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REFERENCE COPY FOR LIBRARY USE ONLY AN OCEAN CLIMATE RESEARCH STRATEGY by Ferris Webster Senior Fellow, National Research Council National Academy Press Washington, D.C. 1984 MAR 91R84 LIBRARY
C.I NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this document was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The subject matter of this report, as well as the views expressed herein, are the sole responsibility of the author. The National Research Council was established by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy's purposes of furthering knowledge and of advising the federal government. The Council operates in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy under the authority of its congressional charter of 1863, which establishes the Academy as a private, nonprofit, self-governing membership corporation. The Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in the conduct of their services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. It is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. The National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine were established in 1964 and 1970, respectively, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences. SPONSOR: This report was sponsored by the Division of Ocean Sciences, of the National Science Foundation under contract No. OCE-8212426 with the National Research Council. Copies of this report are available from: Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate National Research Council 2101 Constitution Avenue Washington, DC 20418
CONTENTS PREFACE v 1 SUMMARY 1 2 INTRODUCTION 3 3 THE ROLE OF THE OCEAN IN CLIMATE 6 Mean climate state 6 Cl imate variabi1i ty 7 Cl imate change 9 THE INTERANNUAL VARIABILITY OF THE TROPICAL OCEAN AND THE GLOBAL ATMOSPHERE 11 The Southern Oscillation 11 Climate processes in the tropical Atlantic and Indian Oceans 13 The TOGA proposal 14 A TOGA strategy for NSF 16 International involvement in TOGA 18 THE WORLD OCEAN CIRCULATION EXPERIMENT 20 The general circulation of the ocean 20 The WOCE proposal 22 A WOCE strategy for NSF 24 International involvement in WOCE 26 HEAT TRANSPORT STUDIES 27 Ocean heat transport and storage 27 The Cage proposal 28 The PATHS proposal 30 The GINS Cage proposal 32 A heat flux strategy for NSF 33 International involvement in CAGE 35 ii i
OCEAN CLIMATE MONITORING 37 Monitoring: Building a description for understanding 37 Exploratory Time Series 40 A monitoring strategy for NSF 41 Pilot Ocean Monitoring Studies 42 OTHER OCEAN CLIMATE RESEARCH ISSUES 44 Ocean climate research outside the big programs 44 Working with other countries 47 NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL COORDINATION 49 National Climate Program Office 49 National Science Foundation 50 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admini strat ion 51 National Aeronautics and Space Administration 52 Office of Naval Research 53 National Coordination 54 International Coordination 54 10 CONCLUSIONS 56 REFERENCES 59 APPENDIX A: ACRONYMS 64 APPENDIX B: DEFINITIONS 66 lv
PREFACE This report is my view of where ocean climate research should be heading based on the situation in 1983. It was prepared during a period spent as a senior fellow with the National Research Council. From literature reviews, meetings, and discussions, I have tried to put the various activities in ocean climate research together into a cohesive whole. Based on this, I present a strategy, directed to the National Science Foundation (NSF), for ocean research that will support the development of our ability to predict climate fluctuations. I do not identify specific research that NSF might support. Rather, I provide guidelines that I hope will aid NSF and the research community in setting priorities and establishing procedures. When I started my review, I was critical of ocean climate research programs and plans: it seemed to me that there were too many plans, that they were too poorly defined, and that the hard choices had not been made. I finish this study as an enthusiast for the potential benefits of an ocean climate research program. I hope I have retained a critical distance in the process: I have tried to set forth the pros and cons straightforwardly. This report is directed to NSF managers, to climate program managers in other federal agencies, and to university scientists involved in climate research. I hope to present the consensus on ocean climate research and to give guidelines on strategy in such a way that all involved will recognize the common problems that must be dealt with. Those of us who seek to understand climate may have different ideas about where to begin to seek understanding, but we need to share ocean climate research objectives. We may disagree on which projects should be supported, but we need to agree on the criteria for support. Many reports have been written about research on the role of the ocean in climate--perhaps too many. A clear direction is hard to find, and priorities have not been set. One report, however, has been a great help to me: Ocean Research for Understanding Climatic Variation: Priorities and Goals for the 198Q's~ prepared by a committee of the Ocean Sciences Board of the National Research Council under
