In the 1970s, the International Decade of Ocean Exploration (IDOE) set the stage for an era of global ocean research programs (NRC, 1999). Although scientists had long explored the “seven seas,” it was only in the late 1960s that observing the ocean at synoptic scales became feasible. This capability, together with the lessons learned from IDOE, allowed for the growth of major oceanographic initiatives. In particular, the late 1980s and the 1990s marked two decades of large oceanographic programs, two of which, the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE; http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/woce/wdiu/wocedocs/index.htm#design), and the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS; http://www1.whoi.edu), resulted in important advances and transformations in ocean research that fostered the subsequent development of the Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics program (GLOBEC; http://www.globec.org).

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