Table of Contents

• Coverage
• Dataset Description
  • Methods & Sampling
• Data Files
• Parameters
• Instruments
• Deployments
• Project Information
• Program Information
• Funding

Small scale surface drifters

Contributors:
Jim Manning
National Marine Fisheries Service, NEFC
Woods Hole, MA 02543
voice: 508-495-2211
fax: 508-495-2258
email: jmanning@whsun1.wh.whoi.edu

Jim Churchill
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Woods Hole, MA 02543

Updated: August 2, 2004, gfh

Georges Bank GPS/ARGOS/VHF drifter data

The U.S. GLOBEC Georges Bank Program is a large multi- disciplinary multi-year oceanographic effort. The proximate goal is to understand the population dynamics of key species on the Bank - Cod, Haddock, and two species of zooplankton (Calanus finmarchicus and Pseudocalanus) - in terms of their coupling to the physical environment and in terms of their predators and prey. The ultimate goal is to be able to predict changes in the distribution and abundance of these species as a result of changes in their physical and biotic environment as well as to anticipate how their populations might respond to climate change.

The effort is substantial, requiring broad-scale surveys of the entire Bank, and process studies which focus both on the links between the target species and their physical environment, and the determination of fundamental aspects of these species' life history (birth rates, growth rates, death rates, etc).

Equally important are the modelling efforts that are ongoing which seek to provide realistic predictions of the flow field and which utilize the life history information to produce an integrated view of the dynamics of the populations.

The U.S. GLOBEC Georges Bank Executive Committee (EXCO) provides program leadership and effective communication with the funding agencies.

U.S. GLOBEC (GLOBal ocean ECosystems dynamics) is a research program organized by oceanographers and fisheries scientists to address the question of how global climate change may affect the abundance and production of animals in the sea.

The U.S. GLOBEC Program currently had major research efforts underway in the Georges Bank / Northwest Atlantic Region, and the Northeast Pacific (with components in the California Current and in the Coastal Gulf of Alaska). U.S. GLOBEC was a major contributor to International GLOBEC efforts in the Southern Ocean and Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP).