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OCR for page 68
Oceanography in 2025: Proceedings of a Workshop
A Vision of Future Physical Oceanography Research
James J. O’Brien*
Despite great advances in understanding the physical ocean, I envision much new knowledge to be gained in the next 25 years. Most oceanographers still think about steady-state balances despite all the knowledge about variability—whether the topic is eddies or internal waves, etc. Almost every oceanographer describes the ocean in a steady-state manner (present reader is an exception, of course).
The atmosphere is heated from below, the ocean from above. In the lower atmosphere, coherent structures last a few weeks, while in the ocean, coherent structures created by internal ocean dynamics or atmospheric forcing lasts for months to decades. I know of only a few who understand this. This special behavior of the ocean means that blue water oceanography cannot be modeled very well without an adequate observational program.
HOW WILL THE RESEARCH BE CONDUCTED?
As to be expected, oceanographers will use every possible technique—in situ, satellites, drifting buoys, smart flyers, etc. Oceanographers have to give up their hoarding of data, paid to be collected by the federal agencies. In addition, deployment of resources has to be done wisely by testing hypotheses and considering understanding—called “experimental design”—which is rarely used in physical oceanography.
*
Florida State University
OCR for page 69
Oceanography in 2025: Proceedings of a Workshop
WHAT QUESTIONS WILL BE ANSWERED?
By smart folks is the answer. The entire community must begin to embrace numerical models. There is currently an obsession with climate change but extreme events are more important. For example, meteorologists can predict where a hurricane can go but they cannot tell you how strong it will be tomorrow. The answer must be, at least partly, due to the lack of ocean data and understanding. This is an important oceanic problem. There are many others.
WHAT QUESTIONS WILL REMAIN UNANSWERED?
I don’t know. It depends on the investment made in oceanography. It is clear to me that great importance must depend on understanding the variability of the ocean. We need at least two scatterometers, but as of 2009 we cannot expect these until 2020. We need at least two altimeters, maybe four. These won’t be available soon. The first salinity satellite will not be flown until 2015.
