1992 Technical Progress Report TECHNICAL PROGRESS REPORT TITLE: Long-Term Ecological Research on the Antarctic Marine Ecosystem: An Ice-Dominated Environment PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS: R.M. Ross, L.B. Quetin, B.B. Pre\*'zelin, R.C. Smith, E.E. Hofmann, W. Fraser, W. Trivelpiece PERIOD OF TIME COVERED: 15 July 1991 to 5 June 1992 ID NO: DPP-9011927 INSTITUTION: University of California at Santa Barbara Marine Science Institute Santa Barbara, CA 93106 Our efforts this year focused on (1) conducting the first field season for the Palmer LTER; (2) searching for and retrieving historical data for climate and remote sensing; (3) initiating a data management scheme. LTER participants have been responsible for representing the Palmer LTER at LTER Network meetings, working group meetings, and international groups concerned with the Southern Ocean. I. First field season: - The first field season, which included a 5-month Palmer based near-shore monitoring effort and a 2- week cruise in mid-November, was successful. High ice cover in the waters near Palmer during the 91- 92 spring limited zodiac use both for traditional water column sampling and for access to the rookeries early in the season. Diving operations enabled us to collect krill from under the ice during these conditions, and we expect that diving operations will be used in the future to study multiple aspects of ecosystem dynamics and the ice interaction. Ad hoc discussions at the station as we gathered the data suggested many areas of interaction and correlations of the biology and physics of the environment. Preliminary results will be discussed and manuscripts planned during the Palmer LTER Executive Committee meeting from June 22 to 25, 1992 at UCSB. - We are developing a close collaboration with Dr. David Karl of the University of Hawaii who is interested in the microbial loop in the Southern Ocean. Participation of D. Karl in the LTER research program will add depth to our ecosystem study, and broaden our treatment of one of the five cores research areas. - With the aid of Tony Amos and ASA we installed an automatic weather station on the tip of Bonaparte Point in early January 1992. Publications: We have been invited to submit a manuscript describing the Palmer LTER in the context of pollution in the Antarctic for a special issue in the Marine Pollution Bulletin. The manuscript will be submitted in mid-July. Chuck Kennicutt is coordinating those efforts. Several pieces on the Palmer LTER have been contributed to publications that reach a wide audience. 1. RM Ross and LB Quetin. 1991. Palmer Station, The Antarctic Marine LTER: An Ecosystem Dominated by ice. LTER Network News Spring 1991, Issue 9, 2 pp. 2. Palmer Station Antarctica (PAL) pp. 140-146 In: Van Cleve, K. and S. Martin. 1991. Long-Term Ecological Research in the United States: A Network of Research Sites 1991. LTER Publication No. 11. Contributed by RM Ross, LB Quetin and KBaker 3. EE Hofmann. 1991. The Antarctic Marine LTER: Studying an Ecosystem Dominated by Ice. BIOMASS Newsletter 13(1): 3. II. Weather data The historical climate record for Palmer, Faraday and Rothera are being compiled and placed in the Palmer LTER long-term data base. An analysis of the co-variance of these three stations was done by K. Baker to see if we can use the longer runs from Faraday and Rothera to supplement the Palmer records. The three stations co-vary, and Palmer and Faraday have a r2 of 0.82 for temperature. Palmer is quite different for Bellingshausen Station on King George Island, illustrating that temperature at least can vary significantly regionally. Current weather is being entered monthly with the arrival of Palmer's weather weather report digitally. The new AWS on Bonaparte was operational in early January. These weather records will allow us to compare weather at the station and away from the influence of the station and the glacier but still reflecting near shore events. III. Data management system All LTERs are supposed to have a minimum standard installation (MSI) to handle data and to enable data to be compared across LTERs. The MSI includes a GIS (geographic information system) with all the attendant hardware and software, plus a 6-month data manager. Part of the Palmer LTER's solution for our data management system involves the linkage between the Sequoia 2000 project and CRSEO (Center for Remote Sensing and Environmental Optics, Ray Smith, director) at UCSB and the Palmer LTER. Sequoia 2000 is a major research collaboration between Digital Equipment Corporation and the University of California aimed at overcoming barriers to crucial environmental research. The objectives of this collaboration are to develop the massive database, storage, visualization, and networking systems that will allow the efficient, interdisciplinary study of global change through the year 2000. Sequoia 2000 would like to use the components of Palmer LTER data, which are on many time and space scales, to test and solve networking and data base management needs. Ethernet linkages between computer networks of individual laboratories within the LTER and the CRSEO computers have been established for Eileen Hofmann at Old Dominion University, and Barbara Prezelin at UCSB, and will be complete by the end of June for Robin Ross and Langdon Quetin at UCSB. Phone modem access will be established for Wayne Trivelpiece and Bill Fraser, who do not have access to an ethernet connection, at the June Executive Committee meeting. Karen Baker is now serving as a part-time data manager for the Palmer LTER, representing the LTER at data managers meetings and setting up the system. The beginning data management system and data archival for this first season's data is patterned after systems in use by other LTERs for ease of use. IV. Meetings 1991-1994 1991 Jul 30-31 Antarctic Biomonitoring - held by EPA Corvallis, VA Bill Fraser, Eileen Hofmann, Cathy Laascara, Wayne Trivelpiece Wrote draft research strategy for biomonitoring global pollutants in Antarctica; emphasis on atmospheric inputs and exposure to biota. 1991 Aug 1-3 LTER Data Managers meeting San Antonio, TX Karen Baker Wrote section on Palmer to LTER Databits (Data Management Newsletter). 1991 Aug 5-14 CEMP (Committee on Environmental Monitoring Program) Canary Islands Wayne Trivelpiece 1991 Sept 9-11 Polar Programs Orientation Meetings Washington, DC Bill Fraser, Brent Houston, Cathy Lascara, Robin Ross, Wayne Trivelpiece Separate short session on the LTER. RMR gave short talk. 1991 Sept 30-Oct 4 GPS (Geographic Positioning System) Boulder, CO Ray Smith Gave brief course on how to operate our GPS at Palmer in austral spring. 1991 Oct 29-30 Animal Aggregration Workshop Monterey Bay Aquarium, CA Robin Ross Workshop included discussions of modeling the schooling behavior of antarctic krill. 1991 mid-Nov LMER (Land Margin Ecosystem Research) Tomales Bay, CA Eileen Hofmann Gave invited talk on biological/physical modeling. 1991 fall Southern Ocean Modeling Workshop, BAS Cambridge, England Eileen Hofmann Discussion of the approaches to model the oceanic circulation of the Southern Ocean 1992 Feb Sevilleta LTER Site visit Albequerque,NM Karen Baker Visited site to discuss successful data management schemes. 1992 Feb 29 - Mar 2 LTER Coordinating Committee meeting North Lakes LTER, Minnesota Langdon Quetin Discuss 10 yr evaluation of LTER Network and increasing MSI. 1992 Mar 11-13 AWS (Automatic Weather Station) Conference Boulder, Colorado Karen Baker LTER representative at meeting of users of the AWS's. 1992 mid-April Celebration of Nathaniel B.Palmer's arrival in Punta Arenas Punta Arenas, Chile Bill Fraser, David Karl