626 



detect atmospheric nuclear tests. Events having considerable 

 astrophysical significance today, ganuna ray bursts, were first 

 observed and then monitored by these satellites for some six 

 years prior to their declassification in the 1970s. On a larger 

 scale, the entire civilian, space-based remote sensing program 

 owes its origins to earlier successes and technology of the 

 classified satellite reconnaissance programs. We can expect 

 that interesting, but unexplained features in the Arabian Sea, 

 observable in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery at the 

 NASA Space Radar Laboratory, should be interpretable using 

 much needed ground truth data, such as the temperature and 

 salinity data in NAVOCEANO's ocean thermal and salinity- 

 profile databases. 



The major specific findings of this study, supporting the 

 top-level recommendations, are divided into two categories: 

 (1) identification and prioritization of the scientific utility 

 of the various data sets examined, and (2) developing ways to 

 improve the conununity's capabilities in ocean science. 



prioritized in two categories of "potential importance.'" The 

 prioritization reflects our view of the uniqueness of the data, and 

 it represents the potential for important results to be 

 obtained, if public release were possible. 



Findings 



The major findings related to various specific data sets that were 

 examined are summarized in Table 2. 



No attempt was made to evaluate the national security 

 implications of possible public release of these data sets, this 

 being a topic outside our purview. That is, we have accounted 

 for neither any possible impact on national security from 

 potential public release, nor of how favorably the Navy might 

 view the release of any particular data set. Further, no cost has 

 been attached to any possible future effort to declassify, bundle, 

 or reformat data or create automated access by cleared scientists 

 in as much as we understand that the existence of such costs do 

 not constitute legitimate grounds for continued classification. 



Through a series of briefings and di.scussions, we were exposed 

 to a great many of the Navy's environmental data sets and 

 capabilities, and we have identified a subset of significant 

 importance. Fiulhermore, to support the Navy declassification 

 review that we expect to follow, the data sets have been 



We recognize that, even in the face of a judicious weighing of 

 national security risks on the one hand, and public benefits of 

 declassification on the other, declassification of entire data sets 

 may, in some cases, prove to be imprudent. In such cases, it may 

 very well be possible to declassify geographic subsets of the 



