Incremental funding in FY 1 989 will augment planning and data management activities as well as 

 TOGA-related process studies. It will also support CTD and tracer sampling, modeling/analysis 

 studies, and continuation of instrument development efforts. Augmented support for 

 TOGA-related studies and initiation of a two-year preparation period for global circulation and 

 productivity studies will require $40M and $51 M in FY 1989 and FY 1990, respectively. 



Activities will include instrument development and acquisition; establishment and operation of 

 institutional data analysis centers and communications networks with NCAR and the Jet 

 Propulsion Laboratory; expanded transient tracer, long-lines, acoustic tomography, and 

 biological productivity studies; and field and modeling activities associated with monsoon 

 research involving both U.S. and Indian oceanographers. Full-scale field operations in concert 

 with satellite sensing (altimeter, scatterometer, and ocean color imager) and numerical 

 modeling will cost about $50M per year during FY 1991 to FY 1995. Ship and facilities costs 

 are included. 



Open Ocean Fluxes 



A major goal for ocean sciences over the next decade will be to understand oceanic biogeochemical 

 cycles and budgets at large space and long time scales. Depiction of the physical dynamics (steady 

 state and first order variability) essential to meeting this goal will be obtained through global 

 ocean circulation research programs such as WOCE. The character and primary productivity of 

 the sea surface will also be evaluated synoptically from satellite sensors. Finally, the lateral 

 flux from the coastal boundary zone must be understood and integrated into a comprehensive 

 global ocean flux study (GOFS). 



A most exciting opportunity exists to link these boundary conditions and new knowledge of ocean 

 dynamics with intensive in situ observations of the fluxes of soluble and particulate phases and 

 the transformations among them. New tools and techniques, e.g., sediment traps, large-volume 

 samplers, experimental benthic chambers, chemical buoys, and numerical modeling, will be 

 developed and used in conjunction with physical and satellite observation over the next ten 

 years. This program will provide an understanding of the factors which control long-term 

 biogeochemical dynamics at ocean basin and global scales. 



Some of the major scientific questions to be addressed are: 



• What is the magnitude of oceanic primary productivity ? How does it vary with time? 



How is primary productivity controlled by physical processes? 



• How much of this production represents recycled material and what are the processes 



and pathways involved in this recycling? 



• What are the flux rates of organic matter from the photic zone into the ocean interior 



in relation to primary production? 



• What are the transfer rates between soluble and particulate phases within the water 



column and what processes are involved? 



• What are the flux rates between the ocean and the seafloor? 



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