Leave Room for Creativity

摘要

We enter the 21st century facing a daunting challenge: the need to predict environmental change. Yet principal components of the climte system are barely understood. Studies of climate history suggest that other components remain to be discovered. To proceed in this uncertain intellectual environment, oceanographers have identified a number of priority national and international programs, including the deployment of a distributed global observation network, the renewal of the United States research fleet, etc. However, given the certainty of uncertainty, it is critical that we not for-get the essence of science: discovery-oriented research.