280 OCEANOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES 



STATEMENT OF JOANNE S. MALKUS 



Miss Malkus. Marine meteorology is not just the study of weather 

 over oceans, nor is its role at an oceanographic institution restricted 

 to aiding oceanographers understand how the winds drive ocean cur- 

 rents or how storms stir up waves. 



First of all, the ocean is the source of energy for the entire atmos- 

 phere heat engine; the fuel driving tropical huiTicane and northern 

 jet stream, midwestem cyclone and New England rainstorm has 

 been supplied to the air not directly by the sun, but indirectly via the 

 oceans, largely m the form of so-called latent heat in water vapor. 



If we wish to miderstand the operation of this huge heat engine 

 which is our atmosphere or of any of its component wind systems, 

 storms, or raining clouds — if we dream of eventual hiunan control of 

 these phenomena, both to inhibit those that are destructive and reg- 

 ulate those which are beneficial, we must first understand something 

 about what is their driving power or energy source and what are the 

 inhibitors, just as to operate an automobile we must know where are 

 the accelerator and brakes, what fuel is needed, and how to locate a 

 gas station. The atmosphere is nature's product and not man's and 

 is thus far more mysterious and complex than an automobile, but 

 recently we have begmi to pry from it some information about its 

 fuels and their somxes, and briefly, this is the first role of marine 

 meteorology. Marine meteorology is best carried out at an oceanog- 

 raphic institution not only because the proper ships and facilities are 

 available, but because to explore the air-sea boundary and its vital 

 energy exchanges the talents of oceanographers and meteorologists 

 together are required. 



Second, the air and the sea are both fluids and obey the same laws 

 of fluid mechanics. Jet streams, wave motions, turbulence, are dis- 

 played in both but on different space and time scales; gaining insight 

 into tlie meandei^s of the Gulf Stream could lead to a breakthrough 

 in understanding or predicting the behavior of the high-level atmos- 

 pheric westerly jet stream and its cyclonic storms. 



Similarly miiversal is the phenomenon called convection, or the 

 rising of heated parts of a fluid because they are higher or more buoy- 

 ant than their surroundings. Examples of convection are the tropical 

 cumulus cloud, the thunderstonn, the solar flare, the motions in the 

 earth's core creating its magnetic field. Convection also frequently 

 goes on in liquids, sucli as Vineyard Sound," the Pacific Ocean, and 

 your coffee cup (where the hexagonal, square and triangular cells of 

 adjacent up and down motions are made visible by dark lines just 

 after you pour in your cream.) 



It is an oversimplification, but not a criminal one, to say that con- 

 vection drives the atmosphere, in part and at large. In the tropics, 

 over the warm seas where the atmosphere's energy is supplied, invi- 

 sible convective bubbles cany the gaseous M-ater vapor fuel from the 

 sea surface, where it first enters the air by evajioration, upward to a 

 level where some of its is condensed out into liiiuid water droplets 

 to fonn a cumulus cloud, the ])rototy})e example of the convective 

 process. Myriads of cumulus clouds forming day and night over 

 these sun- warmed, low-latitude oceans carry aloft the water vapor. 

 Some of the heat which is released in these clouds where a fraction 



