HOH: The Keystone of Earth’s Climate

Abstract

Water has the structure HOH, whereby the hydrogen atoms are separated by about 104°; as a result the water molecule is more electrically positive on one side, negative on the other. This makes water molecules ‘stick’ and gives this common substance many unique properties. Water exists in three phases, gas (vapor), liquid (water), and solid (ice) on and near the surface of the Earth. Very large amounts of energy are involved in the change from one phase to another. Most of the water on Earth contains salt. Fresh and sea water behave differently as their temperature changes. Fresh water reaches its maximum density at about 4 °C, and becomes less dense as it approaches the freezing point. At a salinity of 27.4 ‰ the temperature of maximum density and the freezing point coincide. The average salinity of ocean water is about 34.5 ‰, so it gets denser and denser as it approaches the freezing point. Sea ice forms by snowflakes diluting a tiny amount of seawater so it can float and freeze. Ice, the sold phase, is less dense than water, the liquid phase. Ice covers the polar regions of Earth and is a powerful stabilizer of climate. Ice cores from Greenland and Antarctic contain not only an isotopic record of climate change, but bubbles containing the ancient atmosphere. Ice cores in Greenland go back about 100,000 years, in Antarctica about 700,000 years.

Intermezzo XVI. Becoming a Dean

I had moved full time to Miami in the fall of 1973, and became Chair of the Rosenstiel School’s Division of Marine Geology and Geophysics in 1974. In the fall of 1976, I was attending a geological meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii when I got a telephone call from Dick Robins, Chair of the School’s Division of Biology and Living Resources. Quite unexpectedly, our Dean since 1973, Warren Wooster, had resigned a few days earlier, effective immediately, and was leaving Miami. The School’s faculty had met, and elected me to be Interim Dean. I think I said “Wait a minute how can?” and Dick responded, “Its done, you’re it. Don’t worry, we’ll all help you.” Needless to say, it was quite a shock. Overseeing a multimillion dollar operation with several hundred employees is far different from helping to manage the affairs of a faculty of 12.

My father had retired some years earlier, and I called him for advice, since he had founded and been the President of a Life Insurance Company. He had some very simple advice: find out who your immediate subordinates are, what they are supposed to do, and whether they have been doing their jobs effectively. If need be, replace them, but be sure their duties are well defined and give them a free hand to do their jobs, Don’t expect them to solve a problem the way you would and don’t interfere with them unless there is a real problem. In other words, don’t try to micromanage the operation.

When I got back to Miami, I called the ‘managers’ together. I had an Associate Dean, Warren Wisby, who apparently now had no duties but was there because he had served in that position under Walton Smith, the School’s Founder. Jim Gibbons was in charge of operations, managing the land facilities and our vessels. Bill Muff was in change of bookkeeping and accounting. I asked how the School was doing overall. Bill said we had one small problem: we were going to be bankrupt in a few months. “That’s the bad news. The good news is that we have plenty of money. The problem is that we can’t spend it.”

What had happened was that Dean Wooster had tried to make the Rosenstiel School more like Scripps in the way it handled faculty salaries. Under Walton Smith salaries were closely related to productivity, where productivity is a reflection of the amount of grant funding and publications. Warren had capped the higher salaries and was bringing up the lower salaries. That might well in an institution funded by the state, but the Rosenstiel School’s funding was almost entirely from government agencies and donations.

Let me explain how the funding of oceanography and some other areas of science works in the US. Although originally founded with endowments from private sources, our major oceanographic institutions became wards of the government during World War II, and then in the late 1950’s as our country realized the need to improve its capabilities in science. Funding of these institutions comes mostly from the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, NOAA, and NASA. Lesser amounts come from private foundations and donors. The grants or contracts from the government agencies include direct operating expenses for carrying out the proposed research and for faculty, technicians, and graduate student salaries along with their tuition. In addition to these direct expenses, there is a category called ‘indirect costs.’ These cover the operation and maintenance of the buildings and all the other expenses involved with the research enterprise, including the administration. Indirect costs generally range from 40to 60 %of the direct costs, but depending on how the accounting is done may be less or even more. To recover the indirect costs the institution has to spend the money in the grant or contract; the funds dribble in as the work proceeds.

Potential faculty salary increases are included in the grant proposals. Whether these salary increases will actually be made depends on policies at the University. What had happened at the Rosenstiel School was that by holding down the salaries of researchers with large grants, the recovery of indirect costs used to finance the routine operations of the School had been reduced. What Bill Muff meant when he said we had lots of money was that the money was there in the grant accounts, but since salaries had been held back our indirect cost recovery had become less than the actual cost of operations. There was a way to solve our problem: to have significant salary increases for the highly productive faculty, bringing them up to the levels the government agencies had already approved. I had to do some serious negotiating with the university administration to get a major exception to its salary raise policy.

All of this may sound quite esoteric, but I wish the general public had a better understanding of how the funding of scientific research works in the United States. As I write this in 2012there is a very strong anti-science movement being advanced by a number of politicians. Cutting science finding not only slows basic research, but it has a multiplier effect throughout the higher educational system. Some suggest we should concentrate only on applied research that will have a rapid economic return. That can work for a few years, but it is like cutting the top off a candle and expecting just the top to keep on burning for as long as the whole candle would. Fortunately for civilization, this is an American malady not shared by the other developed countries, and especially not by China. But back to my first days as a Dean.

I gave my Associate Dean, Warren Wisby, a job. Take care of handling faculty matters. Because of the salary policy over that past few years many of our best faculty were actively pursuing possibilities elsewhere. He was to lend a sympathetic ear to complaints and keep our best researchers from jumping ship. I told Jim Gibbons to keep the place running and not bother me unless he had a problem he could not handle. His response was a huge smile and “Aye, aye sir.” Bill Muff was to work out a detailed plan to keep us solvent.

Walton Smith had retired from the University, but was just across the street (the ‘street’ being Rickenbacker Causeway) where he was President of the International Oceanographic Foundation, a charitable organization he had founded in 1953to support research at what was then the Institute of Marine Sciences, but now was operating a museum, Planet Ocean. Walton was delighted with my appointment as Interim Dean. He had actually made me a trustee of the IOF in 1974, the only member of the School to be granted such an honor. In my new role, he always addressed me as ‘dear boy.’

We reinstituted one of Walton’s old traditions. When the School’s 1960 Doherty Marine Science Center was constructed in the’s, it included a dining facility and an auditorium. Walton managed to get a liquor licence for the dining facility to fulfill one of his dreams—having an ‘on-campus’ pub where staff and students could gather after the work day. My predecessor had regarded it as an unnecessary expense and had closed it. I reopened it and resumed Walton’s habit of going there after work. The kitchen was closed and these was no dinner service, but we had sandwiches and snacks for those who needed them. That way I was available for informal talks with anyone, faculty, staff, students, and all the rest who worked at the School. Walton, who had not often visited the School since his retirement, and his wife Mae, became regulars. Our pub soon became more widely known, and we had visitors from Key Biscayne who enjoyed mixing with the scientists and learning about our work.

I still had to make my presentation to the University officials to get permission for special salary raises that would both retain our best people and provide the overhead income that would allow us to continue operations. Fortunately, the University had a new Provost, Clyde Wingfield, who was just learning about how things worked in a private University and was receptive to innovative ideas. We made a presentation to him and his new staff, and, to make a long story short, after analyzing our situation they approved our plan.

We had a faculty meeting where everything was explained, and faculty were notified of their new salaries, which often made up for several years. Those who had become depressed were excited and began to think of new ways to seek outside finds for their research. The result was amazing. When I became Interim Dean, our grant funding was about $6 million per year. Two years later it had doubled. The gamble that Wingfield had taken paid off.

My term as Interim Dean was over at the end of the academic year in June, but I decided to be considered for a permanent appointment. I wanted to see our changes carried through. After interviewing some others, the faculty again selected me for the job.