Right Place, Right Time: An Informal Memoir

My career spanned the revolution in understanding of the large-scale fluid ocean, as modern electronics produced vast new capabilities. I started in the days of almost purely mechanical instruments operated by seagoing scientists, ones not so different from those used more than a century earlier. Elegant theories existed of hypothetical steady-state oceans. Today, we understand that the ocean is a highly turbulent fluid, interacting over global scales, and it is now studied by large teams using spacecraft and diverse sets of self-contained in situ instrumentation. Mine was an accidental career: I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time.

Automated summary

The field of oceanography has undergone a significant transformation, transitioning from mechanical instruments to modern electronic technologies. It is now understood that the ocean is a highly turbulent fluid system interacting globally. Research in oceanography requires large teams and diverse research instruments.