Secretary of the Navy Professor of Oceanography

• Main Author: Munk, Walter
• Other Authors: SCRIPPS INSTITUTION OF OCEANOGRAPHY LA JOLLA CA
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: Physical and Dynamic Oceanography; *OCEAN SURFACE; *GRAVITY WAVES; WIND; BIBLIOGRAPHIES; SPECTRA; ACOUSTIC TOMOGRAPHY; MELTING; TOMOGRAPHY; SEA LEVEL; ROSS SEA; ARCTIC OCEAN; MONITORING; POLAR REGIONS; ICE; ARCTIC OCEANOGRAPHY; CAPILLARIES; OCEAN SURFACE ROUGHNESS; POLAR ICE; SEA LEVEL RISE; WIND DRAG; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Ross Sea; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA542691; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA542691

The principal research effort has been towards understanding the high-frequency tail of the surface gravity wave spectrum, lengths of 2 cm to 60 cm; these a principally responsible for wind drag on water. Analysis was based on a unique data set from geophones and hydrophones at 5 1/2 km depth midway between California and Hawaii. The measured spectral intensity around 10 Hz gives a more accurate measure of local winds than the standard satellite scatterometry. A spectral gap at the 30 Hz gravity to capillary transition offers new opportunities for spectral monitoring. We are making progress towards understanding the generation processes A continuing effort towards the acoustic monitoring of ocean processes has been directed at the polar ocean cavities sandwiched between the floating ice sheet and the sea floor. We are exploring a possible tomography experiment in the Ross Sea with the goal of better predicting polar ice melting processes and the associated global rise in sea level.