1 WOCE was conceived in late1970snot so easy to recapture thinking of the time ID: 852967
Download Pdf The PPT/PDF document "THE WORLD OCEAN CIRCULATION EXPERIMENT W..." is the property of its rightful owner. Permission is granted to download and print the materials on this web site for personal, non-commercial use only, and to display it on your personal computer provided you do not modify the materials and that you retain all copyright notices contained in the materials. By downloading content from our website, you accept the terms of this agreement.
1 1 THE WORLD OCEAN CIRCULATION EXPERIMENT
1 THE WORLD OCEAN CIRCULATION EXPERIMENT (WOCE)ANDTHE JOINT GLOBAL OCEAN FLUX STUDY (JGOFS)Origins, linkages, futureWashington DC, 5 May 2003Karl Wunsch WOCE was conceived in late-1970snot so easy to re-capture thinking of the time:Era of the new process studies built on newly available tech
2 nologies: upwelling regions (CUEA), meso
nologies: upwelling regions (CUEA), mesoscale eddies (MODE, POLYMODE), internal waves (IWEX), Florida Current and Drake Passage transports (ISOS), Pacific surface temperature anomalies (NORPAX), Models were either global and sticky or regional barely showing mesoscale eddies in a simplifi
3 ed geometryLong sections seemed a relic
ed geometryLong sections seemed a relic of an earlier era.No one paid attention to global scales 2 3 Ruddiman, 2001 4 From Michael Cox. Steady winds, steady flow. What became WOCE and what became JGOFS were originally the responsibility of a single steering committee.A major goal was to un
4 derstand the oceanic carbon uptake.(R. R
derstand the oceanic carbon uptake.(R. Revellewas conspicuous in calling attention to this problem.)Fairly quickly became clear that the physical oceanographers had their hands full with defining the oceanic physical state;technical issues of carbon measurement and interpretationrequired grea
5 ter expertise.Some consensus was achieve
ter expertise.Some consensus was achieved that to understand the biogeochemical processes, one had to eliminate the major uncertainties arising from the purely physical part. 5 An amicable separation was agreed upon.An agreement for joint custody of the global ocean COSurvey was put in place.
6 6 A major struggle took place within th
6 A major struggle took place within the WOCE planning committees over the relative emphasis on global observations (descriptions) and regional process studies which to some were more scientific.In the end a reasonable balance was achieved. 7 For the first time hydrography was adequately
7 sampled spatially (horizontal derivative
sampled spatially (horizontal derivatives can be computed quantitatively) 8 ECCO Consortium WOCE Synthesis. GCM at 1lateral resolution. 22 layers. ECCO Consortium: Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Oceans.(MIT/SIO/JPL) 1cm elevation/pressure7x10/s. For model output: http://www.ec
8 co-group.org . National Ocean Partnershi
co-group.org . National Ocean Partnership Program (NOPP) supported. 9 Mean KEEddy KERatio:Eddy KE/Mean KE G. Gebbie, 2003 Resolved eddy field, open boundaries, constrained. Snapshot 1 June 1993 10 G. McKinley, 2002 11 A. Ganachaud, 2002 A. Ganachaud, 2002 12 K. Polzin, 2000 What was accomplis
9 hed?The ocean circulation was observed o
hed?The ocean circulation was observed on all scales from millimeters to 10,000km+, thus ending the era of pure exploration of the physical ocean that began in the 18CenturyCombined global observing systems and the new generation of general circulation models now permit day-to-day three-dimen
10 sional time-dependent estimates of the o
sional time-dependent estimates of the ocean circulation. This is the real revolution! (Many inaccuracies still present, but no reason to doubt continuing improvements. 13 Where do we go from here? A zero-order description of the full ocean circulation has finallybeen achieved. There are no t
11 ime/space scales that have notbeen measu
ime/space scales that have notbeen measured at all. That the ocean is a very dynamic place rather than a static, almost geological flow, is gradually becoming accepted.(Need to re-write the textbooks, however.)Have a reasonable baseline for measuring future large-scale change.Estimates will c
12 ontinue to improve if we can sustain the
ontinue to improve if we can sustain the global observingsystem that WOCE put in place temporarily.For those interested in biogeochemical cycles, it now becomes possibleto focus primarily (but not wholly!) on the biogeochemical processeswithout being distracted by the possibility of zero-orde
13 r ignorance ofthe ocean circulation. The
r ignorance ofthe ocean circulation. The two communities can be expected to overlap much more in the future---as confidence in the biogeochemistry leads to questionsabout estimates of the fluid flow/mixing. 14 Acknowledgements.The World Ocean Circulation Experiment was a temporarycoalition of
14 individual scientists, program managers
individual scientists, program managers, privateand governmental organizations, and international governmentaland non-governmental bodies. Thousands of people contributed.Challenge for the future is to sustain it in some form so that wecontinue to observe and improve understanding of the oce