Fisheries-Oceanography Coordinated Investigations (FOCI)

ATTENDANCE

• Mike Dagg (candidate for division leader of CARD) will visit the campus on 2/19-20.
• FOCI suggests that representatives of GLOBEC, University of Alaska Fairbanks, and NMFS Alaska region be invited to PMEL's 25th Anniversary Program Review.
• Initiative 2000 status — Overland: If funded, this initiative will gather biophysical data to help address decadal variability in the North Pacific. In this $6M/year joint NMFS and OAR proposal, ~$2M/year will support establishment of a network of environmental monitoring platforms, while the rest will permit increased biological surveying.
• Bering Sea ecosystem science plan: Congress has enacted legislation that establishes an "Environmental Improvement and Restoration Fund" to carry out marine research in the North Pacific. Initial focus will be on the Bering Sea. A draft science plan, developed in part by FOCI personnel in response to findings from a multi-agency (NOAA, Dept. of Interior, Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game, University of Alaska, etc.) workshop, has been accepted as a template for a more complete plan to be written by a multi-agency working group. NOAA's Bering Sea biophysical metadatabase will serve as the data repository for historical and future research, and the Bering Sea and North Pacific theme page will provide a WWW site for coordination of field sampling plans.
• SEBSCC: Phase II proposals are due April 30. Please see http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/sebscc/ for guidance.

• FOCI will receive less support than requested from the Arctic Research Initiative (ARI) second research cycle. The loss of funding forces alterations to the WECOMA cruise schedule and potential cancellation of aircraft work. The WECOMA mooring cruise (May 1-5) is unaffected, but other cruises will be extended to compensate.
• There was also discussion of a possible fall 1998 cruise on a Russian research ship. If this cannot be arranged, a cooperative cruise aboard ALPHA HELIX would allow us to maintain the time series of CTD transects near the Pribilofs. We are still negotiating with the Canadian Coast Guard to use an icebreaker to complete the fall mooring work.

• Japanese fisheries oceanography — Kendall: Art Kendall presented Bering Sea FOCI results at a meeting at Hokkaido University. The focus of the meeting was on research work done aboard the Oshoro Maru. A memorandum of understanding between Hokkaido University and the University of Alaska Fairbanks was updated, and now includes student exchanges. A volume of extended abstracts documenting the proceedings of the meeting will be published.
• AGU Ocean Sciences — attendees: The Bering Sea poster session was well attended, and a draft on anomalous conditions and the bloom of summer 1997 will be sent to Science. Al Hermann's Shelikof Strait modeling work was showcased in a new flow realization technology. New developments in eddy detection, cold water convection, and ADCP configuration of interest to FOCI were presented and discussed.

Please mail corrections and additions to the FOCI Coordinator.

U.S. Dept. of Commerce / NOAA / OAR / ERL / PMEL