Appendix A - History of Planning Efforts for GLOBEC
The GLOBEC research initiative is designed to incorporate the results and
recommendations of several independent planning meetings as well as the
workshops and working group activities conducted under the auspices of
GLOBEC. These independent planning meetings involved the communities of
fisheries biologists, marine zooplankton biologists, nearshore marine
benthic ecologists, and physical oceanographers.
Planning Processes Leading Up To GLOBEC
Fish Ecology I, II, III
In the early eighties, the Biological Oceanography Program of NSF
developed documents in response to growing community interest in the
underlying causes of population fluctuations from seasonal to decadal
time scales in the ocean. One expression of that interest was a series
of three workshops between 1980 and 1983 which were organized by John
Steele, Brian Rothschild, and others. These workshops came to be known
in retrospect as "Fish Ecology I, II and III". Fish Ecology III, the
culmination of this effort, was a large international gathering (Miami,
1983) sponsored by CIMAS, the NOAA/University of Miami Cooperative
Institute of Marine and Atmospheric Science. It focused primarily on
recruitment, food chains, and the coupling of physical forcing, and
resulted in a substantial workshop report.
The Lake Arrowhead Marine Zooplankton Colloquium
In April 1988 a group of 58 biological oceanographers and marine
ecologists interested in marine zooplankton biology met in a week-long
workshop at Lake Arrowhead in Los Angeles, California to identify the
new directions emerging in marine zooplankton research. The report of
that workshop (Marine Zooplankton Colloquium 1, 1989) lists seven
principal issues and areas of future research emphasis in the field of
marine zooplankton biology, all of which are embraced by the science
plan of GLOBEC:
- Characterization of individual small-scale behaviors leading to a better
understanding of the dynamics of aggregation and dispersal;
- Determination of how environmental variability, rather than mean
conditions, affects physiology and behavior;
- Relation of birth, death, and growth rates to environmental conditions,
both concurrent and past;
- Determination of nutritional requirements;
- Long-term observations of population and community dynamics which would
permit analysis of interannual variability and its causes;
- A critical need to maintain expertise in taxonomy; and
- Continued development of mathematical models encompassing biological,
chemical, and physical parameters.
The Lake Arrowhead colloquium also argued compellingly for the urgent
need to develop and deploy instrumentation for measurement of abundances
with higher frequency and resolution and for assessment of vital aspects
of physiological and demographic rates.
The Nearshore Marine Benthic Ecology Workshop
In September 1987 a group of 40 marine benthic ecologists interested in
systems in the coastal zone met in Seattle at the campus of the
University of Washington to discuss the emerging issues and new
directions in the field of nearshore marine benthic ecology. The report
of that workshop (Eckman et al., 1989) recommends establishment of a new
research initiative, with the acronym of COAST (A Coastal Initiative),
to explore several important scientific questions in the oceanography
and marine ecology of the coastal zone. The report argues effectively
that certain characteristics of marine benthic systems render them
tractable for a variety of important tests of processes that are common
to most marine animal populations. The report also presents the argument
that the coastal zone is that portion of the oceans where anthropogenic
changes in the marine environment are most likely to be expressed in
important biological responses. Many of the recommendations of this
workshop have been adopted by the GLOBEC plans, while others are
appropriate to such initiatives as LMER (Land Margin Ecosystems
Research) and COOP (Coastal Ocean Processes). Those recommendations that
have been incorporated into GLOBEC are:
- Initiate coordinated interdisciplinary study of biological/physical
interactions to address the degree to which observed temporal and
spatial variation in important biological processes is caused directly
or indirectly by concordant variation in advective and diffusive
transport of mass and momentum through the water column and in the
sediments;
- Design programs that will allow the study of processes that control
abundance of coastal marine and estuarine populations to be conducted at
the complete range of applicable scales of time and space, including a
hierarchy of global, regional, and local spatial scales and
incorporating the impacts of events that occur sporadically in time;
- Enhance the resources available to investigate questions concerning the
transfer, transport, and transformation of materials, and the biological
production of the coastal zone, including a more complete understanding
of what controls secondary production, trophic transfers, and vertical
and horizontal fluxes in the coastal zone.
The nearshore marine benthic ecologists also emphasized the need to
develop and apply new technologies and instrumentation to solve some of
these important scientific questions about the functioning of coastal
ecosystems. There was concern that coastal oceanography, and especially
biology, had not been receiving its share of resources to support
development of new technology. Finally, this group of benthic biologists
expressed a strong commitment to promoting greater interdisciplinary
collaboration to address the most urgent problems in coastal zone
ecology and oceanography.
Planning by CoPO - Coastal Physical Oceanography
In January 1988 a broadly representative group of physical
oceanographers met in Gulf Park, Mississippi to discuss the urgent
scientific questions in coastal physical oceanography. This initiated
planning for a national program in Coastal Physical Oceanography (Brink,
1988), a planning process that has now been expanded in scope to include
interdisciplinary aspects of coastal oceanography. The research
initiative CoOP (Coastal Ocean Processes) is now being developed around
these interdisciplinary problems. Nevertheless, the working group
reports produced by CoPO also serve well to identify the important
current questions in physical oceanography of the coastal zone and have
been extremely helpful in guiding planning for the coastal aspects of
GLOBEC.
The major goal articulated by the coastal physical oceanographers in
CoPO is to understand better the processes of cross-shelf exchange of
mass, momentum, and energy. To that end, working group reports on
buoyancy-driven exchange, air-sea exchange, inner-shelf exchange, and
benthic-interior exchange describe the fundamental problems to be
addressed and provide some guidance to approaching these questions. The
output of these working groups has been utilized and their
recommendations adopted by GLOBEC in designing the coastal physical
oceanographic elements of the GLOBEC science plan:
- The buoyancy-driven exchange working group recommended a closely
coordinated plan of field observations and modeling. Regional models
should be used to help design field sampling programs. These initial
models should be three-dimensional, employ a rigid lid (omitting tides,
etc.), and use a simple turbulence closure scheme. They should include
regional topography and representative buoyancy and wind-stress driving
forces. Subsequent simulation models need to deal with the problem of
conditions at open boundaries with the deep ocean, and may address this
issue through linking the regional model to a large scale ocean model.
Adaptive sampling in the field will be important, especially when and
where fronts are encountered. A compelling need exists to describe the
Lagrangian flow field associated with freshwater discharge. The most
advantageous sites to address these problems are probably the Gulf of
Alaska and the Mississippi River Delta.
- The working group on air-sea exchanges stressed the need to integrate
processes at several scales and to recognize and evaluate more fully the
interactive feedbacks between the ocean and atmosphere that contribute
to cross-shelf transport. Three physical problems of special interest
are: 1) interaction of stable atmospheric layers with topography; 2)
shelf and coastal frontogenesis; and 3) coastal circulation driven by
severe storms. Among specific problems of special concern is the
parameterization of surface fluxes in shallow water, where the wave
field is different from that over the open ocean. Similarly urgent is
the need to understand the degree to which coastal frontogenesis is
related to variations in the shelf circulation versus the larger scale
atmospheric forcing.
- The inner-shelf exchange working group addressed questions of the role
of the inner shelf in cross-shelf exchange. The inner shelf was defined
as the portion of the continental margin between the surf zone and the
depth where surface and bottom boundary layers interact (about three
surface Ekman layer depths). This zone has been largely ignored in
previous physical studies because of the difficulty in making
measurements in it and the presumed complexity of its dynamics. This
meager knowledge base probably requires an initial exploratory field
study to attain an observational base. This working group recommended
focusing on wind and surface gravity wave driven flows initially because
these mechanisms should be important driving forces for most inner
shelves, because the dynamics governing these driving forces are not
well known, and because under reasonably simple conditions progress
might be attainable. More complex studies of tides and internal waves
should follow after these initial issues have been approached.
- The working group on benthic-interior exchanges focused on identifying
the most pressing issues involved in understanding the processes of
exchange of materials, momentum, and energy in that zone of the sea
where surface gravity waves, with their motions characterized by
seconds, influence the drag of water motions on the sea floor, that
occurs over periods of days. Further development of our understanding of
the hydrodynamic interactions between waves and currents is critical.
Laboratory and field investigations of the interactions and feedbacks
between changing bottom topography (roughness) and the combined motions
of waves and currents are needed to develop a quantitative understanding
of the physical processes that occur at the sea floor of the continental
margins. Analytical, numerical, and laboratory work is needed to
describe how a sloping bottom alters mixing and drag. Much work needs to
be done to understand the erosion, transport, mixing, and concentrations
of sediments of differing sorts. Effects of differing bottom
topographies must be evaluated. Integration of various time and space
scales is needed, including especially the contributions of episodic
events to mean transport rates. Finally, this working group identified a
large void in our understanding of the effects of the bottom biota on
materials transport between the water column and the sea bed and,
conversely, the hydrodynamic influences on biological processes in the
benthic boundary layers.
Deep-Sea Observatories Workshop
The Deep-Sea Observatories Workshop was held November 7-9, 1989 at the
David Taylor Research Center in Carderock, MD. Over 60 people attended,
including scientists from a wide variety of oceanographic and
meteorologic disciplines as well as representatives from federal
agencies and commercial firms. The focus of the workshop was to discuss
the rationale and goals of deep-sea observatories (DSOs), and to discuss
the possibility of refitting as DSOs radar surveillance platforms that
the navy may establish for drug interdiction in the Gulf of Mexico. The
scientific rationale and general goals of deep-sea observatories were
defined as: a) to operate as bases for obtaining long-term, high-frequency, multidisciplinary time series for the study of variability in
open ocean ecosystems, b) to function as bases for process-oriented
experiments that would benefit from the time series data or need
facility support from the DSO, and c) to function as stations for
monitoring environmental change. Four working groups centered on
frequency spectra of ecosystem variables, biogeochemical processes,
coupled ocean-atmosphere processes, and the perspective of a regional
Gulf of Mexico DSO program settled on several conclusions:
- Deep sea-observatories would promote a valuable, multidisciplinary
program and should be advocated to the community and agencies.
- In the near future, when the Gulf of Mexico platforms are no longer used
for drug interdiction, they would still be valuable assets of the
federal government that could be adapted for oceanographic studies. The
opportunity to use them for research should be pursued.
- Although the platforms are not currently outfitted as research
facilities there is potential for a wide range of multidisciplinary
time-series studies. Some physical modifications and enhancements of the
platforms would be required for these studies, and these modifications
should be considered in the refit plans now.
- The locations of the platforms would allow for new research on specific
problems of the Gulf and would provide a facility that could enhance
several ongoing and/or planned research programs.
- Future sites outside of the Gulf of Mexico should also be considered.
A more detailed summary of the working group reports and conclusions can
be found in the Deep-Sea Observatories Workshop Report available from
Wood Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Planning Efforts Explicitly for GLOBEC
The National Academy of Sciences Report on Recruitment Processes and
Ecosystem Structure in the Sea
In the context of NSF, "Recruitment Dynamics" was identified as a
sub-initiative in the first Ocean Sciences Division Advisory Committee
Long Range Plan (1985). By the time of the Ocean Sciences Long Range
Plan revision of 1987,' the NSF Global Geosciences Program had begun. It
was clear that the term, "recruitment dynamics" was too restrictive and
was expanded to "global ocean ecosystems dynamics coupling", to reflect
the broader issues of which recruitment processes were a special case.
After the issue of the original Long Range Plan, the Ocean Studies Board
of the National Research Council, under the chairmanship of John Steele,
called together a small working group in 1985 to advise on how to
develop the recruitment initiative. This spawned a series of small
working group meetings involving physical oceanographers that were
arranged by Brian Rothschild, Ken Sherman of NOAA and others. The
progress of these meetings culminated in a small workshop, chaired by
Brian Rothschild and Mike Mullin, in July 1985 at the National Academy
Study Center. The resulting report, which defined the scope of
"Recruitment Processes and Ecosystem Structure in the Sea" was approved
by the Ocean Studies Board and published in December 1987. Meanwhile,
Brian Rothschild had organized a NATO Advanced Research Workshop
(France, June 1987) on Biodynamics of the Sea, which explored the wider
issues of biological/physical interactions in the ocean and the
international scientific interest in it.
The Wintergreen Workshop on GLOBEC
In May 1988, 90 scientists representing interests in marine fish,
zooplankton, benthos, physics, and technology met for a week in
Wintergreen, Virginia at a workshop to explore the level of enthusiasm
for the GLOBEC initiative and to help shape its future. This workshop
had been preceded by meetings of several working groups, each of which
prepared an extensive written report. These working group reports are
assembled and published together with the results of the workshop as the
Wintergreen GLOBEC Workshop Report (available through JOI). Working
groups were organized around (1) oceanography and modeling, (2) benthos,
(3) food chains, (4) population genetics and biotechnology, and (5)
sampling technologies. Scientists at the meeting reached a consensus
that fundamental knowledge of the interrelationships among physical
processes, population dynamics, and other relevant phenomena could be
materially improved, that new approaches are available to address these
issues, and that such a program should begin immediately. This initial
science plan follows directly from the recommendations of that
Wintergreen meeting and adopts the GLOBEC guidelines articulated in the
Wintergreen report:
- Concentrate on first principles rather than correlative approaches;
- Enhance the physical-biological partnership;
- Take account of advances in population genetics and related
biotechnology; and
- Mount a major effort to further develop and fully utilize both advanced
sampling technology and techniques for rapid identification of plankton.
The seeds for all the plans described in this initial science plan for
GLOBEC can be found in the Wintergreen report. Perhaps the area of
investigation most greatly elaborated since the Wintergreen meeting is
the approach to how global climate change might be related to finer
scales of events that influence individual organisms.
Activities of the GLOBEC Steering Committee
Following the Wintergreen workshop, a committee was named to nominate
the initial GLOBEC steering committee. John Steele, Peter Niiler and
Karl Banse solicited nominations and suggestions from the oceanographic
community throughout the summer and autumn of 1988. This time frame was
intentionally protracted to ensure that this large community of
interested scientists had ample opportunity to provide input. The
nomination period extended through and past the autumn meeting of
AGU/ASLO in San Francisco. In February 1988, an initial steering
committee of 13 scientists was named to further the planning process for
the GLOBEC research initiative. All 13 accepted the invitation to serve
on this committee.
Table A: Chronology of important events in GLOBEC planning
| Time | Activity |
| 1989 |
| May 1 | Initial meeting of the steering committee |
| Summer/Fall | Working group meetings on technology, modeling, conceptual issues, and field programs |
| 1990 |
| February 13 | AGU/ASLO technology session and GLOBEC workshop (New Orleans) |
| February | Call for GLOBEC modeling proposals by NSF, due in May |
| June 18-21 | Northwest Atlantic workshop (Halifax) |
| June 22 | Technology workshop (Halifax) |
| November 12-13 | Workshop on biotechnological applications (Miami) |
| 1991 |
| January | NOAA call for proposals for GLOBEC studies |
| February | NSF call for proposals for GLOBEC studies, especially biotechnology development |
