INTRODUCTION 



The Workshop on Techniques for Infrared Survey of Sea Temperature was held to 

 evaluate the state of the art of measuring sea surface temperatures with infrared detecting 

 equipment. The simplest form of detector, the infrared thermometer (IRT), is calibrated to 

 give direct read-out of surface temperature. Because this instrument is now a stock item 

 and relatively inexpensive, there has been a rapid increase in its use in oceanographic and 

 limnological survey. An opportunity to exchange information on techniques and interpreta- 

 tion of readings appeared to be needed because there was little information in print with 

 which to evaluate the usefulness of IRT survey. 



Civilian and military interests in IRT sea surface temperature mapping coincide in 

 the area of large-scale survey. Since thermal mapping of the surface can be accomplished 

 with airborne IRT in one-tenth or one-twentieth of the time required with surface craft, it 

 has become possible to conduct, economically, periodic temperature surveys of large areas 

 of oceans or lakes. The need for this kind of information in marine ecology was set forth by 

 L. A. Walford in the following statement to the Committee for Scientific Exploration of the 

 Atlantic Shelf (SEAS Committee) in 1962: 



"Marine zoologists, fishery biologists, botanists, geologists, physical oceanographers, 

 and geographers working on the Atlantic Continental Shelf are concerned with problems of 

 large dimensions in space and time. Many, if not most, of the subjects of their studies ex- 

 tend for hundreds of miles and undergo regular seasonal changes, random fluctuations, and, 

 in many instances, long-range oscillations. Research on such large-scale phenomena 

 depends upon collections of data taken simultaneously over large enough areas to bring out 

 significant details of entire distributions and at frequent intervals over a long enough period 

 of time to cover a considerable range of variation. All of the marine sciences collectively 

 called oceanography are interrelated. Understanding of any one of them is furthered by 

 information about all the others. 



"This information must be collected systematically and synoptically about several 

 elements of marine environment, and all disciplines have certain needs in common. The 

 data in greatest demand relate to the regimes of temperature and chemical composition of 

 the water, direction, and rate of movements of currents, distribution of sediments, and 

 distribution of species of animals and plants. 



"Scientists in research institutions all along the Atlantic coast are ready to use such 

 data as have been described and would refer to them continually for many purposes if they 

 were available. But the fact is they are not available, and for the simple reason that they 

 have never been collected. It is true that several surveys have been made of segments of 

 the coast, but the results can not be fitted together to construct a total picture of any subject 

 relating to the shelf environment for any one time. The best one can do is fit together bits 

 and pieces collected in different times of different years by different people using different 

 methods. But the results are of little use for seeking fundamental principles." 



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