Interview with Klaus Wyrtki
221
Nations can also act in the opposite way. This is what I want to point out with
regard to Indonesia. You know, when Arnold Gordon planned this big throughflow
experiment, Fritz Schott wanted to do the moorings, Arnold Gordon the hydrography,
and I came in a little bit with sea level, but the Indonesians didn’t want international
participation. I remember one international meeting on which an Indonesian admiral
said flatly “we don’t want any damned foreign ship in our waters.” So Indonesia has
excluded to a large extent progress because they did not allow other nations to come
in and work with them. And this is why it has remained a desert of knowledge.
What about international organizations?
International organizations are necessary, in order to get ships into foreign waters, to
make data exchange and similar things, to enable international cooperation, because
you can’t install observing stations somewhere unless you have permission of that
country. You can’t do research within the 200-mile zone unless you cooperate with
that country. All these international organizations are necessary. Some do very good
jobs, some not. But there is a need for it.
What about physical oceanography as part of a more general environmental science?
Physical oceanography is in some way basic to all the other branches of oceanography,
because all the others are simply embedded in the physical environment. In order for
biologists, chemists in particular, to explain their results, they have to go back to ocean
circulation and to physical processes. For that reason it will always be the main part
of oceanography. Maybe not the most important one, but the main indispensable part.
You cannot explain plankton distributions and productivity without knowing about
circulation, mixing, and other processes.
Has oceanography become also a sub-discipline of climate research, or global change
research?
Oceanography exists quite independently of climate research. It is certainly not a
subdiscipline, but a very important component of it, because of ocean–atmosphere
interaction. The ocean definitely plays more than the role of a copper plate
A wet copper plate.
Yes, something like that. The ocean is awfully active. The ocean is handling the
storage of heat. When it comes to climate prediction or long-term weather prediction,
then the ocean plays a major role in providing the heat storage and in advecting heat.
Advection is a much-neglected phenomenon in most studies or explanations of the
ocean–atmosphere system.
What was the background of you mentioning the copper plate? Were there people who
said the ocean is just a copper plate providing heat for the atmosphere?
This claim has been made by some meteorologists. It has seriously been claimed that
the ocean doesn’t count, but we are beyond that now.
221
Nations can also act in the opposite way. This is what I want to point out with
regard to Indonesia. You know, when Arnold Gordon planned this big throughflow
experiment, Fritz Schott wanted to do the moorings, Arnold Gordon the hydrography,
and I came in a little bit with sea level, but the Indonesians didn’t want international
participation. I remember one international meeting on which an Indonesian admiral
said flatly “we don’t want any damned foreign ship in our waters.” So Indonesia has
excluded to a large extent progress because they did not allow other nations to come
in and work with them. And this is why it has remained a desert of knowledge.
What about international organizations?
International organizations are necessary, in order to get ships into foreign waters, to
make data exchange and similar things, to enable international cooperation, because
you can’t install observing stations somewhere unless you have permission of that
country. You can’t do research within the 200-mile zone unless you cooperate with
that country. All these international organizations are necessary. Some do very good
jobs, some not. But there is a need for it.
What about physical oceanography as part of a more general environmental science?
Physical oceanography is in some way basic to all the other branches of oceanography,
because all the others are simply embedded in the physical environment. In order for
biologists, chemists in particular, to explain their results, they have to go back to ocean
circulation and to physical processes. For that reason it will always be the main part
of oceanography. Maybe not the most important one, but the main indispensable part.
You cannot explain plankton distributions and productivity without knowing about
circulation, mixing, and other processes.
Has oceanography become also a sub-discipline of climate research, or global change
research?
Oceanography exists quite independently of climate research. It is certainly not a
subdiscipline, but a very important component of it, because of ocean–atmosphere
interaction. The ocean definitely plays more than the role of a copper plate
A wet copper plate.
Yes, something like that. The ocean is awfully active. The ocean is handling the
storage of heat. When it comes to climate prediction or long-term weather prediction,
then the ocean plays a major role in providing the heat storage and in advecting heat.
Advection is a much-neglected phenomenon in most studies or explanations of the
ocean–atmosphere system.
What was the background of you mentioning the copper plate? Were there people who
said the ocean is just a copper plate providing heat for the atmosphere?
This claim has been made by some meteorologists. It has seriously been claimed that
the ocean doesn’t count, but we are beyond that now.