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SUMMARY '■' 7 



and information provision (mission agencies) to concentrate only 

 on these short-term aspects of their missions. Such mission agen- 

 cies include the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Geo- 

 logical Survey (USGS), Department of Energy (DOE), National Aero- 

 nautics and Space Administration (NASA), parts of the National 

 Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and others, 

 distinct from the longer-term focus of the National Science Foun- 

 dation (NSF) and Office of Naval Research (ONR). However, the 

 continued success of these mission agencies ultimately depends 

 on the results of basic research, as well as the results of applied 

 research directed at specific problems. 



CONDUCT OF OCEANOGRAPHIC SCIENCE 



In the past decade, oceanography has rapidly incorporated new 

 technologies from other fields, remote sensing, material science, 

 electronics, and computer science, for example. A fundamental 

 change arising from the use of these new technologies is an in- 

 crease in the quality and quantity of data collected and a dramatic 

 increase in each oceanographer's capacity to study oceanic phe- 

 nomena. As in many fields, the cost of making new discoveries 

 in oceanography has escalated because these discoveries have been 

 achievable only with the development and use of new satellites, 

 vessels, laboratory and field instruments, and computers. This 

 increased cost translates into an increased cost per scientist in 

 the field, in what has been referred to as the "sophistication fac- 

 tor" by the President's Science Advisor, Dr. D. Allan Bromley. 

 Yet, when adjusted for inflation, total research funding for ocean 

 science has remained nearly constant over the past decade. Dur- 

 ing this interval, the number of Ph.D. -level academic oceanogra- 

 phers has increased by half again. The increase in the scientific 

 capacity of each investigator and in the total number of qualified 

 investigators, coupled with nearly constant overall federal funding, 

 has resulted in inadequate support for many capable researchers. 



Another significant change in the past decade is the onset of 

 large-scale, long-term global research programs. Primarily planned 

 and begun with NSF support, these programs focus the work of 

 many scientists on global questions. These large programs are 

 usually managed through national or international consortia that 

 involve many scientists, multiple agencies, and often a number of 

 countries. Such programs will explore new questions and test 

 new mechanisms for working together in the next decade. Uncer- 

 tainties about the changing environment of the planet are rapidly 



