THE FUTURE OF OCEANOGRAPHY — SPILHAUS 369 



not out of the question that some, perhaps at first clumsy, large replica 

 of the natural mechanism by which fish extract oxygen from sea water 

 through their gills may be made and used by men under the sea. 



Oceanography is moving rapidly away from the expedition stage. 

 Already there are the multi-ship efforts to get a synoptic or bird's-eye 

 view of changing current systems and interest in moored buoys as 

 observing stations. Ultimately, all over the oceans, we must have a 

 permanent network of stations observing and reporting conditions 

 on the surface and down to the bottom. This would be a comiterpart 

 of the worldwide weather network which observes conditions on the 

 earth and high in the atmosphere. This network of stations will 

 consist of manned and unmanned buoys and artificial islands on reefs 

 and seamounts close to the surface. Surface ships and submarine 

 survey ships will routinely fill in the gaps between the permanent 

 station network. Airplane and shore bases will be established for 

 gathering data on ice and from automatic reporting buoys. A satellite 

 network will receive, collect, and retransmit the worldwide synoptic 

 ocean data to central storage, analysis, and forecasting computers in 

 various countries. 



The survey ships will need to have semiautomatic means of taking 

 and processing the vast amount of data to feed it to the computing 

 centers. We will need a census of living matter in the sea. We may 

 coimt fish of different species by sonar, radio, chemical, or other dis- 

 tinguishing tags. We will need automatic methods for the pre- 

 liminary sorting of microscopic plankton. 



It is this kind of data which will develop ocean forecasting. The 

 already accurate forecasting of tides will be extended to the prediction 

 of tidal currents. Ice and iceberg distribution, growth, and melting 

 will be foretold. The best channels for sound communication will 

 be predicted, and forecasts of the varying strength of ocean currents, 

 winds, and waves will indicate the safest and most advantageous course 

 for ships. A worldwide fishery forecast both from observation of the 

 distribution of fish and by inference from winds, currents, and physical 

 conditions will tell us where the fish are. "Fish Futures" will be 

 bought and sold as commodities on the basis of observations of each 

 year's larvae and information as to when and if they will produce a 

 good crop of 3-year-old or 4-year-old fish. 



One of the more important outcomes of oceanographic forecasting 

 will be its contribution to weather forecasting and even to seasonal 

 and longer term predictions of climate. 



The ocean's effect on climate is only understood in broad outline. 

 With nuclear explosives, we have powerful earth-moving devices 

 which put within the realm of possibility the actual blocking of 

 straits, damming or diversion of warm or cold currents which could 

 profoundly affect climates. In most cases, however, we do not even 



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