390 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1961 



least, if we expect to avoid famine, pestilence, and the threat of an 

 exhausted soil at a time when we can least afford it. 



Doing something about understanding and controlling (to a degree) 

 the climate is apt to prove a far more difficult task than easing the 

 shortage of fresh water. It will involve a tremendous amount of 

 research. But again that research apparently begins and ends with 

 the sea. 



Meteorologists know that the sea is the breeding ground for the two 

 great forces which contribute most to soil erosion — wind and rainfall. 

 But they do not yet have enough understanding of the interplay of 

 all the various elements contributing to weather to know why the 

 earth's climate is as it is — or even to predict the long-range trends 

 our climate may be taking. Until they do have a very good under- 

 standing of how and why the forces of climate behave, man seems 

 destined to remain relatively ineffective in his efforts to slow down 

 the present all too rapid erosion of his fertile world. 



No doubt there is much that can be done with the land itself. The 

 development of contour farming, for instance, has proved greatly 

 beneficial. Crop rotation, soil chemistry, reforestation, flood control 

 and the like are all highly useful practices. But even they have 

 limitations for the long haul and can scarcely be compared to the 

 benefits which might arise from an ability to create or to modify 

 climate. 



While some scientists have grave doubts that such ability will ever 

 exist, others who combine meteorology with oceanography are now 

 inclined to believe that these doubts themselves stem from an insuffi- 

 cient concept of how much information remains to be uncovered — how 

 little we really know of the character and forces of the sea and how 

 inclusive the influence of the sea is upon clunate. They believe that 

 the two sciences cannot be separated and that the true understanding 

 of climate must wait upon a true understanding of the sea, which 

 handles the greater part of earth's total "heat budget." 



Research into the mysteries of the ocean and its operation is by 

 no means proceeding fast enough to suit the world's oceanographers, 

 but it has picked up startlingly in the past few years and gives promise 

 of accelerating still more. The United States has some 1,600 scien- 

 tists now pursuing this endeavor, and its annual Federal expenditures 

 of about $25 million are expected to be stepped up to $85 million 

 during the 1960's. Other countries, notably England, Norway, Italy, 

 Denmark, and the Soviet Union, are similarly increasing their sea 

 study efforts. 



Not all of this effort, nor even the major part of it, is being under- 

 taken with the benefits of climatology in mind. Nevertheless, those 

 benefits may be the greatest by far to come out of the seagoing labo- 

 ratories now plying the oceans of the world. 



