useful river forecast) often be made from the current weather map. But in 

 general the ocean forecaster requires prognostic weather maps. Abrupt and 

 unpredicted deepending or filling of a cyclone near a continental coast — a 

 phenomenon that could conceivably be caused by a wind- gene rated oceanic 

 anomaly — can produce a disastrous failure in the prediction of sea state 

 and coastal wave action. 



The interdependence of meteorological and oceanographic predictions on 

 all time scales is too obvious to belabor further except to note that while 

 the atmospheric influence on the sea is reasonably well known, even quan- 

 titatively, the converse, i.e., the influence of the sea on the atmosphere, 

 is not. 



Given the wind stress at the sea surface, we can at least compute the 

 steady state Ekman current as a function of depth. We can even generate 

 from the wind a reasonably realistic wave spectrum. True we do not know too 

 much about the depth to which the sea is mixed by surface wind action, and 

 we cannot predict temperature anomalies caused by upwelling with satisfactory 

 success — but these problems appear to be amenable to solution. 



The meteorological problem, on the other hand, seems to be much more 

 difficult. The effect of the air on the sea is direct and measurable. The 

 ■converse is neither direct nor measurable . The transfers across the sea 

 surface that are likely to have an important influence on the atmosphere 

 are of salt, water vapor, kinetic energy, momentum, and heat. None of these 

 transfers is easily measured, especially in high winds . But even if we 

 could measure them, we still have the problem of determining quantitatively 

 the effects of these transfers on the atmosphere . 



Does anomalously high storm activity at sea measurably increase the 

 salt particle population of the atmosphere? How is the salt distributed? 

 What is its residence time in the atmosphere? How does it affect the subse- 

 quent precipitation distribution? What is the nature of the dynamic feedback 

 to the atmosphere of the latent heat thus released? 



Similar questions may be asked regarding evaporative transfer, and again 

 the questions are not easily answered. We note that in an east coastal 

 cyclone (see, e.g., Petters3en,et al. 1962) most of the evaporative flux occurs 

 in the cold air to the rear of the surface cyclone . What fraction of the 

 transferred latent heat is realized locally in the cold air by cumulus 

 development and showers, and what fraction is realized far from the source, 

 perhaps in another system altogether? And what role does this energy play 

 in the cyclone development? 



The sensible heat transfer from the warm sea to a cold air mass (the 

 major energy transfer according to Manabe, 1957) presents similar problems. 

 What do we really know about the dynamical effects on the atmosphere of this 

 sea-air heat transfer? 



