Brief report and action items from the 9 June conference call
Participants:J. Gagnon, B. Petrie, D. Sameoto, P. Pepin, D. Gregory, S. Gosselin, S. Narayanan, G. Harrison, J. Runge, A. Gagné, D. Gilbert, P. Larouche, J. Helbig, J.-C. Therriault
Report: The main objective of the conference call
was to initiate the implementation of the Zonal Monitoring program in the three
Atlantic regions essentially following the propositions of the Zonal Monitoring
document accepted by the regional Science Directors. Everyone agreed that we
should first concentrate on the logistic aspects of the implementation, and that
the formation of the Scientific data analysis and coordination committee (and
its first meeting) should be postponed to the next Fall period. So, after a
brief exposé on the status of the program (including hiring of new
ETP’sl) in each region by B. Petrie, P. Pepin and J.-C. Therriault,
discussions were dedicated mainly to the standardisation of methodologies to
acquire physical, chemical and biological monitoring data in order to ensure
comparability between the three regions. Action items concerning the
standardisation processes agreed upon are listed below. Finally, after a brief
discussion on data management it was decided to wait until after the next
meeting of the Carbon data management group before taking any action on data
management of the zonal monitoring data.
List of action items agreed
upon and concerning specifically the standardisation of methodologies for the
zonal monitoring program:
Sampling and analysis of
zooplankton: Jeff Runge (leader), Doug Sameoto and Pierre Pepin will
discuss this topic by e-mail and will determine an appropriate and common
protocol for sampling and counting zooplankton. They will also examine the
possibility of contracting out the identification and counting of zooplankton
samples (one common contract for the three regions);
CPR data
access: The accessibility to CPR data was discussed. The concensus
reached was that these data should be available to any DFO researchers in the
three regions. Some of us examined the documentation that was sent by D, Sameoto
(copy of e-mail by Philip Reid) and came to the conclusion that there was no
problem of accessibility since the documents clearly state that the CPR data
will be provided free of charge to any Canadian Scientist as long as he accepts
to sign a separate license agreement.
Sampling and analysis or
phytoplankton and nutrients: Alain Gagné, Glen Harrison (leader), Phil
Yeats and Pierre Pepin will design an appropriate protocol for the collection
and laboratory analysis of chlorophyll, phytoplankton and nutrients samples. In
particular, they will design a process to ensure inter-comparability of
laboratory analyses and results. Finally, they will also examine the
appropriateness of contracting out phytoplankton counting and identification;
Sampling of physical variables: Brian Petrie (leader),
Jim Helbig and Denis Gilbert will document the methodology used for the
collection of physical data (temperature and salinity) in the three regions and
will determine if there is any particular sampling problem;
Remote sensing: (1) For the acquisition of fail-safe
remote sensing data (temperature and ocean- colour), it was decided to follow
the recent recommendations of the Atlantic Zone Remote Sensing Report. Thus,
each of the two data streams will be collected at least at two sites. The
fail-safe reception pair of ocean colour data will be BIO and MLI, while
Newfoundland will only concentrate on the acquisition of temperature data. BIO
and MLI will also acquire backup temperature data but they will give priority
reception to ocean colour data when there is a conflict with temperature. (2)
BIO will assume responsibility to produce composite (weekly or bi-weekly) zonal
ocean colour maps, while MLI will assume responsibility for producing composite
(weekly or bi-weekly) SST maps. Also, BIO and MLI will examine (P. Larouche and
G. Harrison/T. Platt) the possibility of building up remote sensing databases
that would be easily accessible to the scientific community using
lat./long./time criteria.. (3) Finally, P. Larouche will contact MEDS to obtain
real time SST data from the network of meteorological buoys. These data will be
used for the calibration of zonal SST images.
Data
management: Decisions concerning data management of zonal monitoring
data should be postponed until after the next fall meeting of the Carbon Data
Management Group.
Long Term Temperature Monitoring data:
LTTM data are important for the monitoring program, but these will continue to
be collected independently from the zonal monitoring program. In the Maritime
and Laurentian regions, an effort is done to equip some stations with
salinity-temperature probes.
Toxic Algae Monitoring: In
the Laurentian region, the toxic algae monitoring program will continue as
before. In particular, the identification and counting of phytoplankton from the
two fixed stations in the Lower Estuary/Gulf of St. Lawrence will be carried out
by the toxic algae monitoring program as part of a special agreement between the
two programs. The Newfoundland region does not have a toxic algae monitoring
program, and the relationship between the toxic algae monitoring program and the
Zonal monitoring program was not clearly defined for the Maritime region.
Meteorological data: Each region should send their needs
in term of meteorological data to Savitri Narayanan who will try to negotiate a
MOU with Environment Canada for the whole Atlantic Zone.
Circulation of information : Information concerning the
decisions and recommendations of the above mentioned sub-groups should be
circulated to all zonal monitoring program participants as soon as possible..
Meeting of the Scientific data analysis and coordination group
: The first meeting of the Zonal Scientific Data Analysis and
Coordination Group will be held around the first week of November. J.-C.
Therriault will call this meeting.