Foreword
Over the last five decades Physical Oceanography developed explosively from a state
with only a few observations and theories to a mature science with global field programs, massive computer power, and a complex theoretical framework. The scientists
who led this development are already or will soon be retired. This collection of essays
documents some of the breakthroughs and also tries to capture the spirit of exploration
and excitement that accompanied these developments.
The original motivation for the present book came from our desire to understand
the current social and scientific framework in which we work as physical oceanographers. Brief reflection makes it obvious that this framework must have historical
roots. However, discussions about these roots with senior scientists only made the
picture more complex and confusing. We came to the conclusion that there is no
simple story that explains the current state of affairs. The natural solution was to let
senior scientists tell how they perceived the developments in the field, each from their
own unique point of view. Thus, by surrendering editorial objectivity we arrived at
a broader, more objective view. The approach is comparable to data acquisition: it is
known that there are no perfect observations, so one makes many.
The goal then is to reduce biases by sampling as often as possible. However, to
keep the book at a manageable size and still give the individual authors space enough
to cover several decades, we were limited to 10 to 20 authors whose contributions
should not exceed 20 pages. Thus, the book is by no means a complete history of
physical oceanography; many important scientists and subdisciplines of the field are
not accounted for. Still, we tried to provide a coherent yet varied author base that is
geographically diverse and evenly distributed among the following (rather artificial)
categories: modelling, observations and theory. We did not solicit contributions from
close colleagues. Twenty senior scientists were asked to contribute, 13 did; 5 declined
because they did not have sufficient time and 2 did not think the project to be a good
idea in the first place. Unfortunately, there is a geographical bias in the latter two
groups, rendering the authorship biased towards the United States.
ix
Over the last five decades Physical Oceanography developed explosively from a state
with only a few observations and theories to a mature science with global field programs, massive computer power, and a complex theoretical framework. The scientists
who led this development are already or will soon be retired. This collection of essays
documents some of the breakthroughs and also tries to capture the spirit of exploration
and excitement that accompanied these developments.
The original motivation for the present book came from our desire to understand
the current social and scientific framework in which we work as physical oceanographers. Brief reflection makes it obvious that this framework must have historical
roots. However, discussions about these roots with senior scientists only made the
picture more complex and confusing. We came to the conclusion that there is no
simple story that explains the current state of affairs. The natural solution was to let
senior scientists tell how they perceived the developments in the field, each from their
own unique point of view. Thus, by surrendering editorial objectivity we arrived at
a broader, more objective view. The approach is comparable to data acquisition: it is
known that there are no perfect observations, so one makes many.
The goal then is to reduce biases by sampling as often as possible. However, to
keep the book at a manageable size and still give the individual authors space enough
to cover several decades, we were limited to 10 to 20 authors whose contributions
should not exceed 20 pages. Thus, the book is by no means a complete history of
physical oceanography; many important scientists and subdisciplines of the field are
not accounted for. Still, we tried to provide a coherent yet varied author base that is
geographically diverse and evenly distributed among the following (rather artificial)
categories: modelling, observations and theory. We did not solicit contributions from
close colleagues. Twenty senior scientists were asked to contribute, 13 did; 5 declined
because they did not have sufficient time and 2 did not think the project to be a good
idea in the first place. Unfortunately, there is a geographical bias in the latter two
groups, rendering the authorship biased towards the United States.
ix