Historical Introduction
11
some oceanographers suspected otherwise. With a rough-and-ready calculation, Sverdrup (Sverdrup et al., 1942, pp. 99–100) estimated that the northward energy transport
in the North Atlantic subpolar gyre was about 10% of the global total at latitude 55
◦ N.
Jung (1952) argued that the overall oceanic share could be substantially greater on
account of the vertical–meridional circulations; but such direct calculations were bedeviled by level-of-no-motion guesswork. Even with much better estimates of the
ocean circulation and the sea-surface heat fluxes, the issue is still unsettled.
Until the introduction of high-speed computers in the 1960s, application of
physics to circulation problems was severely restrained by the computing facilities
available: namely, tables, graphs, slide rules, and desk calculators. One summer when
I was an undergraduate employee at Woods Hole, Fritz Fuglister set me to do the
velocity and transport calculations for his recent I.G.Y. sections across the South
Atlantic. It took me a whole month to do a single section—a job requiring only a few
seconds on a modern computer (apart from a few hours, perhaps, to format the data).
Riley’s (1951) failure to calculate satisfying property budgets for the Atlantic Ocean
was surely due in part to the utter inability at the time to handle large masses of data
quickly and flexibly.
Of course physical oceanographers found additional employment for computers. In the introduction to his edition of Aubrey’s Brief Lives, Oliver Lawson-Dick
(1949, p. xxix) wrote “. . . the adoption of the Arabic numerals at the time of the
Renaissance opened up a whole new world of thought, which the men of the seventeenth century explored with voluptuous delight.” Latter-day, computer-furnished
oceanographers have been doing something similar.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
As part of the Challenger Reports, Murray (1895) wrote an excellent history of
oceanic exploration, from antiquity to the end of the nineteenth century. W¨ ust (1964)
summarized the major oceanographic expeditions from the voyage of the Challenger
to 1960. To my mind, the best history of physical oceanography, for information, intellectual context, and critical judgment, is Margaret Deacon’s (1971). Stommel’s
(1965) book, The Gulf Stream, although somewhat dated now, still displays the
lively, powerful mind of a man vigorously engaged with his subject, and full of ideas
about it.
REFERENCES
Aristotle. Meteorologica. Translated from the Greek into English by E. W. Webster, 1931. In: The Works
of Aristotle, Vol. 3, W. D. Ross, ed., Oxford University Press, London.
Buchan, A., 1895. Report on oceanic circulation, based on the observations made on board H.M.S. Challenger, and other observations. In: Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger
11
some oceanographers suspected otherwise. With a rough-and-ready calculation, Sverdrup (Sverdrup et al., 1942, pp. 99–100) estimated that the northward energy transport
in the North Atlantic subpolar gyre was about 10% of the global total at latitude 55
◦ N.
Jung (1952) argued that the overall oceanic share could be substantially greater on
account of the vertical–meridional circulations; but such direct calculations were bedeviled by level-of-no-motion guesswork. Even with much better estimates of the
ocean circulation and the sea-surface heat fluxes, the issue is still unsettled.
Until the introduction of high-speed computers in the 1960s, application of
physics to circulation problems was severely restrained by the computing facilities
available: namely, tables, graphs, slide rules, and desk calculators. One summer when
I was an undergraduate employee at Woods Hole, Fritz Fuglister set me to do the
velocity and transport calculations for his recent I.G.Y. sections across the South
Atlantic. It took me a whole month to do a single section—a job requiring only a few
seconds on a modern computer (apart from a few hours, perhaps, to format the data).
Riley’s (1951) failure to calculate satisfying property budgets for the Atlantic Ocean
was surely due in part to the utter inability at the time to handle large masses of data
quickly and flexibly.
Of course physical oceanographers found additional employment for computers. In the introduction to his edition of Aubrey’s Brief Lives, Oliver Lawson-Dick
(1949, p. xxix) wrote “. . . the adoption of the Arabic numerals at the time of the
Renaissance opened up a whole new world of thought, which the men of the seventeenth century explored with voluptuous delight.” Latter-day, computer-furnished
oceanographers have been doing something similar.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
As part of the Challenger Reports, Murray (1895) wrote an excellent history of
oceanic exploration, from antiquity to the end of the nineteenth century. W¨ ust (1964)
summarized the major oceanographic expeditions from the voyage of the Challenger
to 1960. To my mind, the best history of physical oceanography, for information, intellectual context, and critical judgment, is Margaret Deacon’s (1971). Stommel’s
(1965) book, The Gulf Stream, although somewhat dated now, still displays the
lively, powerful mind of a man vigorously engaged with his subject, and full of ideas
about it.
REFERENCES
Aristotle. Meteorologica. Translated from the Greek into English by E. W. Webster, 1931. In: The Works
of Aristotle, Vol. 3, W. D. Ross, ed., Oxford University Press, London.
Buchan, A., 1895. Report on oceanic circulation, based on the observations made on board H.M.S. Challenger, and other observations. In: Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger