NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM—1965 
to such high pressures and perpetual low tem- 
peratures. It also offers him intriguing questions: 
“What are the enzyme systems that operate in 
these conditions?... 
“What is the meaning—the function and his- 
tory—of those strange structures, ‘fishing rods’ 
and ‘lanterns’, that characterize known inhabitants 
of the deeps?... 
“Did an original ancient fauna adapt to and sur- 
vive the severe drop from 12° to 2°C; or did this 
change bring widespread extinction and replace- 
ment? 
“Recent years have brought discoveries of ex- 
tremely ancient organisms; 
“Under what conditions have these ‘living fos- 
sils’ survived? How can we account for the rad- 
ically different evolutionary rates that we find 
in the sea?... 
“The plankton is formed typically of small es- 
sentially floating creatures that we might expect 
to be uniformly dispersed, hence evenly distrib- 
uted... 
“How does the plankton, apparently helpless 
in the face of water movement, maintain discrete 
distributions?... 
“What factors limit the distribution of com- 
munities, regulate their abundance and deter- 
mine their internal structure?” 
3. THE MOTION OF THE WATERS 
“Direct current measurements during the past 
year have shown that the east-west transport of 
water in the eastern tropical Pacific is probably 
at least three times that previously estimated. 
We may ask: 
“How good are some of the other estimates of 
water transport? Just what, how big, and how com- 
plex is the circulation pattern of the oceans? This 
question leads in turn to others. What are the 
‘time constants’ of the oceans? Why are some 
water masses but not others homogeneous over 
hundreds of thousands of square miles? Why 
is there the vast oxygen minimum beneath the 
thermocline in the tropical eastern Pacific and 
eastern Pacific and eastern Atlantic? What is the 
rate of mass exchange across the thermocline? 
Even more fundamentally, how are thermoclines 
formed and why do they persist? 
“That the questions listed above remain un- 
answered reflects not only the lack of quantita- 
tive measurements of the motions of the ocean 
18 
451 
waters, but also the inadequacy of our thermo- 
dynamic and hydrodynamic models of the sea 
and the air. The two great earth fluids can be 
thought of as interlinked heat engines, and both 
theory and experiment need to be concentrated 
on the boundary between them... 
“How are the waves formed, and how do they 
grow and decay? What is the partition of energy 
and momentum, transmitted by the wind to the 
sea, between waves, currents and turbulent mo- 
uion? 
“Waves beneath the sea surface, called internal 
waves, are far more mysterious than the waves 
at the surface. 
“How are internal waves generated? Do they 
break near shore? Are they effective in mixing 
nearshore water? What is the role of internal 
waves of tidal period in tidal friction?” 
4. OCEAN-ATMOSPHERE RELATIONSHIPS 
“So intimately connected are the oceans and the 
atmosphere that basic research in one field must 
necessarily involve the other...Studies of these 
relationships may be highly fruitful in long-range 
weather forecasting. 
“Less well-known and little understood are the 
long-term effects on climate caused by the ultimate 
stirring up of the deep ocean waters. 
“Does the supply and coldness of the deep water 
vary at its source around Antarctica from year to 
year, or decade to decade? And if such variations 
occur, how long after and by what mechanism do 
they affect climate? 
“In the deep waters of the sea, with their slow 
transport, we have a natural built-in lag which is a 
most promising beginning for the understanding 
and ultimate prediction of long-term climatic 
fluctuations.” 
5. ESTUARIES AND COASTAL WATERS 
“Men have lived since time immemorial near 
the seashore and have benefited from the natural 
resources of inshore waters. Yet little is known 
about basic processes at the margins of the sea. 
Consequently, coastal and estuarine waters are 
now claiming an increased share of attention 
from oceanographers. 
“Some of the questions are: 
“What are the mechanisms of sediment erosion, 
transportation, and deposition on the shelf and 
in the surf zone?... 
