474 



136 OCEANOGRAPHY IN THE NEXT DECADE 



Demand from the Major Programs 



The extra demand required for the major ocean science initia- 

 tives planned for the 1990s is difficult to estimate. It is possible 

 to estimate how many ocean scientists the major programs will 

 require if the programs are funded at the projected levels, but the 

 number of participants who are already in the field is an un- 

 known. Because oceanography continues to attract scientists from 

 physics, chemistry, biology, and geology, entry points into the 

 field vary from the undergraduate to the postdoctoral level. Thus 

 demand can often be met from associated fields. Nonetheless, it 

 is of interest to estimate the impacts of four major oceanographic 

 initiatives on human resources. The requirements of the pro- 

 grams were estimated by the individual program offices and repre- 

 sent a maximum level under a scenario of full funding and the 

 assumption that the programs retain their original scopes and time- 

 tables. 



The U.S. office for the World Ocean Circulation Experiment 

 (WOCE) has estimated the work force that will be required to 

 carry out its planned experiments for 1990-2000 (Table 4-3). The 

 figures were extrapolated from NSF-funded project proposals. The 

 total principal investigator (PI) and postdoctoral fellow labor-months 

 estimated for the U.S. part of WOCE is 8,189, of a total of 28,507 

 (30 percent). The U.S. office for the Joint Global Ocean Flux 

 Study (JGOFS) estimated a requirement of 14,000 labor-months 

 for all categories from 1990 to 2000. If it is assumed that roughly 



TABLE 4-3 Estimated Demand for Ph.D.s for Major 

 Ocean Science Research Programs (1990-2000) 



Person-Years^ 



All Ph.D. -Level Postdoctoral 



Program Oceanographers Oceanographers 



320 

 160 

 40 

 .440 

 960 



''Assumes 6 person-months per year for 10 years. 



^Assumes that JGOFS and RIDGE have the same ratio of PI and 



postdoctoral labor-months:total man-months (30%) as WOCE. 



