/Unstructured Breakout Groups
Sunday, 10 November 2000
The workshop began on Sunday, 12 November 2000. Ted Strub, chair
of the NEP Executive
Committee, began the meeting by reviewing the agenda and
describing the objectives, goals and possible products of the workshop.
Attendees were asked to think about potential future meetings at which GLOBEC
NEP/CCS results could be highlighted in special sessions. We revisited
discussion of special meetings and publications on the final day.
Each funded project was allotted ca. 10 minutes to describe the
results and progress made during the past year. Prior to the meeting, the PIís
were encouraged to
provide the highlights of their results orally, and to provide the
details in accompanying poster presentations. The response to this suggestion
was heartening as the short oral presentations of most projects were
supplemented by 1-2 posters. Appendix I provides an agenda of the speakers on
day 1.
We concluded day one of the meeting by devoting about 20 minutes
for brainstorming possible
working group breakout sessions. Because time was short, and we
did not want to cut into the
scheduled poster session time from 1730-1900, we resolved to
continue this discussion as the
first topic for the following day.
The ca. 1.5 hour long poster session was well attended and led to
many fruitful discussions among the scientific investigators. So much so, that
we scheduled time for scientists to revisit posters on day two
of the meeting.
The Northeast Pacific Executive Committee (NEPEXCO) met on Sunday
evening from 1745 - 1930 to discuss the science that had recently been funded
for the Coastal Gulf of Alaska region within the NEP program. All of the
NEPEXCO members (Barth, Botsford, Brodeur, Peterson, Powell, Schwing, Strub,
and Tynan) were in attendance, as was Hal Batchelder and Beth
Turner. Strub summarized the very positive discussions that had occurred at the
NEP/CGOA PI meeting on 8-9 November 2000 in Seattle. All projects but one were
represented at the CGOA meeting, and the discussions were collegial and
productive. Ted outlined the principal recommendations/changes that the CGOA
PIís felt could be reasonably accommodated and which would improve the spatial
context of the process oriented work. First, the PIís suggested reordering some
of the LTOP and process cruises so that all process cruises
are almost immediately preceded by LTOP cruises. Second, it was
recommended that 3-4 days of
NOAA Vessel Ron Brown be used to survey ěfine-scaleî regions
surrounding each of the three shelf process sites in May 2001. Third, it was
suggested that each of the three Alpha Helix LTOP cruises
that precede the process-work be extended by two additional days,
to permit sampling along a line extending offshore from Cape Clear, parallel to
the Seward Line. The modified Cape Clear line is upstream of the process
stations and would provide an opportunity to partition water, nutrients,
plankton, etc., between along-shelf flow and flow exiting from
Prince William Sound. We believe that some, but not all of the requested
addition of 6 days may be recovered by reprogramming existing
days allocated to December 2001 sampling (although this was not
clear). There would need to be a request made to NSF and/or NOAA for additional
ship days to permit the full extended sampling to be completed.
Following Tedís summary, the group discussed the CGOA sampling
plan and developed several additional ideas that might improve the sampling
design. The ideas of the NEPEXCO were forwarded after the meeting to all of the
NEP/CGOA PIís for their consideration prior to their next planning
meeting (scheduled for 11-12 January 2001).
Monday, 13 November 2000
On day 2, the meeting started with a plenary session (chaired by
T. Strub) which continued
brainstorming potential topics for working groups. Suggestions for
working groups included:
1)
providing the climate context to contemporary
field observations and potential regime changes;
2)
model-data comparison; 3) generation of salient
questions about the comparison of regions
north and south of Cape Blanco; 4) comparison of nearshore vs.
offshore features and the importance
of upwelling fronts and mesoscale structures to biological
interactions; 5) comparison of 2000 with
earlier years; 6) importance of Heceta Bank and other topographic
features in creating regions with
high retention; 7) trophic interactions; 8) zooplankton sampling
working discussion on sampling in the CGOA and CCS, particularly for
euphausiids; 10) linkages of scales from continuous to discrete
patches, particularly for linking observations made on different
spatial scales/resolutions; 11) connec-tions to inner-shelf processes,
particularly linkages to the PISCO program; and, 12) influence of the Columbia
River in controlling ecosystem processes off Oregon.
After the brainstorming session, oral presentations were made on a
number of other programs that are sampling off Oregon or that are making
ancillary observations in conjunction with GLOBEC. These included the PISCO
program of near-shore sampling (moorings inshore of 25 m and intertidal
sampling of benthic invertebrates), the NSF funded COAST program, which will be
sampling the Oregon shelf from Lincoln City, OR to Heceta Bank in May-June and
August 2001; a NOPP West Coast Integrative Modeling effort that includes
coastwide modeling and regional modeling focused on Vancouver Island shelf,
Oregon-Washington, Monterey Bay, and Pt. Conception. The NSF funded WEST
program off
Point Reyes was described, as was the BPA program that has been
sampling salmon off northern Oregon for several years and will continue for
several more. Finally, we heard that the NMFS/NWFSC
will undertake similar diet studies of fish from the OCC and
GLOBEC sampling efforts (coordinated by Jack Helle) in the Gulf of Alaska, to
compare with similar data being generated from GLOBEC studies
in the CCS.
Bob Groman, data manager for the U.S. GLOBEC National Office,
reviewed the GLOBEC data policy
and currently supported methods for serving GLOBEC data to the
oceanographic community. He emphasized that the PIís should make their data
available to their colleagues when it first becomes
useful to others. He encouraged the PIís to serve their own data
locally, thus maintaining control over
it if updates were needed, but did offer that a central data
repository at Woods Hole was available for small-to-medium sized data sets.
There is currently not sufficient data capacity to handle large data
sets like acoustics, OPC, or SeaSoar data.
After lunch on day 2, we reassembled for several hours into
informal working groups around the
following themes: 1) 2000 process cruise data and priorities for
analysis (Barth/Tynan); 2) comparison
of euphausiid research in the CGOA and CCS (Peterson/Hopcroft); 3)
analysis of CCS MOCNESS samples, especially for euphausiids and copepods, but
also considering gelatinous forms (Huntley/Peterson); 4) observations from the
2000 mooring program (Ramp/Kosro); 5) retrospective analysis of climate and ecosystem
changes (Schwing/Berkeley); 6) salmon in the CCS issues (Botsford/Brodeur); 7)
ecosystem modeling coupled to circulation models (Powell/Haidvogel/Hermann);
and 8) microzooplankton studies in the CCS (Powell/Sherr).
Toward the end of the day, the attendees broke out into three
formal working groups to discuss: 1) comparison of the CCS north and south of
Cape Blanco (Barth); 2) trophic interactions (Wainright),
and 3) possible recent regime changes (Murphree). We concluded day
2 in plenary with short reports
of the discussions that occurred in the three formal working
groups.
Day 3 (morning only) of the meeting was devoted to additional
working group discussions and poster viewing. In addition, the day began in
plenary with a discussion of future venues/opportunities for presenting GLOBEC
NEP/CCS research at public meetings and in special publications. Greatest
interest was expressed in having a special session (agreed to be
co-chaired by Strub and Batchelder) highlighting ěBiophysical Interactions in
the Northeast Pacificî at the next Ocean Sciences Meeting of AGU (February
11-15, 2002 in Honolulu, HI). There was some interest also on having a session
on
shelf-coastal systems at the Fall 2002 AGU meeting in San
Francisco, CA (December 6-10, 20002).
A number of specific options for special publications highlighting
U.S. GLOBECís research in the NEP were forwarded by the attendees, including 1)
Topical Studies in Oceanography, 2) JGR-Oceans, 3) Progress in Oceanography,
and 4) Fisheries Oceanography. There was some reluctance of the
physical oceanographers to Fisheries Oceanography as a venue
because it is not generally read by
that community. Batchelder noted to the group that the National
GLOBEC office, chaired by Mike
Fogarty at the NEFSC of NOAA in Woods Hole, plans a sponsored
issue of ěOceanographyî, the magazine of The Oceanography Society for late
fall-winter of next year. One or two chapters,
depending on the eventual organization of the issue, will be
devoted to the NEP program of GLOBEC. Batchelder and Strub will take the lead
on coordinating a team of authors in producing the articles for
this issue.