2 Introduction

The report contains the record of a U.S. JGOFS planning workshop for future process-oriented research in the North Atlantic Ocean, held at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research, 5-8 April, 1994. The U.S. JGOFS planning has proceeded in parallel with, and in response to international planning activity carried out by the JGOFS North Atlantic Regional Planning Group. Some of the background is summarized here, followed by an Executive Summary of the Bermuda meeting.

One of the first major activities of JGOFS was the North Atlantic Bloom Experiment (NABE), carried out along longitude 20°West in 1989-1991. U.S. JGOFS participated in 1989 only, executing a pilot field study with 3 process cruises. Germany, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom (BOFS) continued the program with cruises in 1990-91. Initial results of the 1989 studies have been reported in a special volume of Deep-Sea Research (Ducklow and Harris, 1993). The comprehensive results of the recently completed U.K. BOFS Program are summarized in a Final Report (NERC, 1994). A special Discussion Meeting sponsored by the Royal Society of London in September 1994, titled "The Role of the North Atlantic Ocean in the Global Carbon Cycle" provided a chance for another look back to NABE and ahead toward emerging issues about the North Atlantic. Proceedings of the Royal Society meeting were published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (Eglinton et al., 1995). These published reports contain much of the scientific background on which any subsequent research in the North Atlantic will be based.

2.1 International Planning

Implicit in the identification of NABE as a pilot study was the expectation that JGOFS would revisit the North Atlantic in later years. Active planning for further JGOFS research on the carbon cycle in the North Atlantic began with the formation of the North Atlantic Regional Planning Group (NAPG), chaired by Richard Lampitt (IOS-Wormley) in May 1992. U.S. JGOFS representatives included Hugh Ducklow (VIMS), Catherine Goyet (WHOI) and John Marra (LDEO). A larger workshop was held at the Institut fur Ostseeforschung, Warnemuende, Germany in May, 1993 (JGOFS Report 12). The third meeting of the NAPG took place at the Station Biologique, Roscoff, France in May, 1994. At that meeting Mike Fasham (Rennell Centre-Southampton) succeeded Lampitt as Chair of the NAPG. At the Roscoff workshop, the elements of a science plan were sketched out. At the Roscoff meetings, European JGOFS delegates began to discuss preparation of proposals to be submitted to the Commission of the European Communities Marine Science and Technology (CEC-MAST) Program for support of fieldwork beginning in early 1996. Implementation of the MAST proposal was the focus of a followup NAPG meeting held at the University of Bergen, Norway, in May 1995. Subsequent to the Bergen meeting, the MAST proposal was declined. Further plans for coordinated research by JGOFS in the North Atlantic are still uncertain.

2.2 U.S. JGOFS Planning

U.S. planning for a possible future process study in the North Atlantic began with the formation of an informal planning group, and a short meeting to discuss the scientific issues was held in Oxford, MD in March, 1993 (Ducklow, 1993). The purpose of the Oxford meeting was to define the principal aim of future U.S. JGOFS work in the North Atlantic. This objective is to gain a more precise estimate of the size of the atmospheric carbon sink in the North Atlantic. At the meeting in Warnemuende, this objective was adopted as the overall goal of coordinated JGOFS research in the region. The goal was stated as follows:

"To reduce the uncertainties in the estimates of the size of the

carbon sink in the North Atlantic. This is to be achieved

by improving our understanding of biogeochemical and physical

processes regulating the net uptake of atmospheric CO2."

Several elements of future process studies were discussed in Warnemuende. Control Volume Experiments (CVE) were identified as one possible tool for constructing a carbon budget, and therefore, determining the relative importance of various processes in a specified volume of upper ocean. Several of the European nations expressed interest in this research direction and so the scientific and logistical details of implementing a CVE were set as the main topic of discussion at the Roscoff meeting. In Roscoff it was decided not to pursue a CVE internationally, but to concentrate on a regional study in the Irminger Gyre (see above). However, the scientific rationale and implementation needs for performing a CVE were the focus of the second U.S. North Atlantic Planning meeting, held in Bermuda a few weeks prior to the Roscoff meeting.

A group of scientists representing physical, chemical and biological oceanographic viewpoints as well as representatives from IGAC and GLOBEC met at the Bermuda Biological Station, 5-8 April 1994. The group took as its starting point the goal agreed to in Warnemuende and considered the relevance of a control volume experiment to the goals of U.S. JGOFS in the North Atlantic Ocean and discussed some of the scientific and logistic aspects of such a study.