Integrating these activities with additional satellite-derived data (ocean color imager) and 

 associated field programs provides information on ocean productivity, its spatial and temporal 

 variability, and the underlying causes of this variability. Global productivity estimates are 

 critical to ocean flow studies described later. Closely coupled to these observational aspects are 

 numerical modeling efforts using general circulation models of the ocean and/or atmosphere 

 systems to help guide the field activities and data analyses. 



The extensive field observation programs range in scale from a number of smaller process- 

 oriented studies to integrated national and international field efforts being developed for the 

 World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) and the Tropical Ocean/Global Atmosphere (TOGA) 

 Programs. 



Some of the scientific questions to be addressed are: 



• What is the mean, large-scale circulation of the oceans, its variability, and the 



resulting heat transport? How much of it is predictable? 



• What are the large-scale coupling mechanisms (wind stress and thermodynamics) 



between the oceans and atmosphere which relate to El Nino/Southern Oscillation and 

 other elements of the global climate system? 



• What is the effect of the global circulation and its variability on primary productivity of 



the open ocean? 



• How do distributions of chemical tracers vary in time? What do these variations reveal 



about large-scale vertical mixing, surface ventilation, deep circulation rates, and the 

 ocean's role in controlling the global COg balance? 



The major elements of these programs are: 



• spaceborne oceanographic sensors to provide global and regional surface boundary 



conditions; 



• computational resources including augmentation of staff, communications, and related 



NCAR costs for handling the oceanographic share of the advanced vector computer 

 (AVC), and equipment at oceanographic institutions for high data-rate links with NCAR 

 and other supercomputer centers; 



• preparation for and implementation of in situ field measurements including development 



and testing of equipment and techniques, initiating selective long-term baseline time 

 series, and global field measurements utilizing both shipboard sampling and moored and 

 drifting arrays; and 



• analysis and numerical modeling based on development and use of global circulation 



models and analysis procedures that can utilize real-time satellite and in situ data sets. 



13 



