Sea Change

The World Ocean Circulation Experiment and the Productive Limits of Ocean Variability

Bibliographic Data

ID11261311
AuthorsJessica Lehman (0000-0003-1288-5996, Durham University, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume46
Issue4
Pages839-862
Publication date2021-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0162243920949932
OpenAlexW3047542173
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited46

The ability to quantify the relationship between the ocean and the atmosphere is an enduring challenge for global-scale science. This paper analyzes the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE, 1990–2002), an international oceanographic program that aimed to provide data for decadal-scale climate modeling and for the first time produce a “snapshot” of ocean circulation against which future change could be measured. WOCE was an ambitious project that drew on extensive international collaboration and emerging technologies that continue to play a significant role in how the global environment is known and governed. However, a main outcome of WOCE was an encounter with ocean variability: the notion that the ocean is governed not by the circular currents shown in the popular “conveyor-belt” diagram but by eddies, filaments, jets, and other nonlinear forces. This paper suggests the concept of “productive limits” as an analytic for understanding how ocean variability both prompted new forms of knowledge and the development of a global knowledge infrastructure that is contingent, uneven, and fully entwined with geopolitical dynamics

Argo · Climate change · Climatology · Eddy · Geography · Geopolitics · Meteorology · Ocean current · Ocean observations · Political science · Scale (ratio · Thermohaline circulation · Climate variability and models · Environmental Science · Marine and coastal ecosystems · Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology · Geology · Oceanography

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Open DOIOpen Access