SS NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM—1965 
the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution prevailed on the Chief of Naval 
Operations in 1961 to send a message to a nuclear submarine returning from 
the South Atlantic. This message requested that the submarine, on reaching a 
point 1° south of the Equator assume a 45° angle at 300 feet depth and maintain 
a heading of 0° north for 5 minutes. Although puzzled by such a strange order 
the submarine skipper attempted to do this and found that it was impossible. 
The Woods Hole scientists had correctly located the submarine in the massive 
Equatorial current and countercurrent so that pressures on the upper end of 
the submarine were in one direction and in the lower end of the submarine 
in the opposite direction. Since that time the equatorial undercurrent has been 
found to transport about 30 million cubic meters of water per second in a high- 
speed eastward flow. 
Having confirmed the existence of a current, similar to the already known 
Cromwell Current in the Pacific, the scientists were quite eager to determine 
whether or not a similar current existed in the equatorial area of the Indian 
Ocean. They have been surprised to discover, during the International Indian 
Ocean Expedition, that although there were strong currents from time to time 
in the Indian Ocean, no steady eastward flow was evident. Studies for many 
years will be necessary to define and to describe the actual flows of these giant 
marine rivers. It is not unlikely that other large volume, large area ocean cur- 
rents will be discovered. Many smaller areas of oceanic flow are being located 
on a continuing basis. 
The second research category, that of ocean-atmosphere interrelationships, is 
a most significant one. Here again I would like to cite an example. It has been 
reported by Dr. Jerome Namias of the Weather Bureau that the unusual weather 
experienced in much of the Northern Hemisphere may be traced to the phenomena 
of energy storage and exchange. Oceanographic data located a very large tem- 
perature anomaly in the North Pacific in the summer of 1962. The temperature 
averaged as much as 7° higher than usual at the surface of the ocean. Hind- 
sight tracing of the origin and path of the hurricane which hit Seattle in the fall 
of 1962 shows that it came directly across, and was apparently related to, the 
area of anomalous oceanographic temperature. 'These temperatures persisted 
throughout much of the winter and seemed to be definitely related to the espe- 
cially cold weather along the eastern coast of the United States and through 
Western Hurope. These types of anomalies are not common, and our conclusions 
are tentative. Weshould be prepared to study the next one more completely when 
it occurs. Such interpretations cause us to be very strongly interested in weather 
in the ocean. 
With regard to category 3, biological properties, the oceanographic community 
is well aware of the potential production of food from the ocean. Biologists are 
concerned that we are at a very primitive hunting stage when it comes to pre- 
dicting the location of marine organisms and why they are there. Over the 
period of historical time, many scientists had become convinced by fishing ex- 
perience that all of the commerciaily harvestable fishes must be found in the 
upper 1,000 feet of the ocean. Yet within the past 2 years, with the development 
of better fishing gear, the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries Laboratory in Seattle 
has collected fishes in commercially exploitable abundance at a depth of 3,600 feet 
near the mouth of the Columbia River. Assistance from the United States, and 
also from a Norwegian fisheries project, has resulted in the development of a $25. 
million shrimp fishery off the south coast of India. This, of course, is really 
fishery oceanography and not biological oceanography as we normally think 
of it. 
Biological oceanographers have reached conclusions, based on data collected 
in different places by different persons, that the sound reflection and interference 
layer in the water, often called the scattering layer, may be due to squid, to 
jellyfishes, to lantern fishes, or to plankton. Biologists are particularly inter- 
ested in undersea vehicles because, for the first time, they promise that an 
observer can combine registration of a sound scattering layer on an echo sounder 
with observation and identification of the kinds of organisms producing the echo 
trace. 
The abundances, kinds, and distributions of biological organisms are so poorly 
known that our predictions of the numbers and kinds of marine organisms that 
would be available for exploitation by humans varies through billions of pounds, 
or even more. It is in this area that we are now concentrating our greatest efforts 
in terms of trained manpower. However, our results are not really spectacular 
because of the limited backlog of biological ship time. 
