26
Francis Bretherton
As we closed down everything and took refuge, we thought of the Bermuda triangle.
Fortunately there was little damage, though the airport was closed for several days.
POSTSCRIPT
Three months later, I received a surprise call that could not be ignored. Effective immediately, I was asked to lead NCAR, an institution with some 300 employees including
100 scientists. Its mission is to support the university-based research community in the
atmospheric sciences (broadly defined), helping them tackle the important problems
that require facilities or resources beyond those that individual departments are able
to support. It meant that I had to put my personal research on hold, drop out of active
participation in MODE, and focus on mastering in a hurry a completely new job and
its environment. One of my early actions was to establish a small Ocean Modeling
Section at NCAR, and recruit Bill Holland and Jim McWilliams to join it. It was a
decision without any regrets.
At NCAR, I gradually became aware of the pressing need for greater scientific understanding of the functioning of the Earth as a complete system, not only
the interactions of the ocean and atmospheric circulations in climate, but also the
biogeochemical cycles and biological processes on land and sea, all of which are
being affected to an ever-increasing degree by human activities. This is a gigantic
agenda, but national and international programs have been established, and substantial progress has already been made. My experiences in MODE were an invaluable
lesson on “Big Science” in operation. By sharing them with others I hope to encourage
present-day successors to pool their talents, and join together to address the really
important issues that are facing their disciplines.
In the summer of 1974 the Dynamics Group (1975) met to discuss the implications of the MODE-1 observations, and relevant data from other studies that had
recently become available. To my regret, I was unable to participate or even to focus on
the outcome. In general terms, the upshot of this and other discussions seems to have
been a consensus that the MODE-1 Field Program had proved the concept of mapping
velocity and density fields on the meso-scale, and had demonstrated convincingly the
capabilities or potential of many important new instruments. The presence in the
MODE area of seemingly random eddies throughout the water column with abyssal
velocities of several centimeters per second or more and time scales of weeks to
months was beyond question. However, due primarily to sampling uncertainties, the
accuracies achieved were inadequate to draw final conclusions about the dynamical
processes involved. Nevertheless, stimulated by MODE activities, telltales of qualitatively similar meso-scale eddies were being found in records of many other ocean
observations throughout at least the North Atlantic and these were being analyzed in
a new light. It seemed likely that eddy activity to some degree was almost ubiquitous,
though there were major gradients in intensity associated with proximity to the Gulf
Stream. In conclusion, there was an immediate successor to the MODE program with
Francis Bretherton
As we closed down everything and took refuge, we thought of the Bermuda triangle.
Fortunately there was little damage, though the airport was closed for several days.
POSTSCRIPT
Three months later, I received a surprise call that could not be ignored. Effective immediately, I was asked to lead NCAR, an institution with some 300 employees including
100 scientists. Its mission is to support the university-based research community in the
atmospheric sciences (broadly defined), helping them tackle the important problems
that require facilities or resources beyond those that individual departments are able
to support. It meant that I had to put my personal research on hold, drop out of active
participation in MODE, and focus on mastering in a hurry a completely new job and
its environment. One of my early actions was to establish a small Ocean Modeling
Section at NCAR, and recruit Bill Holland and Jim McWilliams to join it. It was a
decision without any regrets.
At NCAR, I gradually became aware of the pressing need for greater scientific understanding of the functioning of the Earth as a complete system, not only
the interactions of the ocean and atmospheric circulations in climate, but also the
biogeochemical cycles and biological processes on land and sea, all of which are
being affected to an ever-increasing degree by human activities. This is a gigantic
agenda, but national and international programs have been established, and substantial progress has already been made. My experiences in MODE were an invaluable
lesson on “Big Science” in operation. By sharing them with others I hope to encourage
present-day successors to pool their talents, and join together to address the really
important issues that are facing their disciplines.
In the summer of 1974 the Dynamics Group (1975) met to discuss the implications of the MODE-1 observations, and relevant data from other studies that had
recently become available. To my regret, I was unable to participate or even to focus on
the outcome. In general terms, the upshot of this and other discussions seems to have
been a consensus that the MODE-1 Field Program had proved the concept of mapping
velocity and density fields on the meso-scale, and had demonstrated convincingly the
capabilities or potential of many important new instruments. The presence in the
MODE area of seemingly random eddies throughout the water column with abyssal
velocities of several centimeters per second or more and time scales of weeks to
months was beyond question. However, due primarily to sampling uncertainties, the
accuracies achieved were inadequate to draw final conclusions about the dynamical
processes involved. Nevertheless, stimulated by MODE activities, telltales of qualitatively similar meso-scale eddies were being found in records of many other ocean
observations throughout at least the North Atlantic and these were being analyzed in
a new light. It seemed likely that eddy activity to some degree was almost ubiquitous,
though there were major gradients in intensity associated with proximity to the Gulf
Stream. In conclusion, there was an immediate successor to the MODE program with