14 



Oceanography 1951 



mortality rates throughout the Hfe of the 

 fish, as well as food, predators and com- 

 petitors, diseases, migrations, etc., are all 

 subjects for study. The size of fish stocks 

 are known to be influenced by many things: 

 by fishing, by fluctuations in the survival of 

 fish eggs and larvae resulting from changes 

 in the environmental factors, by devastat- 

 ing epidemics, and perhaps by cyclic 

 changes inherent in fish populations. These 

 problems are analogous to those occurring 

 among populations of mammals and re- 

 main beyond our understanding. 



Heretofore most fishery research pro- 

 grams were attempted on too small a scale. 

 This was due to a lack of appreciation of 

 the complexity and magnitude of fishery 

 problems, so that insufficient funds were 

 assigned to many projects. Recently, how- 

 ever, a number of laboratories along the 

 coasts have combined in cooperative ef- 

 forts, as for example in the California sar- 

 dine program, the Atlantic clam investiga- 

 tions, and the Gulf of Mexico survey. 



APPLICATIONS OF OCEANOGRAPHY 



TO METEOROLOGY 



The influence of the ocean upon the cli- 

 mates of the coastal regions has long been 

 recognized and, in a general way, it is 

 known that the configuration of the oceans 

 and the major land masses exercises a pro- 

 found control upon the character of the 

 atmospheric circulation. Differences in 

 weather between the northern and south- 

 ern hemispheres, for example, depend pri- 

 marily on the different proportions of land 

 and sea in the two hemispheres. Short term 

 changes in weather occurring within a few 

 days evidently depend on instabilities with- 

 in the atmosphere itself, but in order to 

 extend weather forecasts over a longer 

 period it is believed that it will be neces- 

 sary to take into account changes in ocean 

 circulation, and in the temperature and 

 salinity of the surface waters. Thus a 

 rational basis for long-range weather fore- 

 casting may depend to a large extent upon 

 an increase in our knowledge of the fluctu- 

 ations of oceanic conditions. 



Oceanographic research has already re- 

 sulted in one new method for determining 

 and predicting weather conditions over 

 the ocean. Storms generate waves of long 

 period and of very low amplitude which 

 travel at speeds of several hundred miles 

 per hour. By recording such waves as 

 they arrive at one or more shore stations, 

 it is possible to locate and track the storm 

 over areas of the ocean in remote parts of 

 the world. 



One of the most interesting and signifi- 

 cant problems of modern meteorology is 

 that of the overall vigor of the atmospheric 

 circulation and its fluctuation with time. It 

 is difficult to integrate ordinary weather 

 data in order to compute these fluctuations 

 because of the inadequate and irregular 

 distribution of weather observing stations, 

 but they can be determined from other 

 types of geophysical observations. For ex- 

 ample, the short period, seasonal fluctua- 

 tions in the speed of the earth's rotation 

 probably reflect, in large part, changes in 

 the intensity of upper atmospheric winds. 

 The speed of the earth's rotation is also 

 markedly influenced by changes in sea 

 level; it is believed that these in turn de- 

 pend, in a complex way, on atmospheric 

 fluctuations. Thus in order to use fluctu- 

 ations in the speed of the earth's rotation 

 as an index of the overall atmospheric cir- 

 culation, it is necessary that we know how 

 and by what processes the sea level is af- 

 fected by changes in the atmosphere. 



FINDING AND PRODUCING PETROLEUM 



Petroleum is found associated with marine 

 sedimentary rocks. Indeed it is now be- 

 lieved that nearly half of the oil remaining 

 in the earth occurs in the sedimentary rocks 

 still beneath the oceans. Several major oil 

 companies are attempting to find and pro- 

 duce this oil and have enlisted the help 

 of oceanographers to predict wave condi- 

 tions which interfere with operations. 

 Oceanographic knowledge is also needed to 

 extrapolate from the point of measurement 

 the thickness and character of the recent 

 sediments of mud and sand after these 

 have been determined at any particular 



