38 



Oceanography — The Ten Years Ahead 



ment testing in local waters. It intends to provide 

 engineering advice and assistance to agencies and 

 activities on oceanographic instrumentation mat- 

 ters, and to serve as a clearing house for informa- 

 tion on the oceanographic instrumentation 

 development program. 



Its budget, which is borne by the Navy, is 

 expected to total approximately $30 million over 

 a ten-year period. 



tion methods can be made available for the de- 

 velopment of a parallel nonmilitary system, or that 

 the Navy system can also serve some nonmilitary 

 users on a not-to-interfere basis. 



Very approximate estimates of the cost of 

 developing a world-wide ASWEPS system run 

 about $3 million annually for the R&D phase, 

 totaling $20 million. Operating costs will run very 

 nearly another $3 million a year thereafter.* 



D. Oceanographic Forecasting Service 



The Navy has two environment and wave fore- 

 casting programs which could conceivably lead 

 to developments of interest to nonmilitary users. 

 They are instrumented to handle on a fully auto- 

 matic basis incoming bathythermograph and sea 

 surface temperature observations and to issue 

 charts of the depth of the upper isothermal layer 

 and the surface temperature variation. The major 

 limitation is the crudeness of the present data 

 inputs so that its outputs are relatively unsophis- 

 ticated, but improvements are continuing and they 

 provide valuable supplements to the ASWEPS pro- 

 gram, scheduled to become fully operational some- 

 time after 1965. Standing for Anti-Submarine 

 Warfare Environmental Prediction System, 

 ASWEPS is intended to provide forecasts of a 

 a large variety of oceanographic variables of 

 particular significance to the operating forces. 

 These variables will describe in considerable de- 

 tail the ocean environment in at least the upper 

 layers. It is hoped that enough information about 

 the sensors, installations, prediction techniques, 

 data processing know-how, and various automa- 



E. Summary 



The oceanographic service of greatest magni- 

 tude planned for the next decade is the Ocean 

 Survey Program. It should contribute to the goals 

 of all the agencies, the scientific community, and 

 other special groups such as the fishing and mining 

 industries. Of international importance, as is 

 noted subsequently, it is expected to reflect about 

 one-third of a planned international effort. Costs 

 amount to approximately $240 million including 

 the construction of 12 new ships. 



Other services whose growing importance is out 

 of all proportion to their comparative small costs 

 are the National Oceanographic Data Center and 

 the Navy's Oceanographic Instrumentation Cen- 

 ter. 



The Navy's ASWEPS will provide an important 

 capability to forecast oceanographic conditions 

 for military purposes. The possibility of provid- 

 ing some nonmilitary services or of establishing 

 a nonmilitary counterpart is under consideration. 



*Not includeH fiscally in the National Oceanographic Program. 



