INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES OF THE OCEAN: THE FUTURE OF PHYSICAL OCEANOGRAPHY.

SIMIONATO, C. G.

GEOSCIENCES: THE FUTURE – FINAL REPORT OF THE GROUP GEOSCIENCES, THE FUTURE

International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics

Lugar: Boulder., EE.UU.; Año: 2003; p. 29 - 42

Physical oceanography is concerned with how water moves and mixes in the ocean, and how water carries and distributes dissolved chemicals, nutrients, plankton, sediment, and pollutants. Physical oceanography is a branch of applied physics whose goal is to understand, model and predict ocean processes using mathematics and fluid mechanics. The discipline is increasingly intertwined with atmospheric and climate studies: understanding the energy and momentum transfer through the seas and across their boundaries is a major goal of all these fields. Physical oceanography includes the study of estuaries and lakes and also encompasses the study of large bodies of water on other planets and moons. A central challenge of physical oceanography is the range of space and time scales which must be encompassed by any successful effort to understand the fluid. Watching the wind blow leaves across a lawn, it is difficult to imagine that this forcing can be responsible for driving the vast surface circulation of the Pacific Ocean, yet this is the case. Capillary ripples roughen the sea surface so that the wind can grip the water and this immense friction results in waves that grind into distant beaches and reshape the shoreline. The wind also deposits momentum into the deeper ocean. This drives gyres within which water spirals for decades. Over centuries and millennia the entire stratification of the ocean changes in response to cooling in high latitudes and evaporation in the subtropics. On these planetary scales, the ocean serves as a reservoir for heat, fresh water and anthropogenic products. Observing these processes demands a combination of in situ and remote measurements, including acoustic, electromagnetic and satellite-based techniques. Recent advances, such as autonomous sampling, acoustic tomography and tracer releases are producing an increasingly global and complete picture of the three-dimensional ocean circulation. Because of new technologies, oceanic processes that are seen dimly, or not at all, will be uncovered. Understanding these new data with fluid mechanics, applied mathematics, powerful computers and modern descriptive tools is the future of physical oceanography. The last twenty years have seen great advances in our physical understanding of the oceans. Each of these advances is a small piece in a gigantic puzzle. In the last two decades we have found important new pieces, and strengthened our grip on many of the old. The field is just beginning to assemble these elements and uncover the great picture that is our ultimate scientific goal: a comprehensive understanding of the physics of the ocean. The International Association of the Physical Sciences of the Oceans (IAPSO) is one of the seven associations that comprise the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), founded in 1919. IAPSO has the prime goal of "promoting the study of scientific problems relating to the oceans and the interactions taking places at the sea floor, coastal, and atmospheric boundaries insofar as such research is conducted by the use of mathematics, physics, and chemistry." IAPSO has addressed this goal through four fundamental objectives: ·         Organize, sponsor, and co-sponsor formal and informal international forums permitting ready means of communication amongst ocean scientists throughout the world; Establish commissions, sub-committees, and organize commensurate workshops to encourage, stimulate, and coordinate new and advanced international research activities; Provide basic services significant to the conduct of physical oceanography, and Publish proceedings of symposia, meetings, and workshops, and fundamental references on the current state-of-the art and knowledge of physical oceanography.   In relation to the first goal, the IUGG general assembly in Sapporo, provides an excellent context for reflection and interdisciplinary discussions about our vision of how geosciences should develop during the next decades. This report intends to provide a view of the main directions in which physical oceanography research should progress during that period and to serve as a starting point for those discussions. Previous workshops and surveys among eminent colleges results done by the Ocean Studies Board of the National Science Foundation of the United States NSF have served as the basis for the confection of this report.