Chapter 1 Introduction 



During the past fifteen years there has been a 

 growing National awareness of man's dependence 

 on the oceans and of the need for understanding 

 the oceans and the Hfe they sustain. A major 

 indicator of this changing awareness is a series of 

 reports on the marine sciences, reviewing the state 

 of knowledge of the oceans and proposing future 

 directions for oceanographic research. Two reports 

 were submitted by the Committee on Ocean- 

 ography of the National Academy of Sciences' 

 (other pertinent reports of the National Academy 

 of Sciences are referred to later in this report); 

 another was submitted by the Panel on Ocean- 

 ography of the President's Science Advisory Com- 

 mittee.^ These reports stimulated the scientific 

 community as well as legislators and adminis- 

 trators with the responsibility for the formulation 

 of major National programs. 



There are many reasons for our present concern 

 with the marine sciences. We have long recognized 

 that the oceans are primary avenues of interna- 

 tional trade, that the oceans are a vital theater of 

 National defense, that ocean storms destroy Ufe 

 and property, and that the oceans are a major 

 source of food. 



More recently, our awareness of the importance 

 of the oceans has intensified. With the growing 

 world's population increasing the pressure on 

 food supplies, the natural resources of the oceans 

 become vital. The expansion of industry and 

 increased population density near the coasts have 

 increased usage of harbors, estuaries, and near- 

 shore waters with attendant pollution and con- 

 flicting pressures. 



There is, in addition, the long standing recogni- 

 tion of the significant role that the oceans play in 

 molding our weather. 



'committee on Oceanography, National Academy of 

 Sciences-National Research Council, Oceanography 1960 

 to 1970, NAS-NRC, Washington, D.C. (1959) (out of 

 print); Committee on Oceanography, National Academy 

 of Sciences-National Research Council, Oceanography 

 1966, Achievements and Opportunities, NAS-NRC, Wash- 

 ington, D.C. (1967). 



^ Panel on Oceanography, President's Science Advisory 

 Committee, Effective Use of the Sea, Washington, D.C. 

 (1966). 



Because man is dependent on the oceans, he has 

 sought an understanding of the laws that govern 

 their contents, motions, and dynamic processes, 

 but he has done so under a severe handicap. On 

 the one hand, it has been impossible to experiment 

 with the ocean as a laboratory scientist would, 

 conducting experiments in a limited space. On the 

 other hand, the vastness of the oceans made it 

 impossible to mount a continuous watch over 

 them. Ships plying the major ocean trade routes 

 cover only a small portion of the world oceans. It 

 is not surprising, therefore, that present scientific 

 knowledge of the oceans, while in some aspects 

 impressive, is fragmentary. 



But new technology has opened new possibili- 

 ties. The earth-orbiting satellite, the ocean buoy, 

 and associated technology provide a potential 

 capability to observe and probe the oceans over 

 the entire globe— to gather the data needed to 

 describe, understand, and predict ocean processes. 

 With modern communications techniques and 

 high-speed computers, data can be transmitted 

 rapidly over global distances to central locations to 

 be processed, analyzed, and disseminated. 



In this report, the Panel on Environmental 

 Monitoring has concerned itself with how this new 

 technology may be used to improve understanding 

 of the oceans and the ability to predict their 

 future state. We have reviewed present programs 

 and plans and future possibilities for monitoring 

 the ocean and the neighboring atmosphere and 

 predicting their future states. Our primary concern 

 has been with those programs for which observa- 

 tion are processed and analyzed within a relatively 

 short time to provide useful predictions, i.e. 

 essentially real-time activities. 



The panel has concluded that the United States 

 must accelerate its development— in concert with 

 other nations— of a comprehensive global system 

 for the monitoring and prediction of the physical 

 environment. In the following chapters the panel 

 will discuss the needs for such a global system, 

 appraise present program performance, describe 

 recent technical developments, discuss National 

 and international management and coordination 

 arrangements, and make recommendations for the 

 future. 



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