Much of the debate that took place in the
WOCE formulation dealt with the desirability,
and feasibility, of obtaining global coverage, not
only by hydrography, but also with satellites,
expendable bathythermographs (XBTs), etc., and
the extent to which these were possible (the satellite technologies were very new; see, e.g. Born
et al., 1979).
As we finish WOCE, I am concerned that we
are emerging with the same two paradigms (and
the various conflicting personalities) largely intact
and almost undiscussed. Ocean science following
WOCE is emerging as having a major focus on climate problems, including those involving time
scales of decades and longer. WOCE was intended
to provide a mechanism by which this transition to
climate programmes could take place. But given
the long time scales of climate change, the possibilities for self-delusion grow abundantly, and the
question of what observations are required so that
we come to understand the system are of very
great importance.
It is the import of this chapter that more than
ever one requires an adequate, long-term observational system: there is a tendency to think that
models will come to substitute for observations.
The basis of the hope is the understandable wish
that one can evade the necessity of waiting the
decades required to observe the actual climate system by modelling it instead.
2 Although models are
extremely important elements of the arsenal for
understanding climate change, and will become
increasingly so, the entire history of fluid mechanics (and it is worth recalling that physical oceanography is a branch of fluid dynamics) shows that
without observations one generally goes seriously
astray. A famous example in classical fluid dynamics is the discrepancy between the Stokes solution
for flow around a sphere and the flow actually
observed in the laboratory.
2.1.2.3 Consequences
For anyone attempting to understand climate, the
consequences of the application of the two views is
SECTION 2 OBSERVATIONS AND MODELS
50
2 A reviewer thinks I am beating a dead horse here: that no one believes models are a substitute for observations. But at
least one very influential meteorologist has publicly and repeatedly asserted that because there is no ‘physics’ in the ocean
(in the peculiar meteorological sense of that term), one can model everything adequately without data.
Fig. 2.1.1 The very few trans-oceanic hydrographic sections obtained during the period following the IGY
(1958–59) and preceding the WOCE design period. This latter coincided with the resurvey of the North Atlantic
(early 1980s), which to some extent marked a return to large-scale physical oceanography following the mesoscale,
and other process programmes that dominated the 1960s and 1970s.
WOCE formulation dealt with the desirability,
and feasibility, of obtaining global coverage, not
only by hydrography, but also with satellites,
expendable bathythermographs (XBTs), etc., and
the extent to which these were possible (the satellite technologies were very new; see, e.g. Born
et al., 1979).
As we finish WOCE, I am concerned that we
are emerging with the same two paradigms (and
the various conflicting personalities) largely intact
and almost undiscussed. Ocean science following
WOCE is emerging as having a major focus on climate problems, including those involving time
scales of decades and longer. WOCE was intended
to provide a mechanism by which this transition to
climate programmes could take place. But given
the long time scales of climate change, the possibilities for self-delusion grow abundantly, and the
question of what observations are required so that
we come to understand the system are of very
great importance.
It is the import of this chapter that more than
ever one requires an adequate, long-term observational system: there is a tendency to think that
models will come to substitute for observations.
The basis of the hope is the understandable wish
that one can evade the necessity of waiting the
decades required to observe the actual climate system by modelling it instead.
2 Although models are
extremely important elements of the arsenal for
understanding climate change, and will become
increasingly so, the entire history of fluid mechanics (and it is worth recalling that physical oceanography is a branch of fluid dynamics) shows that
without observations one generally goes seriously
astray. A famous example in classical fluid dynamics is the discrepancy between the Stokes solution
for flow around a sphere and the flow actually
observed in the laboratory.
2.1.2.3 Consequences
For anyone attempting to understand climate, the
consequences of the application of the two views is
SECTION 2 OBSERVATIONS AND MODELS
50
2 A reviewer thinks I am beating a dead horse here: that no one believes models are a substitute for observations. But at
least one very influential meteorologist has publicly and repeatedly asserted that because there is no ‘physics’ in the ocean
(in the peculiar meteorological sense of that term), one can model everything adequately without data.
Fig. 2.1.1 The very few trans-oceanic hydrographic sections obtained during the period following the IGY
(1958–59) and preceding the WOCE design period. This latter coincided with the resurvey of the North Atlantic
(early 1980s), which to some extent marked a return to large-scale physical oceanography following the mesoscale,
and other process programmes that dominated the 1960s and 1970s.