Fisheries-Oceanography
Coordinated Investigations (FOCI)
FOCI PI Meeting Minutes - 13 November 1997
ATTENDANCE
Art Kendall, Pat Livingston, Ron Reed, Ric Brodeur,
Ann Matarese, Al Hermann, Jim Schumacher, Allen Macklin, Jeff Napp, Bern
Megrey, Phyllis Stabeno, Matt Wilson (rapporteur)
ANNOUNCEMENTS
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November 20-22: NSF Bering Sea Inner Front Meeting at
PMEL in the Oceanographer Room (Seminar Room). Presentations on Thursday
(11/20) will last from 8:30 am until sometime in the afternoon. The focus
is on productivity of the inner shelf and relates to bird breeding and
feeding. Contact Phyllis Stabeno or Jim Schumacher for more information.
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December 3: Sandra Werner will give a seminar at the
UW on some of her thesis research with Robert Beardsley. Her seminar will
begin at 12:30 at a location to be announced. She has been using field
data from Georges Bank to describe the tidal boundary layer and compare
the field results to numerical model predictions.
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December 4-5: Bering Sea Ecosystem Workshop in Anchorage,
Alaska for the purpose of presenting research programs. The Department
of Interior, NOAA, and the State of Alaska are all involved with this workshop.
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December 8-9: review of ‘97 ESDIM projects. This will
be held at PMEL.
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December 15-16: the principal investigators of the Southeast
Bering Sea Carrying Capacity program will meet at Battelle.
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January 8: Fisheries oceanography symposium to be held
at the Asian Centre Auditorium, University of British Columbia. Registration
is $75 by December 1, 1997. It is expected that this one-day seminar will
result in a book.
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Tiffany Vance has submitted an article to EOS about
the anomalous conditions in the Bering Sea this past summer. The article
can be viewed at http://rho.pmel.noaa.gov/vance/seawifs/eos.html.
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Jeff Napp and Ric Brodeur successfully petitioned the
PICES organization for the formation of a micronekton working group. This
group will materialize in one year and is expected to concentrate on ecosystem
and sampling-technique questions.
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Jim Schumacher noted that there may be some future opportunities
for monitoring programs in the northern Gulf of Alaska through Prince William
Sound and Exxon Valdez research funds.
FIELD SEASON
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Ric Brodeur briefly reported on field activities during
9MF97, the September biological cruise aboard the Miller Freeman. Sampling
along the standard four transects around the Pribilof Islands included
CTD casts and concentrated sampling at and around tidal fronts. Along Line
A, thermal conditions were similar to that observed during previous years
but salinity stratification was weak. Similar to previous years, chlorophyll
concentration peaked at or just offshore of the front along Line A. Although
the ROV worked well, poor visibility caused by an extensive and long-lasting
coccolithophore bloom hampered viewing of age-0 pollock at depths less
than 50 m. Catches of age-0 pollock in either the Methot or Anchovy trawls
suggested that densities of age-0 pollock along the four transects were
less than observed during 1996.
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Phyllis Stabeno reported that her monitoring cruise
was hampered by poor weather, and Moorings 3 and 4 were not successfully
recovered. Mooring 2 (in 70 m of water off of Cape Newenham) has now yielded
three years of data. For the month of April, conditions this year were
similar to past years but were very different for the month of May due
to mixing caused by a strong late-May storm. During 1997, the vertical
density gradient was weak and was mostly due to temperature, surface temperatures
peaked in August at about 15 C. Two new types of sensors were attached
to the moorings to record turbidity and PAR measurements. Ron Reed commented
that these data indicate that anomalous conditions in the Bering Sea this
year are likely to be associated with atmospheric forcing as opposed to
El Niño effects translated through the ocean. Jim Schumacher noted
that the large temporal variability observed at Mooring 2 underscores the
importance of monitoring programs.
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Three cruises are planned for the Shelikof area next
spring and summer. The first will be in early May and will focus on eddies,
as agreed during this summer’s Shelikof Strait PI workshop. The eddy study
group will develop a sampling plan for the cruise for consideration by
FOCI PIs at the December 11 meeting. Expected complications include eddy
formation and detection, so satellite images, drifters, and CTD measurements
will be an integral part of this cruise, as will be ship-to-shore communications.
The second cruise will occur during late May and will be the standard late-larval
survey. The third cruise will be aboard the Wecoma during late June, but
objectives are not yet determined. A committee consisting of Ric Brodeur
(chair), Kevin Bailey, Matt Wilson, and Allen Macklin will develop options
for the cruise and report at the next meeting.
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Having data from three Shelikof Strait cruises next
spring offers FOCI the opportunity to refine the conceptual model of survival.
Birthdate distributions of pollock larvae obtained during these cruises
will be analyzed. Periods of high mortality may become apparent from the
analyses and could be related to measured changes in the environment.
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Some FOCI PIs have submitted a proposal to NOAA/OAR
to monitor ocean conditions in the western Gulf of Alaska that would provide
definition of the spatial and temporal extent of this year’s El Nino. If
funded, this work will bring critical resources, e.g., satellite-tracked
drifters, to this year’s Shelikof Strait work without requiring more than
about a day of ship time during each cruise.
NEXT MEETING
The next meeting will be held at 10 a.m. on Thursday,
December 11, 1997, in the Cloud Chamber (3/2065). Kurt Zegowitz, PMEL,
will be rapporteur.
CORRECTIONS
Please mail corrections and additions to
the FOCI Coordinator.
FOCI
Coordinator
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