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D. BRIDGE BUILDING OPPORTUNITIES IN OCEAN 

 SCIENCE 



1. DISCUSSION 



The Naval Oceanographic Office has developed inily unique 

 capabilities for synthesizing oceanographic products from 

 diverse and heterogeneous data and displaying the results in 

 useful graphical forms. Beyond the more traditional forms of 

 product generation involving large-scale ocean thermal, salinity, 

 and density fields, this synthesis now includes the development 

 of small-scale regional models in selected ocean areas of naval 

 interest and the exploitation of imagery, including NTM imagery. 

 This product synthesis capability, if it were open to civilian use, 

 would lead to an expanded national benefit. There has been a 

 considerable previous investment of public funds in these 

 capabiUties, and scientific access would pave the way for ocean 

 science to move further into small-scale oceanography. 



On the other hand, there are currently few effective mechanisms 

 for the flow of information to naval oceanography from 

 academia. It is our conviction that such a flow of information, 

 involving modest "shoe box" measurements or recent progress 

 in dynamic ocean models for example, would be of considerable 

 benefit to naval oceanography generally and to the accuracy of 

 Navy fleet products. 



The most important opportunities for bridge building, linking 

 the civihan and Navy oceanography communities, are: 



• Deriving greatly enhanced scientific benefit from 

 NAVOCEANO's oceanographic and geophysical 

 capabilities. 



• .Archiving of the ocean fiducial data in such a way as to 

 facilitate its effective use, and providing the analytical 

 capabilities and correlative data necessary for its scientific 

 exploitation. 



• Developing cost-effective mechanisms for much closer 

 coupling between the nation's civilian and military 

 oceanographic estabhshments to the benefit of both. 



2. FINDINGS 



The findicgs relative to bridge building opportunities in'- 

 ocean science are: 



a. Exploitation Center 



An exploitation center should be established at the Stennis 

 jSpiice Center. Ahighdataratelocalareanetworkwouldailow 

 access to most classified and unclassified NAVOCEANO 

 databases, models, and product s^iithesis capabilities to 

 appropriately cleared and United States govenunent-sponsored 

 civilian scientists. iw 



This centa would also be the repository for the NTM ocean^' 

 fiducial data, thus offering access to oceanographic capabilities 

 for their intrinsic value as well as facilitating scientific 

 exploitation of the NTM data. 



This digital ocean data exploitation center would include 

 capabilities to receive, store, and process large volumes of 

 data; to decompress, format, enhance, and geolocate on 

 demand; and to visualize and analyze the data on demand. 



This center would eventtsally provide on-line connectivity tO'^. 

 selected NAVOCE.ANO databases including those classified 

 up to Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) levels. 

 Access to the NAVOCEANO IDBMS and coregistration 

 with the NTM ocean fiduriai data are recommended. The 

 georectificadon of the NTM data may not be applied routinely 

 because of the large amount of processing required. It prob- 

 ?&)\y would only be conducted as part of a scientific analysis 

 when reqaiied. ; , 



b. Regional Coastal Initiatives ;■ 

 Building on interest in littoral ocean areas, the Navy shotdd 

 expand its current eSbits to build regional ocean models to 

 include areas in proximity to the United States, possibly 

 beginning with the Gulf of Mexico, winch inchides nearly all 

 littoral types. If these models, and the fields used to initiaUie 

 them, were made available, there would be considerable 

 interest in the ocean science community. This would lead to 

 activeuse, which wouldintumgeneratefeedback to theNavyji 

 leading to improvements in die models. • ?| 



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