I. SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION 



The Research EfTort 



Oceanographic research remains the largest 

 single element in the National Program. While 

 carrying over much of the effort reported last 

 year, new programs will be inaugurated; these 

 are reported in the agency program descriptions 

 at the end of this section. Of particular interest 

 are the following program highlights. 



\. New Agencies — The oceanographic research 

 programs of the Advanced Research Projects 

 Agency in the Department of Defense, and of the 

 National Institutes of Health, have been in- 

 corporated in the program, thus broadening the 

 scope of the research effort. Budgets for Fiscal 

 Years 1965 and 1966 have been changed retro- 

 actively to reflect the addition of these programs. 



2. Agency Reorganizations— TYie past year has 

 witnessed three reorganizations which affect the 

 research program. In the Department of Com- 

 merce, the Environmental Science Services 

 Administration was created in mid- 1965. Much of 

 the research formerly supported by the Coast and 

 Geodetic Survey and Weather Bureau, was trans- 

 ferred to the newly established Institutes for 

 Environmental Research. In the Department of 

 Health, Education and Welfare, the Division of 

 Water Supply and Pollution Control, was trans- 

 ferred from the Public Health Service to the newly 

 created Federal Water Pollution Control Admin- 

 istration, established by the Water Qiiality Act 

 of 1965. The Division of Water Supply and Pol- 

 lution Control was abolished. The National 

 Science Foundation has reorganized its research 

 divisions and established a division of Environ- 

 mental Sciences. The Earth Sciences Section in 

 this new division includes the Office of Antarctic 

 Programs and is responsible for the Foundation's 

 physical oceanographic effort. Biological oceanog- 

 raphy remains within the Division of Biologi- 

 cal and Medical Sciences apart from physical 

 oceanography. 



3. Air-Sea Interaction — The program for FY 

 1967 reflects the initial phase of a Federally- 

 coordinated air-sea interaction program, based 

 upon a recent report prepared by the Department 

 of Commerce and reviewed by the Joint ICO/ICAS 

 Air-Sea Interaction Panel. 



4. Biological Oceanography — One of the reasons 

 for the organization of the International Indian 

 Ocean Expedition (HOC) and the International 

 Cooperative Investigation of the Tropical Atlantic 

 (ICITA) was the necessity of investigating the 

 biological resources of these areas. In order to 

 further increase our knowledge of the biology of 

 the oceans, the ICO continues to coordinate 

 Federal agency efforts in biological oceanography 

 and is identifying problems and opportunities 

 in this field. 



5. Ocean Fo7-ecasting— The U.S. has recently 

 made significant advances in the technolog}' of 

 forecasting oceanographic conditions; the Navy's 

 Antisubmarine Warfare Environmental Prediction 

 Svstem (ASWEPS), for example, has enabled 

 fleet commanders to predict conditions important 

 to undersea warfare in a large and continuously 

 monitored section of the North Atlantic. Other 

 ocean forecasting efforts are also under way to 

 achieve nondefense objectives, such as the safe, 

 efficient routing of merchant ships. The ICO 

 believes it is vital to assess the state-of-the-art 

 in ocean forecasting so that present efforts can be 

 given greater coherence and direction. Toward 

 this end, a special subpanel on ocean forecasting 

 has been convened. The results of its study will 

 be reflected in the FY 1968 research programs of 

 the agencies concerned. 



6. Undersea Research Vehicles {URV) — ICO agen- 

 cies plan to take full advantage of the new capa- 

 bilities offered by undersea research submersibles. 

 Some of the research programs planned for FY 

 1967 will benefit from the use of these promising 

 tools. Recendy constructed URVs will be chartered 

 to obtain operating experience, and to evaluate 

 their usefulness in oceanographic research. The 

 present state-of-the-art is summarized in the re- 

 cently published ICO Pamphlet No. 18, Undersea 

 Vehicles for Ocean ography. 



7. Oceanographic Tools — Some ICO agencies in- 

 clude the cost of procuring instrumentation in 

 their research budgets. For example, both the 

 National Science Foundation and the Office of 

 Naval Research estimate that about 15 percent of 



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