386 



52 OCEANOGRAPHY IN THE NEXT DECADE 



oceanographic disciplines retain their identity and vitality. One 

 needs to encourage scientists working on interdisciplinary prob- 

 lems, but they must first be expert in one or more of the basic 

 disciplines. Just how such fostering should take place is the sub- 

 ject of debate, and the reader will detect a degree of disagreement 

 as to how we should move forward. Working out various combi- 

 nations of scientists and institutions is a major challenge for our 

 academic institutions in the next decade. The board makes no 

 specific recommendation except to note that the strength of the 

 U.S. scientific community is its ability to tolerate and encourage 

 great diversity in its institutions. 



Because the following sections were written by a number of 

 different authors, they differ in style and content. The sections 

 are not meant to be all inclusive but instead to provide a flavor of 

 the excitement of each discipline of oceanography. 



The treatment here of coastal oceanography is anomalous be- 

 cause it deals with a geographic region — that is, shorelines, estu- 

 aries, bays, and the continental shelf — and not a discipline. The 

 large percentage of the U.S. and world population that lives in the 

 coastal zone, and the multiple human uses and impacts on the 

 coastal ocean, place this area of oceanography much more con- 

 spicuously and immediately in the public policy arena. Unlike 

 the participants in deep-water marine science, states, cities, and 

 private enterprise are all prominent players in understanding and 

 using the coastal ocean. The interplay of the basic sciences of 

 fluid flow, chemistry, biology, shoreline physics, and geology with 

 public policy concerns leads to a near-term urgency that cuts across 

 scientific disciplines. However, it is important to recognize, as 

 this report does, that the foundations of understanding must rest 

 firmly on the underlying basic sciences. 



DIRECTIONS FOR PHYSICAL OCEANOGRAPHY 



Summary 



The great volume of water in the ocean exerts a powerful 

 influence on the Earth's climate by absorbing, storing, transport- 

 ing, and releasing heat, water, and trace gases. The goal of physi- 

 cal oceanography is to develop a quantitative understanding of 

 the ocean's physical processes, including circulation, mixing, waves, 

 and fluxes of energy, momentum, and chemical substances within 

 the ocean and across its boundaries. Addressing such problems 

 will require sustained large-scale observations of the world ocean 



