World Ocean Circulation Experiment
199
model/data synthesis efforts so that our successors will not be as blind as we were in
1980 to the time-evolving ocean.
A number of elements of WOCE failed to come to pass. As already noted, the
scatterometer-wind satellite did not fly until the program was almost over (and then
failed prematurely), and no gravity mission appeared until the launch of GRACE
in March 2002. Efforts to define a full-water column equatorial ocean observation
component came to little with the focus of the tropical oceanographic community
on the upper ocean alone (to this day, there are no instruments on the TOGA-TAO
array—its observational legacy—below 500 m). Some proposed elements, e.g., the
open ocean current meter moorings, were never deployed. Few oceanographers have
retained an interest in studying the ocean as a whole—rather there has been a reversion
toward regional programs and processes (cf. CLIVAR). Whether the wider community
will find a way to sustain the global observation network (now primarily satellites,
the ARGO float program, the diminishing XBT coverage, and intermittent revisits of
WOCE hydrographic lines) is one of the major challenges for the future. Recognition
that it needs to be done may perhaps be the ultimate legacy of WOCE. There is little
doubt, however, that without WOCE, oceanography would be a very different subject
than it is today.
It is worth remembering that WOCE was an extremely controversial program,
although the disputes have largely faded from memory. Anyone motivated to organize
a future observational experiment of equivalent scope may perhaps be comforted to
realize that ultimate success means that the inevitable, if painful, dissent will be forgotten. In the context of the present, more complex situation, in which much more is now
known about the ocean and new international bureaucracies exist, an important lesson
is that WOCE was a “bottom-up” program—a critical mass of individual working scientists sought to create the program because they believed it scientifically necessary,
and because they personally wished to work with the resulting observations.
10 (A few
forward-looking scientists recognized that the time span of the program would exceed
the span of their own professional careers—they nonetheless worked for its creation
because they recognized its scientific importance.) WOCE was born at a time when
it was scientifically ripe. Later, “top-down” initiatives arising from the national and
international committee structures are often comparatively sterile in outcome because
the underlying scientific motivation is secondary to programmatic structures.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
WOCE was the result of efforts by thousands of people in dozens of countries
around the world, including program managers, principal investigators, engineers,
10 That WOCE arose out of the initiative of a few individual scientists eventually became difficult to
perceive. Scientists coming to the program after the start of the planning process encountered a WOCE
managerial bureaucracy that had been created to implement it, not create it.
199
model/data synthesis efforts so that our successors will not be as blind as we were in
1980 to the time-evolving ocean.
A number of elements of WOCE failed to come to pass. As already noted, the
scatterometer-wind satellite did not fly until the program was almost over (and then
failed prematurely), and no gravity mission appeared until the launch of GRACE
in March 2002. Efforts to define a full-water column equatorial ocean observation
component came to little with the focus of the tropical oceanographic community
on the upper ocean alone (to this day, there are no instruments on the TOGA-TAO
array—its observational legacy—below 500 m). Some proposed elements, e.g., the
open ocean current meter moorings, were never deployed. Few oceanographers have
retained an interest in studying the ocean as a whole—rather there has been a reversion
toward regional programs and processes (cf. CLIVAR). Whether the wider community
will find a way to sustain the global observation network (now primarily satellites,
the ARGO float program, the diminishing XBT coverage, and intermittent revisits of
WOCE hydrographic lines) is one of the major challenges for the future. Recognition
that it needs to be done may perhaps be the ultimate legacy of WOCE. There is little
doubt, however, that without WOCE, oceanography would be a very different subject
than it is today.
It is worth remembering that WOCE was an extremely controversial program,
although the disputes have largely faded from memory. Anyone motivated to organize
a future observational experiment of equivalent scope may perhaps be comforted to
realize that ultimate success means that the inevitable, if painful, dissent will be forgotten. In the context of the present, more complex situation, in which much more is now
known about the ocean and new international bureaucracies exist, an important lesson
is that WOCE was a “bottom-up” program—a critical mass of individual working scientists sought to create the program because they believed it scientifically necessary,
and because they personally wished to work with the resulting observations.
10 (A few
forward-looking scientists recognized that the time span of the program would exceed
the span of their own professional careers—they nonetheless worked for its creation
because they recognized its scientific importance.) WOCE was born at a time when
it was scientifically ripe. Later, “top-down” initiatives arising from the national and
international committee structures are often comparatively sterile in outcome because
the underlying scientific motivation is secondary to programmatic structures.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
WOCE was the result of efforts by thousands of people in dozens of countries
around the world, including program managers, principal investigators, engineers,
10 That WOCE arose out of the initiative of a few individual scientists eventually became difficult to
perceive. Scientists coming to the program after the start of the planning process encountered a WOCE
managerial bureaucracy that had been created to implement it, not create it.