1998 Year of the Ocean The Oceans and National Security 



The research into secure and reliable means of maritime communication has extended 

 into the civilian sector. Financial institutions are studying methods engineered for the military for 

 safe, reliable, and rapid means of moving large volumes of data, secure from the danger of 

 disruption or unauthorized monitoring. The Internet, the result of communications programs 

 funded by the Department of Defense, has provided incalculable benefits worldwide. There are 

 countless other examples of the fruits of military research spilling over into the field of marine 

 engineering, marine environmental and pollution control technology, meteorology systems, 

 communications, and biology. 



Ocean Data, the Public, and the Navy 



The Navy is a major provider of oceanographic information as well as an end-user and 

 much of this information has been freely distributed as a matter of course. While being careful to 

 ensure that data gathered for military operations is handled in accordance with existing 

 international norms, the end of the Cold War has enabled the Navy to declassify a significant 

 amount of formerly classified data, some of which has been useful to scientific pursuits. 



Procedures to allow increased access by civilian scientists to the Navy's underwater 

 surveillance system'"* (SOSUS) data are being implemented. Initial investigations of civil 

 applications, coordinated closely with NOAA, proved remarkably fruitful. For example, a short 

 demonstration project that was conducted provided more information on marine mammal 

 movements than all the data previously collected. SOSUS also proved to be the most effective 

 monitoring system for underwater earthquakes, providing the possibility of better tsunami (tidal 

 wave) predictions. NOAA is investigating whether SOSUS could aid offshore fisheries 

 enforcement in detecting illegal drift-net deployments. Researchers also want to use the system 

 for acoustic monitoring of the ocean water to detect change in global climate, relying on the 

 premise that sound travels at different speeds through water depending on density and 

 temperature. 



Greater public access to formerly classified Navy information, and relaxation of foreign 

 disclosure and export controls are the result of changes in the world's political/military situation. 

 In the late 1980s, the Navy declassified selected Arctic under-ice data collected by Navy 

 submarines for use in climate change research. An Environmental Task Force comprised of 

 academics, scientists, and government officials was later established to determine the potential 

 usefulness of classified intelligence and defense databases for addressing serious global 

 environmental problems. The Central Intelligence Agency has agreed to release millions of 

 1960s era satellite images, and the Navy has declassified all sea level (altimetry) data from 

 GEOSAT satellites, which researchers have used to improve the nation's knowledge of global 

 seafloor features and the earth's gravity field. A Navy working group is completing review of 

 additional data sets for declassification. 



'4 SOSUS is comprised of a series of acoustic listening arrays on the seatloor which was developed during the Cold War to 

 detect the Soviet submarine fleet. 



B-12 



