Hofmann started the meeting with an overview of the SO GLOBEC program hypothesis and science questions. She reminded the meeting participants that the U.S. SO GLOBEC program was part of a larger GLOBEC initiative and presented maps made by P. Wiebe showing that Marguerite Bay, the location of the SO GLOBEC field effort, and the Gulf of Maine-Georges region, the location of the Northwest Atlantic GLOBEC program, are similar in size and geography. Hofmann then provided an update on SO GLOBEC program activities, which include designating chief scientists for the upcoming April-May cruises (P.Wiebe-RVIB N. B. Palmer, J. Torres-RV L.M. Gould) and July-August cruises (P.Wiebe-RVIB N.B. Palmer, D. Costa-RV L.M. Gould), establishment of a program planning office at Old Dominion University, funding of a data management activity at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), submission of an article describing the U.S. SO GLOBEC program for publication in the U.S. GLOBEC newsletter, and redesigning and updating the SO GLOBEC web site. Hofmann next showed a program logo that P. Wiebe designed for the U.S. SO GLOBEC program and requested comments on the logo.
Hofmann then discussed program collaborations and indicated expressed interest for Chilean and Argentine participation in SO GLOBEC. She then mentioned upcoming activities that are relevant to the SO GLOBEC program. These include the Ocean Sciences Meeting (February 2002), at which there will be sessions organized on results from the first SO GLOBEC field season; a special issue of Deep-Sea Research (Fall 2002) devoted to the first field year activities; and the International GLOBEC Open Science Meeting that is scheduled for 2003. The Open Science Meeting will highlight results from the overall international SO GLOBEC effort. Hofmann then mentioned that Hyoung-Chul Shin would describe Korean SO GLOBEC efforts and that Debbie Thiele (from Australia) would describe the International Whaling Commission (IWC) participation in the SO GLOBEC program. Thiele also represented the Australian SO GLOBEC program because Steve Nicol was unable to attend the Science Investigator Meeting. Hofmann then reviewed the agenda and plans for the science investigator meeting. Suam Kim noted that he would make a presentation concerning interests of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Living Marine Resources (CCAMLR) in SO GLOBEC.
Al Sutherland from the NSF Office of Polar Programs discussed the transfer of Antarctic Support Associates to Raytheon Polar Services (RPS). He also mentioned that the relationship between RPS and WHOI was being worked out. Sutherland then said that the bid for the new Antarctic research vessel had gone to Edison Chouest and as a result the RVIB N.B. Palmer would remain as the second research vessel. Sutherland said that signing of the new the contract with Edison Chouest was imminent. As a result, the RVIB N.B. Palmer would be available for the second SO GLOBEC field season in 2002. Should this not happen, the second vessel would be from a foreign country. Sutherland mentioned that the Argentine Antarctic icebreaker was available on a cash basis. However, this option had not been pursued because the first choice is to use the RVIB N.B. Palmer. Sutherland mentioned that some of the needed work on the RVIB Palmer is and can be done in the shipyard work and that major work would be deferred until after the SO GLOBEC cruises.
Sutherland mentioned that the RV L.M. Gould had been working near Seymore Island in December 2000 and had gotten stuck in the sea ice for almost a week. The captain of the Gould had expressed worry about the Gould being able to operate in the study region that has been proposed for SO GLOBEC. Sutherland said that the Gould could possibly have problems and that the development of contingency plans for the SO GLOBEC cruises should be done. He said that no firm decisions could be made until the sea ice conditions at the time of the SO GLOBEC cruises are known. He encouraged interaction with the German SO GLOBEC cruise, which will take place in Marguerite Bay just prior to the U.S. SO GLOBEC cruise.
Alice Doyle next introduced the RPS personnel: Owen (MP of Gould), Doren (senior MT), Olsgaard (senior ET), and Lager (computing). She said that the program participants needed to be aware of issues that still need addressing. These are: 1) medical packets for all going on the 2001 cruises should have been received; 2) all cruises participants need to be physically qualified within two weeks of deployment; 3) the two-week deadline is the absolute end and sooner is better with medicals; 4) participant travel forms should be turned in soon and these should be sent by fax to Doyle instead of sending them to the RPS travel department; 5) travel cannot be booked for a participant until he/she is physically qualified; 6) cargo is shipped through California and packing and shipping information is available at http://www.polar.org; 7) the materials requested should have been received/sent to home institutions; 8) the tracking report will come out with RSP six weeks before cruise (how RPS expects to support you); 9) there are equipment spread sheets with a list of various equipment pulled from SIPs and please notify Doyle if there are questions; 10) the SIPs are needed for the second set of cruises ASAP; and 11) please submit expense reports for this meeting to Alice Doyle and notify her if expenses have not been reimbursed from the first Science Investigator meeting.
Doyle then asked if there were any questions. Wiebe asked about the availability of good power at Punta Arenas. Doyle said that the power at the warehouse in Punta Arenas is being redone now. Owen said that the power supply diagrams are needed for the port authority and that 110 and 220 power are available. Olsgaard said that they might need to scramble to be ready since they are having to work with Chilean electrical codes. Wiebe then asked about portable generators and said that these should be available a week ahead of the cruise time. Owen said that he will be in Punta Arenas during SO GLOBEC cruise set-up time and will try to figure out how to get 60 Hz power so that instruments can be checked. Muench said that 50 cycle power will not work with instruments that need 60 cycle power. Doyle asked that participants give her a list of their electrical needs in Punta Arenas. Beardsley asked about using space in warehouse for cruise and mooring preparation and Doyle said that there is now work space available in the warehouse.
Fritsen asked Doyle it there were any major conflicts arising from the SIPs. Doyle said that vans are an issue on the second set of cruises, for which five vans have been requested for the Gould. She said that it is not possible to put too many vans on the deck of Gould. She also said that on the Gould July-August cruise, scientists should be prepared to not have extensive laboratory space. Otherwise, the equipment requests are okay and what is still needed can be borrowed from Palmer Station. Doyle said that removal of freezer room in the Palmer has already happened as part of the planned ship upgrades. A freezer van is needed for second cruise on the Palmer.
Wiebe made a presentation of the proposed cruise plan for the upcoming SO GLOBEC cruises. He reminded everyone that the goals of the program are to: 1) elucidate shelf circulation processes and their effect on sea ice formation and Antarctic krill distribution, and 2) examine factors that govern krill survivorship and availability to higher trophic levels, including seals, penguins, and whales. The cruise will start at Punta Arenas, Chile and it is about 980 miles from there to the southern part of work site. The plan is to begin at the top of the study area and work from there southward. Much thought has been given to how the RV Gould will fare in different sea ice conditions and the draft cruise plan allows for setting up the Gould process sites in vicinity of Palmer, which will allow easy and quick access for the two ships to one another. The other process sites will also be established in the region where the Palmer is working. The locations of the survey stations and process sites are flexible depending on needs and sea ice conditions, and the Palmer will break the way for the Gould to get into the process sites.
Wiebe then presented a conceptual time line for the survey cruise. Other items related to the Palmer survey cruise are: 1) a possible rendezvous with the German research vessel to transfer personnel and equipment, 2) the possible pick-up of personnel at Palmer Station, 3) installation of Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) at two sites in Marguerite Bay, and 4) sea-beam surveys to map the bottom in certain areas, such as around the current meter array and along the canyon from shelf edge into Marguerite Bay. There is strong interest from many groups in obtaining very good bathymetry. Sutherland said that the presence of considerable sea ice will require backing and ramming by the Palmer which will interfere with the sea-beam surveys. Wiebe explained that the Palmer will also provide a broader context by surveying around the process sites (star or small-scale grid survey). He then gave time estimates for the survey cruise of: total days steaming at 6 knots- 18.9 days and total days steaming at 4 knots- 24.8 days.
Other special activities on the Palmer survey cruise will be deployment of about 100 sonabuoys (expendable instruments) by the cetacean group, deployment of about 8 drifters (Beardsley group), and about 10-12 days of joint ship operations.
At present, there are three bunks free on the N.B. Palmer. There are requests from Chilean scientists (1-2) to participate in the cruise and these bunks may be used for them. The IWC/ Hildebrand group will provide 3 people on each survey cruise.
Wiebe then discussed the layout of space on the N.B. Palmer for science activities. He said that the BIOMAPER data acquisition will take place on O2 deck. There are two walk-in refrigerators in the biological laboratory area on the main deck and the wet labs to be used by the MOCNESS group are on the main deck, as is the space to locate the ROV. Doyle asked about space for nutrient analyses and said that there will be incubators on the helo deck of the Palmer, as well as a rad van. MacDonald said that the sonabuoy tech needs a place, preferably in the main lab. Wiebe said that the BIOMAPER II and MOCNESS will be situated on the main deck. There is room for zodiacs on the starboard side of main deck. Muench reminded everyone that 6 feet of blue water can occur on the fantail of the Palmer in bad weather. Doren said that about half of the hydro lab is needed for nutrients and that in/out movement (temp. flux) is a main problem with this space. Masserini said that he needs access to deionized water and thermal stability and that his autoanalyzer needs a double table set-up. Wiebe said that there is a lot of space available in the main lab on the first Palmer cruise and that there is much storage space in the hold. Sutherland said that virtually all of main deck of the Palmer is heated. Hofmann mentioned that Ribic's group needs space to do penguin diet sample work so that the Palmer and Gould data sets on penguins will link up. Wiebe showed the BIOMAPER lay-out, which includes a stiff-arm design to attach to the ship's A-frame.
Next, Beardsley gave a presentation on what is known about the bottom bathymetry and about what he and others have been doing to get the best available bathymetry prior to the cruise. The new Smith and Sandwell two-minute bathymetry is now available for the study region. Beardsley's group also got all available bathymetry charts for the area and digitized these. The digitized data were then merged with the new Smith and Sandwell bathymetry to obtain a modified data set. Beardsley noted that no sea-beam data were included in the merged data sets but other data sets from N.B. Palmer cruises that had been reported to the National Geophysical Data Center were included. The modified bathymetry data set is available on the physical oceanography web site at WHOI that has been set up to describe the mooring and drifter program. This web site will be linked with the SO GLOBEC site (NOTE: this is now done). Sutherland noted that sea-beam data acquired from the system on the Palmer is not reliable in less than 400 m water. Lager said that it is possible to get data at shallower depths, but that it includes a lot of noise. Padman said that sea-beam surveys along the CTD lines would be a good opportunity to get bathymetry data. Beardsley said that he hoped that the German ship (Polarstern) that will be in the study area can acquire this type of bathymetry data. Bathmann said that they would try to store most of the interesting data. Beardsley said that the U.S. program would very much appreciate the hydrosweep data from the German cruise and would like to include it in the bathymetry data and make it generally available. Beardsley showed the proposed mooring locations overlaid on the ETOPO2 bathymetry and said that CTD measurements and bathymetry surveys would be at each mooring site.
Torres, who is chief scientist on the April-May L.M. Gould cruise, said that the sampling strategies will differ between this cruise and the July-August cruise. He said that some of the priorities for the April-May cruise will be: 1) finding ice for sea-ice microbial community studies, 2) trawling for pelagic species, and 3) that process site 5 was chosen as likely spot for populations of seals and penguins. He also said that much of the sampling will be dictated by who is on boat, with the primary groups being Jennifer Burns (seals), Kendra Daly (krill, acoustics with HTI 120/38 Kz unit), Chris Fritsen (sea ice microbial communities), Meng Zhou (zooplankton and ADCP surveys), Jose Torres (MOCNESS-3 hrs/tow, at least 1 per day), Doug Martinson (CTD), and Maria Vernet (primary production). Torres said that at process stations 2, 4, and 5, there will likely be dives for under-ice survey of krill and water column diving (requires zodiac and personnel deployment) and, at sites 1 and 2, not much ice is likely to be found. He said that depending on time, it may be possible to add a couple of process stations at end of April-May cruise.
Doyle asked about the number of nutrient samples needed on the Gould since there will be only one person on Gould doing these samples. Hofmann said that there should not be a need for many CTD casts on the process cruise and hence not too many nutrient samples. Zhou said that his group will help with CTD casts, along with the marine tech from RPS. Torres asked about the TerraScan on Palmer and if sea ice images can be sent to the Gould. Doyle said that images can be sent to the Gould via e-mail. The comment was made that water-making on the Gould can be a problem if the ship is sitting still and that gray water and sewage must be emptied on a daily basis. This was not considered to be a problem since the ship will be moving. Lager said that the RPS electronic tech helps with the ADCP on each ship. Wiebe said that each chief scientist will get a cruise manual with information in it about instrumentation, etc. Vernet asked how logging for all activities will be done. Hofmann said that this will addressed later by Wiebe.
Costa, who is the chief scientist on the July-August process cruise, then discussed the activities that will occur on this cruise. He said that a need will be to get onto ice floes to study predators. Thus, once a process site is chosen, the intent is to stay at the site for up to 5 days. Others mentioned that it is optimistic to hold station that long, but it was recognized that it is important that the site not move during a process study. It is not desirable for the ship to disturb the study site. Thus, Costa asked about requesting smaller zodiacs and independent operations for bird/seal research groups so they can operate independent of ship and not interrupt other studies. Costa said that the plan is to put 12-14 tags on seals and about 20-30 tags for birds. Thus, there is not a need to have many opportunities to capture animals, but things need to be flexible when animals are available. Sutherland said that flexibility will be needed by everyone. Costa said that some planning is necessary, along with understanding that plans may have to be completely reconsidered.
Shin asked if other satellite tags have been deployed and if other research groups are currently tracking predators. Costa said that no other groups are working in the area and that Fraser will tag penguins at the Palmer Station colonies prior to the cruises. Hopefully, the birds will go south. Bathmann said that some recent data on predator movement is available at his institution. Beardsley asked if the data from the ARGOS-tags will come back in real time. Costa said that the data are available within about 2 hours with Internet access and daily with e-mail after downloading by ARGOS.
Martinson asked about setting criteria for selecting alternate process sites during fall cruise and noted that the process sites should be revisited in the winter cruise. Harvey asked about time requirements for joint ship operations. Wiebe said that this needs to worked out at the present meeting and that it is very important to communicate to ship's crew what is going to happen. He suggested creating a time-line for the July-August cruise since this cruise will have different activities. Wiebe pointed out that flexibility is key and he said that a written description of the first Palmer cruise plan has been distributed. The intent is to revise this plan at the meeting and have much more detailed description of what the L.M. Gould is going to do.
The next portion of the workshop considered coordination with other international SO GLOBEC programs. Bathmann started this discussion by making a presentation on the German SO GLOBEC cruise, which will occur 13 April to 7 May 2001 in the Marguerite Bay region. This cruise will take place on the Polarstern and involve scientists from Australia, Germany, Brazil, UK, the Netherlands, and U.S. The focus of the cruise will be on determining the: 1) spatial and temporal distribution of adult and larval krill, and the 2) relation of krill to ocean physics including sea ice biology at the onset of austral winter. The research undertaken as part of the German SO GLOBEC effort will include: 1) molecular genetics, 2) studies of food requirements and physiological and biogeochemical adaptations of krill in relation to its biotic and abiotic environment, 3) mechanisms that control krill survival and mortality, and 4) tests of new methods to determine krill standing stocks in difficult environments. Specific components of the German SO GLOBEC program include:
-remote sensing (sea ice, pigments, temperature field)
-ocean physics (CTD, currents, upwelling, turbulence, optics)
-chemistry (nutrients including NH4, O2, DOC/DOM organics)
-phytoplankton, sedimentation (chl a, primary production, flux)
*would like to supplement
US mooring effort*
-bacteria, nano-zooplankton-micro
-small copepods, nauplii
-copepods (standing stock, biomass, grazing)
-salps (biomass and turn-over)
-krill (distribution)
-krill (eco-physiology, turn-over)
-krill (lipids)
-krill (stable isotopes)
-krill-larval feeding
-krill (under-ice diving)
-krill (ROV-ice to bottom) 100-150 m
-seabirds
-whales (use helicopter)
-sea ice (physics, biology, under-ice)
-helicopter (multi-purpose)
-weather (German Meteorological Service)
Bathmann said that information on the German SO GLOBEC program is available on the Alfred Wegener Institute web site in English and German. The instrumentation available on the Polarstern to carry out the required experiments is extensive. The proposed German SO GLOBEC program will complement the U.S. study. The cruise will be more similar to the U.S. process studies (e.g., shelf break, slope). Much of the work will be sea ice work and the occurrence of the needed organisms is more important than geographic location. However, it would be desirable to study the deep trough in Marguerite Bay and the interaction of krill and sea ice in deep versus shallow areas. The German cruise may deploy a mooring in early April just for the duration of cruise. Smith asked if the helicopter on the Polarstern could be used for reconnaissance of sea ice to find locations. Bathmann said that it could provide drawings of sea ice in areas with percentage of sea ice. He said that the helicopter has a 100-120 nautical mile range and carries 2 pilots and 2 passengers. Wiebe asked about using the helicopter for the rendezvous between the Polarstern and the Palmer. Bathmann said it could be done by helicopter and that sea ice is an option for landing.
Murphy gave an overview of the Antarctic program at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). He said that planning for SO GLOBEC is ongoing and that the BAS input to this program would be through the BAS core program. He said that the main focus of the UK GLOBEC program is the marine productivity program and that the main effort in this program is on the North Atlantic and Irish Sea. The SO GLOBEC effort is planned to supplement the BAS field effort, which has its main focus on the Scotia Sea. However, understanding linkages between South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula is an important part of this program. Murphy noted that variability of Southern Ocean ecosystems (interannual) is manifest in years of low krill abundance at South Georgia, which affects seals, penguins, fish, and whales. Also advective transport across the Scotia Sea is important in krill recruitment at South Georgia.
Murphy discussed the CCAMLR synoptic survey results, which yield a krill estimate of about 44.9 million tonnes. The small krill observed in this survey are probably from Weddell Sea and large quantities were found around the South Orkney Islands.
In terms of the UK SO GLOBEC effort, it is unlikely that they would be able to complete the entire grid laid out by the U.S. program for the Marguerite Bay region. Rather, as the BAS ship goes into Marguerite Bay to go to Rothera, some of the stations can be done. Murphy also mentioned the Rothera Antarctic time series site, which could be sampled as part of the U.S., German, and UK SO GLOBEC efforts. This would provide a link between the survey cruises and the time series data sets.
Murphy also mentioned that in the region between the Antarctic Peninsula and South Orkney Islands, the UK is testing an AUTOSUB under ice, which has upward-looking acoustics (SIMRAD EK500). Information from this deployment will be available over next few months to help understand how krill operate under ice. He said that BAS is planning a winter cruise to South Georgia with a collaborative AUTOSUB effort (2002/03) and that the BAS ship, the James Clark Ross, will be in the Marguerite Bay region in November 2002.
Thiele next gave background on the IWC and said that the approach within this organization has changed to one that is focused on multinational, multi-disciplinary collaboration (e.g., CCAMLR, GLOBEC, SO GLOBEC). The interest of the IWC is now turning to trying to characterize foraging behavior and movements of baleen whales, which is the reason for interest in participation in SO GLOBEC. Thiele said that the IWC lacks data sufficient to determine baseline patterns of baleen whales. The IWC has chosen the Southern Ocean as a site for field activities and a has an interest in understanding interaction between baleen whales and krill. Consequently, the IWC wants to participate in as many international cruises as possible with the intention to working within existing programs. The IWC wants to ensure that cetacean data is collected in a standardized way. Thus, the IWC is requesting two or more berths on each SO GLOBEC cruise. The IWC observers make visual observations with hand-held VHS radios, laptop logging of sightings, and video/photo documentation. Most of the cetacean work will be done during daylight hours. Thiele will be on the German SO GLOBEC cruise just prior to the April-May cruise and will need to transfer between the two ships at sea. This will ensure continuous coverage of the region. If possible, Thiele will do whale biopsy work and possibly satellite tracking. She requested that the zooplankton groups let her know what they need to know about the whale predators. The preliminary results of the SO GLOBEC cruises will be reported at the July 2001 meeting of the IWC Scientific Committee in London, England.
Thiele next described the Australian SO GLOBEC field program. This program consists of a fine-scale survey cruise with a full set of environmental and krill measurements. There is a cetacean team on the cruise doing observations and biopsy work.
Shin described the Korean krill studies, which are done on surveys in vicinity of South Shetland Islands and eastern Bransfield Strait and extend for about 12 days. Measurements are made of krill biology, acoustics, net sample of krill, physical oceanography, phytoplankton biology, chlorophyll concentration, primary production, nutrient chemistry, and sediment traps (1000 m and 2000 m). The study region is one where two different water masses mix. The intent is to do similar studies in this same area for the next three years. The issues for continued surveys are: minimal funding/short funding cycle, limited ship time, have to charter vessel, insufficient human resources, and lack of predator components. However, the program to date can provide krill abundance estimates, krill feeding data, morphometry and reproduction data, various oceanographic measurements, krill population genetics, and onboard experiments to establish various field indices for krill condition. An additional survey is planned for January 2001/2002 in the Weddell Sea with a focus on carbon cycling and the role of krill and zooplankton in carbon flux.
Kim described the CCAMLR program, which has as an objective the development of a framework for management of ecosystem resources. CCAMLR had as a goal providing an estimate krill biomass in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean, which was done with the Synoptic Survey cruise (4 million tonnes). Within the Antarctic Peninsula region, Japan, Korea, and the U.S. conduct CCAMLR surveys each year. These cruises are coordinated so that there are repeated time-series at some locations.
Comiso, from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, gave an overview of sea ice conditions along the west Antarctic Peninsula region. He showed several climatologies of sea ice distribution (1978-98), which show changes in sea ice characteristics, such as extent and concentration. These distributions indicate that sea ice concentration seems to be going down in area of the Bellingshausen Sea (negative trend), but is increasing in other areas. Comiso noted that much of the SO GLOBEC study region has been free of ice in autumn (large variability in ice cover). Recently, the sea ice edge has been very close to Peninsula in winter.
Comiso said that the interest from NASA in SO GLOBEC is in acquiring in situ data sets that can be used for accurate interpretation of sea ice data sets obtained from aircraft and satellite-borne sensors. NASA is interested in validating data from AMSR, MODIS, and EOS PM. The proposed time line allows for AMRS aircraft validation in August 2002, which is the time of the second SO GLOBEC cruise. NASA is interested in arranging aircraft overflights of the SO GLOBEC study area during this time. Comiso indicated that SAR data are available in the Marguerite Bay region, but acquiring these data needs to be scheduled in advance. He said that Landsat data are dependent upon cloud-cover and costs $600/image. Radar SAT (ERS-1) is $1500/image. Comiso proposed to obtain these data sets for the SO GLOBEC program and to make available a weekly image.
The next discussion item was sampling methods and this started with a presentation by Shin on krill condition index measures. He noted the need for standard indicators to describe the condition of krill and said that his research indicated that the krill digestive gland is a good indicator of past feeding history. The color of this gland can then be related to the past feeding history and what the krill has been eating. Shin also noted that krill eyes do not shrink similar to the body in response to food conditions. He suggested that the ratio of krill body length to eye diameter can be used to detect severe long-term food shortage. He presented data that show that fed and starved krill are distinguishable by the body length to eye diameter relationship and that this metric may help determine krill age more accurately.
Next, Daly presented a revision of the list of measurements that had been distributed earlier. Daly requested that each science investigator review the list of measurements, make needed corrections, and give these to her. She would then update the list and it would be made available to everyone.
Wiebe next discussed SO GLOBEC data management. He said that the data management system is in place and that the data management office at WHOI is now serving data sets from the Northeast Pacific GLOBEC program. The GLOBEC data policy is to disseminate data on a timely basis, make data available when it will be useful, and to make data available to others outside program. Data that are made available are field data, retrospective studies, laboratory experimental results, modeling data, and information (cruise reports, etc.). The policy is for open access/read-only data and when data are used, permission should be requested from the PI who collected the data. The intent is to encourage collaboration with the emphasis being on access to data and information as quickly as possible. Bob Groman (WHOI) is the data manager and the JGOFS data system is the model for SO GLOBEC data system. The data server uses the JGOFS data management software. However, each investigator can serve his/her own data with access to the data via a browser (Netscape, Internet Explorer). The use of common field names (thesaurus) is encouraged and supporting data documentation needs to be available. The data can reside with owner/contributor, which will help minimize duplicate data sets. However, if this is done, the data always need to be up to date and the computer does have to be available 24/7. To become a data server, the JGOFS data management software needs to installed on the local system. The role of the Data Management Office is to provide a centralized starting point for data, to help contributors to become data servers, and to encourage use of common field names.
Data are available as flat ASCII listings or via Matlab scripts. Data download utilities are varied (tar or zip, compressed, single or multiple files). The data system is flexible and can handle images, movies, and numerical values. The Distributed Oceans Data System (DODS) can read JGOFS data and has extensible architecture (Oracle method written using Perl). The security and integrity of the data base are fostered with read-only data files. There are some built-in tools to manipulate data. The data sources are from the broad-scale cruises, process cruises, moorings, drifters, satellite, aircraft, and modeling.
Future plans for the data management office include new methods for external databases, enhancements to existing methods, better interface to system and tools, support for "objects of objects", additional tools (scientific visualization), and improve robustness (mirror critical servers). In summary, the GLOBEC data policy encourages access to data, with the data management office being the focal point for serving data. Distributed data serving is encouraged and the SO GLOBEC office and data management office will work together to make this happen.
Wiebe next explained a data survey form that all science investigators are asked to fill out and return by the end of the meeting.
Wiebe said that the chief scientist for each cruise handles the cruise event log and that this goes into the data base. Daly asked about data formatting, level of data, video data, and ROV data. Wiebe said that acoustic data is significantly more difficult to serve. Video is also difficult to make available and that the ability to collect these data types far exceeds ability to serve it. Wiebe also said that the data management office can help you get data and that Bob Groman does arbitration of resolution of data issues.
There being no other business, the meeting was adjourned for the day.
Captain Sanamo of the Gould asked if there would be need for an exceptionally large amount of fresh water. Torres said there should not be such a need on the April-May cruise. Captain Sanamo said that this is not a problem if he knows about it ahead of time. Wiebe said that the July-August process cruise phase will have some fixed camps. He requested that the process and survey working groups compile time budgets and work estimates. The speed of Gould following Palmer was discussed. Wiebe said that BIOMAPER will not be working during periods when the Palmer needs to do backing and ramming. He said that the best speed for BIOMAPER is 4 knots and that the quality of data is questionable at more than 6 knots. Captain Sanamo said that 4 knots is a reasonable speed for the Gould.
Ashjian asked about having a meeting of scientists in Punta Arenas before the Gould sails. Wiebe said that the Gould should come into port in Punta Arenas on 14 April and is scheduled to leave on 20 April. The Palmer should come into port in Punta Arenas on 19 April and is scheduled to leave on 23 April (possible one day earlier arrival in Punta Arenas). Thus, 19 April is the date for a joint cruise meeting and it is desirable for the chief scientists to meet earlier for cruise preparations.
Lager (from RPS) discussed issues related to using the sea-beam system on the Palmer. He said that the instrument produces very useful data but with much noise and artifacts. He said that the RPS personnel are experienced with running the sea beam. Data are collected on tape and then need to be ping edited to remove artifacts, outliers, and noise. The system collects data at 1500-2500 pings/hr and it takes 1 hour of editing per 1 hour of data acquisition. The ping editing works on volunteer basis, but the majority of the editing will have to come from the science group. There will be training and instructional materials for ping editing. Gridded survey plots are then produced from the edited data. The data sets are then distributed on DAT tapes. Breaking ice will require checking to see if sea-beam is collecting data. Data back-ups are done daily. Beardsley asked about software changes to allow the sea-beam system to work better in shallow water. Lager said that the software allows for depths as shallow as 50/40 meters and that the system auto-switches on depth modes (shallow and deep). The system has a 12 kHz frequency and should be turned off when doing CTD stations and when doing backing and ramming. Ice can insulate transducers from water. There is no way to manually control ping rate. Ping editing consists of looking for consistency between consecutive pings in data and confirmation of center beam depths from sub-bottom profiler. The persons editing the data sets need to be consistent.
Following the discussion of the sea-beam data sets, the meeting participants
divided into working groups for the survey and process cruises. [Note:
Please see the separate minutes from the survey
cruise and process cruise working groups.]