Reflections of an Equatorial Oceanographer
113
one would admit that an El Ni˜ no was underway. (See the Chapter six in the present
volume.) In the next half decade many equatorial programs were carried out.
A TOGA workshop in Honolulu in August 1986 resulted in another volume
called Further Progress in Equatorial Oceanography (January 1987), edited by
Katz and Witte. It includes articles on INDEX, NORPAX/FGGE, EPOCS, TOGA,
SEQUAL, PEQUOD, Tropic Heat, WEPOCS, and the Equatorial Theoretical Panel.
By this time there was no shortage of equatorial oceanographers.
During the early 1980s the FGGE project office under Rex Fleming and Mike
Hall was transformed into the Office of Global Programs under Mike Hall and Ken
Mooney. Klaus Wyrtki had a variety of sea level projects ongoing at Hawaii at the
time, and Rex Fleming and Mike Hall encouraged him to establish a single activity called the Hawaii Sea Level Center, which they agreed to fund. This has been
an ongoing activity for more than 20 years now, first under Wyrtki, then Gary
Mitchum, and now Mark Merrifield. The sea level data are used both for climate
studies and for tsunami detection, with most of the gauges capable of rapid sampling
and real-time data transmission. The network also provides ground truth for satellite
altimetry.
In March 1987 I called Henry Stommel to ask him about long-term sea level
rise, but he immediately changed the subject. He sent me two papers on a laboratory demonstration of the Coriolis force which had been published by Arthur Holly
Compton. The first was a 1913 paper in Science (Vol. 37, pp. 803–806), written when
Compton was still an undergraduate. I read the Compton papers and tried to answer
Hank’s questions about them. The first one had an error in the theory, with a missing
factor of 2, but Stommel could not believe that Compton got it wrong, and wanted
me to explain the discrepancy. He then sent me a sketch of Woods Hole and WHOI
partially submerged and the Eel Pond overflowing its banks(Figure 7.1). This was
his contribution to the discussion of sea level rise! He also sent me a copy of the
fourth draft of a book he had been working on called An Introduction to the Coriolis
Force, and he asked me if I would be willing to be a coauthor and help him finish the
book. He had originally tried to do the whole thing without using vectors, because
he wanted the material to be easily accessible, even to high school students. I agreed
to help, but only if we in fact used vectors to help tell the story. Working with Hank
Stommel on this book was a wonderful experience for me. It was very intense, and
involved lots of writing in the early hours of the morning. I would typically go to bed
early, thinking about some problem, and wake up about 3 AM with an inspiration
about what to write. I got to think through the details of many elementary mechanical
problems we used to illustrate various concepts. Things I first learned about in the
GFD course in 1960 finally made sense to me. The book appeared in 1989, and it was
not a great success. But helping to write it was fun (Stommel and Moore, 1989).
By 1990 the biogeochemists were becoming interested in the equatorial oceans,
and planning equatorial cruises in the Pacific. The only problem was that while there
were lots of equatorial physical oceanographers, there were not many biogeochemists
who knew anything about equatorial dynamics. So in June 1991 Lew Rothstein ran
113
one would admit that an El Ni˜ no was underway. (See the Chapter six in the present
volume.) In the next half decade many equatorial programs were carried out.
A TOGA workshop in Honolulu in August 1986 resulted in another volume
called Further Progress in Equatorial Oceanography (January 1987), edited by
Katz and Witte. It includes articles on INDEX, NORPAX/FGGE, EPOCS, TOGA,
SEQUAL, PEQUOD, Tropic Heat, WEPOCS, and the Equatorial Theoretical Panel.
By this time there was no shortage of equatorial oceanographers.
During the early 1980s the FGGE project office under Rex Fleming and Mike
Hall was transformed into the Office of Global Programs under Mike Hall and Ken
Mooney. Klaus Wyrtki had a variety of sea level projects ongoing at Hawaii at the
time, and Rex Fleming and Mike Hall encouraged him to establish a single activity called the Hawaii Sea Level Center, which they agreed to fund. This has been
an ongoing activity for more than 20 years now, first under Wyrtki, then Gary
Mitchum, and now Mark Merrifield. The sea level data are used both for climate
studies and for tsunami detection, with most of the gauges capable of rapid sampling
and real-time data transmission. The network also provides ground truth for satellite
altimetry.
In March 1987 I called Henry Stommel to ask him about long-term sea level
rise, but he immediately changed the subject. He sent me two papers on a laboratory demonstration of the Coriolis force which had been published by Arthur Holly
Compton. The first was a 1913 paper in Science (Vol. 37, pp. 803–806), written when
Compton was still an undergraduate. I read the Compton papers and tried to answer
Hank’s questions about them. The first one had an error in the theory, with a missing
factor of 2, but Stommel could not believe that Compton got it wrong, and wanted
me to explain the discrepancy. He then sent me a sketch of Woods Hole and WHOI
partially submerged and the Eel Pond overflowing its banks(Figure 7.1). This was
his contribution to the discussion of sea level rise! He also sent me a copy of the
fourth draft of a book he had been working on called An Introduction to the Coriolis
Force, and he asked me if I would be willing to be a coauthor and help him finish the
book. He had originally tried to do the whole thing without using vectors, because
he wanted the material to be easily accessible, even to high school students. I agreed
to help, but only if we in fact used vectors to help tell the story. Working with Hank
Stommel on this book was a wonderful experience for me. It was very intense, and
involved lots of writing in the early hours of the morning. I would typically go to bed
early, thinking about some problem, and wake up about 3 AM with an inspiration
about what to write. I got to think through the details of many elementary mechanical
problems we used to illustrate various concepts. Things I first learned about in the
GFD course in 1960 finally made sense to me. The book appeared in 1989, and it was
not a great success. But helping to write it was fun (Stommel and Moore, 1989).
By 1990 the biogeochemists were becoming interested in the equatorial oceans,
and planning equatorial cruises in the Pacific. The only problem was that while there
were lots of equatorial physical oceanographers, there were not many biogeochemists
who knew anything about equatorial dynamics. So in June 1991 Lew Rothstein ran