A.G. Huntsman Award for Excellence in Marine SciencePast Recipient, Dr. Carl Wunsch (1988) |
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Dr. Carl
Wunsch, the eleventh recipient of the
A.G. Huntsman Award, is a leader in
modern physical oceanography. He was
originally trained in Mathematics and
Geophysics and has used analytical tools
from those fields to explore ocean data
sets for a deeper understanding of ocean
dynamics. His application of powerful
numerical analysis techniques to both
historical and recent data sets has
revolutionized how oceanographers look at
the ocean. Dr. Wunsch's early work
combined theory and data analysis to
explore the role of internal waves in the
mixing of the oceans. From this
beginning, at the small scales, he
rapidly moved to studies of global tides
and their effect on the earth's axis of
rotation.In the 1980's, he was scientific
leader in the highly successful
international MODE and POLYMODE
experiments. These succeeded in
describing in detail, for the first time,
the oceanic mesoscale eddy fields. He
later extended the analysis of the data
sets to study the larger-scale flows in
which these eddies are embedded. Using
data from the North Atlantic, he was able
to obtain a consistent three-dimensional
circulation pattern using inverse
modelling methods, thus providing a new
view of the ocean. Carl Wunsch is not
just a theoretician in an ivory tower, he
has worked with observationists,
engineers, and scientific managers to
create new instruments, new observational
techniques, and new programs to better
understand the workings of the ocean. It
is largely through his vision and
perseverance that the oceanographic
community will, for the first time,
during the 1990's, have global oceanic
measurement systems (satellite altimetry,
scatterometer winds, neutrally buoyant
deep floats) and a global modelling/
observational program (World Ocean
Circulation Experiment). Dr. Wunsch,
through his activities of the last two
decades, has given oceanographers a new
global perspective of the oceans and
their integration into the global climate
system. 