278 OCEANOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES 



Exploitation of the oceans must be based on fundamental under- 

 standing of the physical nature of the environment. A pragmatic 

 approach or the mere collection of data, gathered in the hope that 

 somehow, sometime these may be fitted together, will lead nowhere. 

 Meteorology has, since the time of the Battle of Balaclava, been forced 

 by the demand for weather predictions into routine data collecting 

 and pragmatic interpretation to such an extent that an approach to 

 fundamental understanding of the process of the atmosphere has been 

 left in the hands of relatively few men. These men Avork on basic 

 problems in spite of, rather than because of, the pressures to advance 

 the applied problem of prediction. This uncomfortable situation 

 has improved in recent years through a growing awareness that it is 

 these men who are most likely to produce the economical!}^ desirable 

 result. This lesson should be borne in mind if and when it becomes 

 necessary for oceanographers to enter tlie field of prediction or to 

 participate to a greater extent than they now do in the problems of 

 marine technology. 



The Chairman. Now we will hear from Mr. Henry Stommel. 



STATEMENT OF HENRY STOMMEL 



Mr. Stommel. The following are theoretical studies at the Woods 

 Hole Oceanographic Institution. 



Of the staff at Woods Hole, about six of us are engaged in purely 

 theoretical studies. Dr. Veronis and I have been concerned with de- 

 veloj^ing a theoretical basis for understanding the circulation of the 

 water in the currents of the ocean. How much of this circulation is due 

 to the action of winds, how much is due to heating by the sun, or by 

 evaporation or rain ? What is the mechanism by which the ocean cur- 

 rents are maintained, and can it be shown that the forces involved are 

 quantitatively sufficient to explain the magnitude of observed effects ? 

 The theory must be mathematical in form and is developed as a special 

 class of problems in hydrodynamics — the branch of theoretical physics 

 which treats the physics of fluids in motion. A way has been found 

 leading to a preliminary theory of the ocean circulation. This theory 

 enables us to compute many features of the ocean currents which at 

 present cannot be directly observed. For example, it permits us to 

 deduce theoretically the pattern of slow average drifts in deep water 

 which at present, except in certain favorable localities, cannot be meas- 

 ured directly. 



Drs. Brj^an, Faller, and Stern are engaged in studying the general 

 properties of rotating fluids by means of theoretical studies of labora- 

 tory ex]:)eriments on rotating models. Their work is rather general and 

 its applicability is not limited to the ocean but bears also upon the 

 interior of the earth and the atmosphere. They are not part of a team 

 but work as individuals, and their studies are guided by their own ini- 

 tiative and by interaction with colleagues at Harvard University, Mas- 

 sachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, and the 

 University of Chicago who have embarked upon parallel investiga- 

 tions. 



Some of the rotating basins whicli you will see when 3'ou look around 

 our laboratory have been designed to simulate the ocean in some detail. 

 For example the basins with the recognizable geographical features, 



