U.S. Naval Meteorology and Oceanography
Our mission is to define and apply the physical environment, from the bottom of the ocean to the edges of the universe, to ensure that the U.S. Navy has the freedom of action to deter aggression, maintain freedom of the seas and win wars.
We are the Department of Defense's authoritative source for characterization, and applying data, of the physical battlespace into winning decisions.
Our Lines of effort:
-- Oceanography — measuring, understanding and predicting to improve... read more
Our mission is to define and apply the physical environment, from the bottom of the ocean to the edges of the universe, to ensure that the U.S. Navy has the freedom of action to deter aggression, maintain freedom of the seas and win wars.
We are the Department of Defense's authoritative source for characterization, and applying data, of the physical battlespace into winning decisions.
Our Lines of effort:
-- Oceanography — measuring, understanding and predicting to improve decision-making
-- Meteorology — modeling and characterizing to ensure fleet safety and effectiveness
-- Hydrography — surveying and charting the oceans for safety of navigation and tactical superiority
-- Astrometry — precise time and astrometry provides foundational standards for navigation, targeting, communications and assured command and control
Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command (CNMOC) traces its ancestry to the Depot of Charts and Instruments, a 19th Century repository for nautical charts and navigational equipment. In the 1840s, its superintendent, Lt Matthew Fontaine Maury, created and published a revolutionary series of wind and current charts. This information, still resident in modern computer models of ocean basins and the atmosphere, laid the foundation for the sciences of oceanography and meteorology.
Atmospheric science was further developed with the birth of naval aviation in the early 20th Century. During World War I and the following decades, naval aerological specialists applied the fledgling concepts of air masses and fronts to warfare, and provided forecasts to the first transatlantic flight. The Navy's weather and ocean programs contributed greatly to the Allied victory in World War II. In the Pacific, Navy forecasters cracked the Japanese weather code. Hyrdographic survey ships, often under enemy fire, collected data along foreign coastlines for the creation of critical navigation charts.
In the 1970s, the Navy's meteorology and oceanography programs were integrated in a single organization reflecting nature's close interaction of sea and air. Today, this structure still makes up CNMOC. show less
