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Executive Summary 



GENESIS OF THIS MEDEA STUDY 



There is agrowing public understanding that changes in Earth's 

 environment, both natural and manmade, can significantly 

 affect important dimensions of the nation's vitality, including 

 aspects of the economy, quality of life, international relations, 

 and national security. An enhanced scientific understanding of 

 tfie key physical processes (such as global transport of heat and 

 carbon dioxide via ocean circulation) is key to developing 

 appropriate and responsive public policies. A major limitation 

 lo achieving this understanding is the lack of historical 

 observations and adequate ongoing measurements of these 

 environmental processes. In addition, the interests of U.S. 

 national security are increasingly concerned with ensunng 

 environmental security on global, regional, and national scales. 

 In order to develop public policies based on a quantitative 

 scientific understanding of the environment in the face of 

 limited resources available for new programs, it will be necessary 

 to exploit fully the environmental data resources already 

 collected by the Navy (indeed of all of the Department of 

 Defense [DoD] and the intelligence community) during the 

 course of the cold war. 



In response to a request from Vice President (then Senator) 

 Gore, an Environmental Task Force (ETF) was established in 

 1992 by the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), including 

 involvement by DoD and other agencies. The primary emphasis 

 of the ETF study was on space-based systems and capabilities, 

 including the National Technical Means ( NTM). Some attention 

 was paid to a variety of Navy systems and databases; however, 

 thai study did not encompass an in-deplh examination of the 'ull 

 variety o( the .Navy's oceanographic data sets and capabilities. 



There was an opportunity to address those omissions with the 

 formation of the MEDEA follow-on to the original ETF. 

 Therefore, at the Navy's request, the present study was 

 undertaken to examine the various classified databa.ses. pro- 

 ducts, and capabilities of the Naval Meteorology and 

 Oceanography Command (NAVMETOCCOM), 



The intention of this study was to deiennine the potential 

 for unique and important environmental research arising from 

 the use of existing classified Navy databases, and to prioritize 

 these data for subsequent Navy declassification efforts. In 

 addition, this study was to identify opportunities for collaboration 

 between the civilian and Navy ocean science communities that 

 could benefit both, and to suggest ways to obtain increased 

 national benefit from previous public investments in global 

 data collection and modeling by the Navy, 



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Over many years, and with 

 increasing technical sophistication, 

 the Navy has conducted systematic 

 survey and measurement operations 

 covering most of the world 's oceans. 

 Over the decades of the cold war, 

 these operations, involving several 

 dedicated ships, amassed results from 

 about 100 ship-years of data collection. 



Data collected include measurements 

 of the marine gravitational and 

 puignetic fields, seafloor bathymetry 

 and sediment properties, and such 

 physical properties as salinity and 

 temperature vertical profile sections. 

 Various other naval platforms, such 

 as aircraft atui unattended butrys. 

 have been used extensively in this 

 measurement program. 



