NOPP P.I.
Meeting Minutes
January 5, 2001
FleetLink PI Meeting on January 5, 2001 at MIT's Sea Grant Office
Present: R. Barnaby, A. Bucklin, K. Ekstrom, C. Goudey,
R. Groman, D. Mountain, C. Pendleton, P. Wiebe, G. Williams
Absent: D. Holsom
Guests: Laural Williams
1. ONR/NOPP Renewal
We discussed the focus for the NOPP renewal proposal. We will focus on data assimilation
and outreach activities. We would also like to have a few more systems in place in hopes
of getting to a critical mass off observing platforms.The letter of intent is due April 1 and the
proposal is due May 1. Ann will take the lead.
2. Review of December 20, 2000 Meeting
Cliff handed out a summary of the December 20, 2000 meeting with Dean Goodwin of
Kimble Union Academy where the use of FleetLink data in the classroom was
discussed. This summary was previously sent out to everyone as an
e-mail message.
(Bob will put the summary on-line.)
3. Northeast Consortium Proposals
Cliff presented two planning letters for discussion:
- Data Collecrtion and Telemetry for Managing the Northern Shrimp Fishery, and
- Adopt a Boat: Commercial Fishing Vessels in K-12 Education
3. Revisit Telemetry Question and National Weather Service Involvement
We discussed whether the ARGOS system could be used to send the hourly reports
to the National Weather Service rather than the COMSAT. It would be less expensive
and the data rate would be adequate. This is already being done for weather data
from buoys. Gary will check again with his GTS contact (Beth Horton?)
to see if we should deal with
them in addition to the NWS directly.
4. FleetLink Data: possible use for NMFS environmental analysis
David showed how he used the Susan & Caitlyn sea surface temperature data and
compared it to their historical data (MARMAP). The "anomaly" plots showed reasonable correlations
between the two data sets. It showed that the FleetLink data could provide valuable
additional spacial and temporal data to the data sets that NMFS collects itself and from
other sources. He noted that
- having a fleet of vessels would greatly increase spacial coverage
- these data would have a possible impact on Dan Lynch's modeling efforts
- there could be enhanced satellite ground truthing for front structures
- there are other sources of data as well, including the NMFS weather buoys,
and the soon to be deployed GoMOOS buoys.
5. Net Sensor Status
Gary said that the net sensor system is ready from his end. Ken is finishing the
integration into the Wheelhouse program. There was much discussion about what
could be done in time for next Tuesday. Ken needs a working unit since the one
he has failed and he can't finish debugging until he has a working unit. The telemetry
questions will be put on the back burner so that Ken and gary can focus on getting
the data from the sensor into the on-board computer. Another item to solve is the
cabling (RS232/RS485) between the computer (COM1 port) to the sensor unit.
They decided to install the unit on Monday on Craig's boat.
6. User Documentation
We discussed the need for some form of printed user documentation. Ken said that
his interface includes on-line help, but it was felt that a user manual, something
short, would still be very helpful.
7. Data Management and Display
Comments need to be tied to the tow number. At this point, the
tow information is not part of the comments data. Bob will have to
address this, but it was also suggested in the interim, to have users
reference the tow number in their comments explicitly.
We revisited the issue of what information (data) should be available both
publicly and privately. Craig was uncomfortable with vessel identification information
available on-line, and thought that no catch informations should be make available
on-line. Bob said he could remove vessel names and use some kind of vessel code
numbers instead. He will also remove all but the athena data from the public web site.
The athena data still will not show position information on the public web site. Also,
the
public web site should not show live data; just a sample.
8. Video Taping Project
Rolie reported that the video taping at Clearwater was very successful. On Monday, they
plan to do some video taping on the boat while it is underway. He thought that David should
also appear on the the tape and he will set that up. He would also like to see someone from
the National Weather Service interviewed. [Bob has dealt with
Jim Hayes at NOAA in his efforts to
pass along hourly weather data to the NWS.] Also, Ann will be the talking head for the
video. That too remains to do.
Making the Wheelhouse Software Available
We discussed again making the Wheelhouse software available to Criag and others for
desk-side review and debugging. Ken can create a zip files of the necessary files but
it is difficult to get it all together on a single floppy. Cliff authorized Ken to buy a CDROM
writer to facilitate creating CD-ROMs containing the software.
Next meeting:
Next PI meeting will be Thursday, February 8, 2001 at
MIT's Sea Grant Office. Major topics:
- Status of field testing
-
- Public vs. private data to serve
Prepared by Bob Groman and Ann Bucklin
Original: January 9, 2001
Revised: February 2, 2001
Revised: March 29, 2001