Palmer Station LTER Site Byte - August 98 - Karen Baker

The Palmer LTER information management efforts continue to include 
data preparation for database entry, data synthesis for publication, 
field support and intersite activities.  Considerable time was dedicated 
to data review and preparation for entering in the database maintaining 
compliance with the NSF data policy.

A variety of meetings, workshops, presentations and publication activities 
were supported with web based efforts. The Palmer LTER web pages were 
expanded to include presentations and Palmer LTER data management as well as 
Network LTER data management sections with projects, meetings, surveys and 
milestones subsections.

Data Management synthesis efforts included preparation of Antarctic Journal 
draft articles for the recently completed season (Palmer LTER: Annual January 
Cruises for 1998; Annual Season Sampling at Palmer Station November 1997-
March 1998) and final preparation of last year's reports accepted for 
publication. An analysis of satellite sea ice data presenting a standard 
description of the timing and magnitude of ice events was completed 
(RSmith, KBaker, SStammerjohn, Exploring Sea Ice Indexes for Polar Ecosystem 
Studies, Bioscience 48:83-93). Group co-ordination through web based document 
sharing was successful with the multi-author publication (Marine Ecosystems 
Sensitivity to Historical Climate Change: Antarctic Peninsula, Bioscience 
accepted) resulting from a Palmer LTER paleohistory workshop in August 1997.

Summary data tables were created for meetings such as the October 1997 
Palmer LTER steering committee meeting. An updated data management 
overview was presented at a May 1998 NSF Palmer LTER program review.  
Past presentations at the August 1997 Data and Information Management in 
the Ecological Sciences Workshop in Albuquerque were made available online
and two articles (Technological Underpinnings: Software; Palmer LTER
Information Management) have been prepared online for publication as part 
of the Workshop electronic book.

Support for a summer half time student focuses exploration of system 
integration of a recently purchased NT system with scanner, data 
presentation methods, and relational database prototypes.

Field support involved weekly real-time ftp of field data for screening and 
archive made possible with the several hour per day satellite link to Palmer 
station. As a result, study maps and eventlogs were available upon study 
completion. Also, weather data collection was reviewed in preparation for a 
June 1998 Palmer Area Users Meeting covering consideration of local weather 
operation instrument upgrades, weather observations provided for the Global 
Telecommunications System, and maintenance of three Automatic Weather Stations.

Intersite activities included participation in a variety of meetings.
The LTER Coordinating Committee (CC) Meeting was hosted at UCSB
with host tasks and registration forms summarized online for use of 
future hosts. Logistics support was provided for DataTask conference calls 
and a DataTask February 1998 meeting hosted by Andrews LTER in conjunction 
with Northwest Alliance for Computational Science and Engineering (NACSE).
Participation in the LTER Climate Committee meeting October 1997 resulted 
in a presentation at the LTER CC "The Climate Prototype and the LTER Network 
Information System".  Consideration given to presenting uniform site 
information views has resulted in development of an online SiteDB prototype 
in conjunction with Darrell Blodgett (BNZ). The prototype was reviewed by 
DataTask and will be considered at the 1998 data manager meeting.