The third meeting of the International Southern Ocean GLOBEC Planning Group took place at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) on 4 August 1999. The Planning Group meeting was held in conjunction with the Southern Ocean Variability Workshop, which was ongoing at BAS at the same time, since many of the Group members were attending the workshop. The Planning Group members wish to thank Dr. Julian Priddle, co-convener of the Variability Workshop, for facilitating our meeting.
The Planning Group meeting began with updates from the members concerning SO GLOBEC activities within individual countries. Eugene Murphy reported that within the U.K. there will be an external bid put forward at the end of 1999 for a SO GLOBEC cruise in October-November 2001. The outcome of this proposal will be known in May 2000. If the logistics of such a bid do not work out for the 2001 time period, then a bid will prepared for a cruise in October-November 2002. The Planning Group was notified that the later date is likely to be the more successful option for a U.K. SO GLOBEC cruise. The study area for the cruise will be the region around Marguerite Bay, which was identified in earlier Planning Group meetings as the preferred site on the Antarctic Peninsula for SO GLOBEC studies. The U.K. is continuing time series measurements at Faraday that will likely be of interest to SO GLOBEC. Also, Murphy reported that the BAS core program at South Georgia is focused on physical and biological variability, determining advective (e.g., krill) fluxes through the region, and determining predator impact on South Georgia krill populations. These studies have SO GLOBEC relevance and provide comparative data from an additional site. Murphy also said that the U.K. program is intending to bring an Auto Sub into the Weddell Sea for testing during the next field season (November time period). The Auto Sub will be run under the ice and will attempt to do hydroacoustics and to characterize the under ice environment. The results of this experiment should be of interest to SO GLOBEC.
Steve Nicol reported that the Australian Antarctic program is planning winter studies at E on polynya processes and krill growth for austral winter 2000. The data from these studies should be of considerable interest and help in planning SO GLOBEC winter studies in the west Antarctic Peninsula region. Nicol also mentioned that the techniques and approaches used in these studies will be of relevance in determining the mechanics of making winter measurements. Nicol also said that Australia is planning a summer study in January-February 2001 that will be a study of fine-scale processes and krill patchiness.
Polly Penhale reported that the U.S. National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs had issued an Announcement of Opportunity for SO GLOBEC studies in spring 1999. She said that many proposals had been received in response to this announcement and that these proposals were currently undergoing review. She said that the Office of Polar Programs would convene a panel to evaluate these proposals in late summer 1999 and that decision on funding would be made by December 1999. The structure and scope of the U.S. SO GLOBEC program would not be known until the funding decisions were made.
Japanese SO GLOBEC activities were reported on by Mitsuo Fukuchi. He said that Japan has an annual north-south cruise near E along which continuous surface water measurements are made. Also, the Continuous Plankton Recorder is deployed to give surface plankton samples. Fukuchi said that a study of the Cosmonaut polynya is planned for the 2000 austral summer field season. Some of the data from this program will be relevant to the SO GLOBEC science questions. Beyond 2001, Japan is planning a program in the Indian Ocean sector of the Antarctic. It may be possible to get other Japanese research vessels for Southern Ocean studies after 2001. Fukuchi agreed to keep the Planning Group informed of developments in this area.
Suam Kim said that it may be possible for the Korean Antarctic program to devote some resources to studies in the Marguerite Bay region in austral summer 2001 or maybe 2002. He indicated that he would check on this possibility.
Victor Marin said that Antarctic oceanography has not been developed in Chile for some time now. He said that it is possible for individual Chilean scientists to request funds to do Antarctic research as part of SO GLOBEC. These researchers would then space on other Antarctic research vessels from other nations. The Planning Group felt that this was something that could be worked out within the different national programs at the individual scientist level.
Suam Kim reported that he is still willing to host the International SO GLOBEC Planning Office. He has received support from his institution to move forward with this activity. He indicated that he is planning to open this office in spring 2000 and that one of the first activities of such an office will be to organize the regional planning meeting. He said that some funds for the office had been made available through SCOR and that next year he will requesting additional funds from Korea to support the office in fiscal year 2001.
Eugene Murphy, chair of the SO GLOBEC modeling working group, said that this group had begun discussions of activities that would be helpful to the development of the field program. One such activity is to put together information for Marguerite Bay and use this to identify data holdings for key physical and biological parameters. Murphy said that the modeling working group could develop a list of papers and historical data sets for the west Antarctic Peninsula region that would be useful for modeling studies. Murphy requested that the members of the Planning Group provide to him references that may be useful for this activity. He mentioned that an inventory of relevant data sets could possibly be extracted from the Antarctic inventory metadata sets that are part of the SCAR data directory. He said that he would follow up on this.
Other activities under discussion by the modeling working group are a review of existing models for the Antarctic marine system and the development of a specific model that would then be made available to SO GLOBEC researchers for use in comparing data sets. One suggested model for this activity was a model of krill growth.
Murphy said that a meeting of the modeling working group is in the planning stage. Hofmann mentioned that funds had been obtained through SCOR and the International GLOBEC office for this group and the Data Management group to meet.
The chair of the Data Management working group was not at the meeting, so an update on the activities of this group was not available.
The need for a planning workshop to coordinate activities of the various regional programs was recognized by all members present. John Croxall suggested that prior to this workshop the individual national programs should hold workshops to develop individual science plans. These science plans would then be the common starting point for the larger planning workshop. Croxall also noted that the CCAMLR Synoptic Survey Workshop is tentatively scheduled for late May-early June in La Jolla, CA. He suggested that the SO GLOBEC workshop be after the CCAMLR workshop so that the results of the Synoptic Survey could be factored into SO GLOBEC planning. Croxall also mentioned that the CCAMLR Synoptic Survey was intending to do considerable work on net-acoustics inter-calibration and that the results of this would be very relevant to the SO GLOBEC field activities.
The regional planning workshop was tentatively scheduled for Fall 2000. The exact dates will be determined after planning for individual national programs had taken place.
Croxall reminded the Planning Group members that the CCAMLR Synoptic Survey is scheduled for January-February 2000. The results of this field effort are likely to be important in SO GLOBEC planning.
The issue of participation by IWC observers on SO GLOBEC cruises was brought up and all agreed that this is to be encouraged. The IWC has observers identified for participation in the CCAMLR Synoptic Survey and it was hoped that a similar effort would be made for SO GLOBEC. Croxall suggested that an estimate of the number of potential IWC observers be obtained by May 2000 so that this can be factored into SO GLOBEC cruise planning.
Steve Nicol suggested that SO GLOBEC may benefit from the establishment of an additional working group on technology. Cross-calibration of nets and hydroacoustics and quantifying krill biomass under sea ice and winter are important issues for SO GLOBEC. Addressing these issues requires new approaches and technologies. Hofmann agreed to check with Roger Harris, Chair of International GLOBEC, about the possibility of establishing such a working group. Nicol said that if this working group was established, if would be helpful if it had a meeting prior to the regional planning meeting.