416 NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM LEGISLATION 



things off the shelf, but is being able to predict changes in both the air weather 

 and the ocean weather so that they can effectively employ their engineering 

 talents in rational alinement with anticipated changes in the environment. They 

 are learning that the air storm surges at the surface of the ocean are no more 

 important to the effective employment of their tools than are the more difficult 

 to observe and understand changes in the currents, internal waves, and shifting 

 interface between earth and water at the bottom of the sea. 



Before prediction must come knowledge and understanding. The fluid ocean 

 is in constant motion at all levels. Every drop of the whole ocean is in constant 

 motion. Every drop and every part of the whole ocean is moving in relation to 

 every other drop and all other parts of the whole ocean. If the westerly winds 

 blow strongly away from the continent, new, cold, nutrient-rich water upwells 

 from below to replace it affecting the strength of all of the related current sys- 

 tems, biological productivity, the aggregation of fishes, the cooling or warming of 

 the local air which induces calms or storms in the lower atmosphere, which affect 

 the climate of the adjacent land and the farming there, etc., in infinite variety 

 and enormous complexity. 



If there is anything that is coming out of the rapid advances in oceanography 

 and meteorology since the war it is the knowledge that the whole world ocean and 

 the whole lower atmosphere are a closely coupled apparatus in which changes in 

 one part affect changes in another part on a worldwide basis, and to understand 

 what is happening, or going to happen, in the air weather or ocean weather in a 

 local area, one needs to know what has happened in this heat engine elsewhere 

 beyond the horizon and to understand what that means in relation to what is 

 going to happen locally. Prediction is what is needed to promote economic 

 yield. 



The first step in this process is ocean surveys on an oceanwide basis for the 

 purpose of establishing base maps of the distribution in space of ocean proper- 

 ties, just as one does on land. Since the ocean is continuously in motion these 

 maps must be first just of average conditions. Since the ocean movements change 

 in a fairly regular manner with the seasons the next step is the construction of 

 maps showing average conditions by season. 



The highly dynamic nature of the ocean leads one then to the need for con- 

 tinuous measurements of parameters so that one can have maps showing devia- 

 tions of conditions presently from the average conditions of these base maps. 

 Only then will one have the information required to elucidate the changing 

 nature of ocean climate and with which to make the predictions that are required 

 for more economic and successful occupation and use of the ocean. 



THE CHARACTER OF THE HIGH SEAS 



As when the area of settlement came up against the new environment of the 

 arid Great Plains about 1840, it is necessary not only to construct new weapons 

 and tools with which to deal with the new environment but also new ideas and 

 new institutions. 



There are two ideas concerning the high seas which are difficult for landsmen 

 to comprehend, and yet which must be taken into account — one is size, the other 

 is the common property nature of the resources. 



It is scarcely possible to convey the concept of size of the ocean to a landsman 

 who has not sailed for days over its vast empty stretches in a small vessel. 

 One can only repeat that about 71 percent of the earth's surface is covered with 

 interconnecting salt water, and that what we are talking about is the surface 

 area equivalent to 15 new continents. Several United States could be plunked 

 down in the Pacific without touching edges. A fishing vessel out of San Diego 

 frequently travels 10.000 miles in the course of a 3-month fishing trip. The 

 rivers of the ocean dwarf the flow of the combined Mississippi, Amazon, Congo, 

 Brahamputra put together, both as to length and volume of transport. The ocean 

 produces all the protein each year that 10 times the present world population of 

 humans could consume, and most of it dies to recycle in the web of life of the 

 ocean unused by man. The energy of the most violent hurricane, dwarfing the 

 power of the largest nuclear weapons, is drawn from a small area of the surface 

 of the ocean, and the subtraction of this enormous mass of energy only reduces 

 the surface temperature of that small area of ocean slightly and temporarily. 



Dealing with the ocean is not a two-bit game. We have come about as far as 

 we can in terms of chickenfeed expenditures. If we are to successfully deal 

 with the enormous problems of bending the ocean to our occupation and use the 

 funds for this purpose must be increased by another order of magnitude. 



