The Indian Ocean provides an important link with the Pacific and Atlantic, 

 and its study will increase understanding of the variety of mixing processes 

 that take place between the oceans. 



The survey covered the entire Indian Ocean with three north-south tran- 

 sects extending from India to the Antarctic continent. Sampling of the 

 circumpolar deep water across its boundaries in the Indian Ocean was 

 given high priority because of the importance of this water mass in the 

 east-west exchange of heat and salt with the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. 



By analyzing over 20 chemical species in a single seawater sample, the 

 scientists can determine the water masses' sources and rates of move- 

 ment. The naturally occurring stable and radioactive chemicals, resulting 

 frpm land runoff or atmospheric fallout, can be used to determine the dis- 

 persion rate of manmade pollutants. Also, natural tracers transferred by 

 particulate matter will aid understanding of marine biochemistry and geo- 

 chemistry. Use has also been made of the bomb-produced element tritium 

 to provide, for the first time, details of the structure and movement of bottom 

 water formed in the Antarctic. 



Relationships between chemical and physical parameters that were found 

 to be highly useful for predictive modeling in the Atlantic and Pacific 

 Oceans will be further tested for the Indian Ocean. One of the important 

 questions for climate assessment involves knowledge of the carbon-oxygen 

 system and how well the oceans can absorb the products of fossil fuel 

 combustion. Both shipboard and shorebased measurements from the 

 GEOSECS project will contribute to this body of knowledge. 



Another dimension to the ocean's role in climate, long-period, large- 

 scale, air-sea interaction, continues to be a central problem in developing 

 the scientific basis for improved forecasting. Scientists in the Environmental 

 Forecasting Program's North Pacific Experiment (NORPAX) have turned 

 their attention to the role played by equatorial conditions in influencing both 

 fisheries and climate in the Pacific. Equatorial currents, for example, are 

 responsible for generating unusual ocean conditions in the Eastern Pacific 

 which, in turn, affect fishery yields. Changes in these equatorial currents 

 appear to affect the atmosphere and hence weather and climate over North 

 America. 



Between November 1977 and February 1978, oceanographers compiled 

 data on these equatorial currents from 44 transequatorial flights (aircraft 

 were provided by the U.S. Navy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

 Administration), 4 shipboard surveys, 12 drifting buoys, and 5 instrumented 

 moorings. Results indicate that monthly aircraft and shipboard surveys, 

 together with limited current velocity measurements, are sufficient to de- 

 scribe the variations of equatorial currents. A 16-month field experiment 

 beginning in January 1979 is now being planned on the basis of these 

 results. 



IDOE received the first study completed under the auspices of the Marine 

 Science Affairs Program, a critical examination of the Soviet management 

 of ocean affairs. Although the study focuses on the Soviet fishing industry, 

 the findings are applicable to the full range of ocean activities. 



American scientists and policymakers have tended to view Soviet ocean 

 policymaking and management as a result of unified political leadership 

 directing a successful, coordinated program of ocean-use expansion. 



The study presents a sharply different picture. It finds that Soviet decision 

 making and operations are more fragmented than unified and more com- 

 petitive than coordinated. Despite the political structure, diverse interests 

 and the promotion of individual or institutional objectives play a significant 

 role in management and policy formulation. Overlapping authority, the 



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