How Oceanography Saved the World

By: Dr. Richard Spinrad

Where would we be without an understanding of the ocean? I believe that without an understanding of our ocean, we would be sick, hungry, and living in the dark ages. I plan to give you several examples to convince you that oceanography has saved the world.

Unfortunately, almost everyone reading this blog has been touched by cancer in some way. Did you know that more than half of the anti-cancer drug discoveries come from marine products or marine organisms? How do we get them? We explore the ocean. For example, through painstaking research Dr. Shirley Pomponi and her team from the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution discovered discodermolide, a substance that can be extracted from a deep water sponge Discodermia polydiscus. Discodermolide has proven to be extraordinarily effective at fighting breast cancer cells. What else is out there? To the extent that protecting us and keeping us healthy helps save the world, I could spend the rest of this blog talking just about the advances in medical treatments derived from marine organisms.

Image Credit: Creativity+ Timothy K Hamilton,
Creative Commons.

Why would we be hungry? The ocean helps feed the world not only by providing high-protein seafood, but in ways you may not realize. Did you know that more than 70 percent of all foodstuffs you buy in the supermarket contain algal products, including ice cream, canned foods, toothpaste, cookies, and beer?

Oceanography also played a critical role during the Cold War. Back in 1984, Paul Scully-Power, an astronaut on the Space Shuttle, took a picture of the North Atlantic that showed all these spaghetti like features on the water. Upon returning to Earth, he showed this picture to his boss, Admiral James D. Watkins. ADM Watkins was a submariner and very sensitive to the fact that submarines rely on understanding acoustics - how sound moves in the ocean. He took one look at this picture and wanted to know what are those features and what do they do to the acoustic signals? We'd never before seen the surface of the ocean with all these extraordinary patterns called spiral eddies. This was one of the first indications of how complex the ocean was for acoustic signals. Shortly after this, Admiral Watkins reinvigorated the naval oceanography program. I argue, when you think about U.S. attention to the Soviet submarine force at the time, after 1984 oceanography was the key to winning the Cold War.

Oceanography affects a number of issues in your everyday life, including your ability to do your laundry in cold water. How did that happen? Much of the research for cold-water detergents came from studying whale carcasses, which sink to the bottom of the ocean and decay. We were able to study how enzymes from organisms, like bacteria, help break down the whale carcasses in very cold water. Now, when you go to the store and buy cold-water detergent, you can buy it because the enzymes that act on the fats and stains actually come from the knowledge we developed from some of the same bacteria that decay whale carcasses.

Let's talk about natural hazards. I would contend that before the Indian Ocean Tsunami of December 26, 2004, very few Americans knew what a tsunami was. Most Americans now know what a tsunami is, and feel like it could be a real threat. So what can we do about it? Dr. Eddie Bernard and his team of researchers and engineers at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Lab in Seattle, WA, developed Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART^®) buoys that can detect the tsunami in the open ocean, and give residents of coastal communities several hours warning. Now, 39 DART^® protect the U.S. coasts. Scientists also develop models to predict how a tsunami would inundate a city, for example, Seattle.

I could go on and on for days describing examples of how our understanding of the ocean improves our quality of life, and keeps healthy, safe, and fed. I hope I have convinced you that oceanography indeed has saved the world, but I leave it to you to decide - where do you think we'd be today without an understanding of the ocean?