Table of Contents

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

Underway MET data collected on GLOBEC Long Term Observation Program (LTOP) cruises (1998-2004) aboard R/V Wecoma. Data are preliminary. No error-checking or in-situ calibrations (except for salinity) have been performed. Underway temperature and salinity calibration information is listed in the sensor calibration table (PDF).

Beginning in April 1999, underway data acquisition system (DAS) files from the R/V Wecoma were recorded in ASCII, and filtered by a perl script known as filterdas to calculate engineering units. The DAS files produced were comma-separated ASCII files, with one file per day at one minute sampling intervals. More information is available from Oregon State University about the Wecoma's DAS and the filtering script. BCO-DMO obtained the underway data from http://ltop.coas.oregonstate.edu/das.html

Parameter names were replaced to conform with BCO-DMO conventions. Values of '-999999', '9999.9990', and 'NaN' were replaced with 'nd'. The original latitude degree and minute data stored in the pcode_lat_deg and pcode_lat_min columns were merged into a single column (lat). The original longitude data stored in the pcode_long_deg and pcode_long_min columns were merged into a single column (lon). lat and lon were reformatted to decimal degrees.

Program in a Nutshell

Goal: To understand the effects of climate variability and climate change on the distribution, abundance and production of marine animals (including commercially important living marine resources) in the eastern North Pacific. To embody this understanding in diagnostic and prognostic ecosystem models, capable of capturing the ecosystem response to major climatic fluctuations.

Approach: To study the effects of past and present climate variability on the population ecology and population dynamics of marine biota and living marine resources, and to use this information as a proxy for how the ecosystems of the eastern North Pacific may respond to future global climate change. The strong temporal variability in the physical and biological signals of the NEP will be used to examine the biophysical mechanisms through which zooplankton and salmon populations respond to physical forcing and biological interactions in the coastal regions of the two gyres. Annual and interannual variability will be studied directly through long-term observations and detailed process studies; variability at longer time scales will be examined through retrospective analysis of directly measured and proxy data. Coupled biophysical models of the ecosystems of these regions will be developed and tested using the process studies and data collected from the long-term observation programs, then further tested and improved by hindcasting selected retrospective data series.

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).