Physical Oceanography Program

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) Physical Oceanography Program is always interested in receiving research planning letters on topics related to our primary focus areas of submesoscale ocean processes and new ocean observing technologies, and the education of the next generation of scientists. Important changes in departmental focus have occurred and should be considered in your planning letter and proposal submissions.

The departmental strategy has been refocused to concentrate on the following strategic directions:

• Autonomy, off-board systems, unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs), and gliders; long-endurance, high reliability (for more information, email the LDUUV Innovative Naval Prototype lead
• High clearance rate mine countermeasures (MCM); see also 321 OE, 321 MS and 322 LO 
• Automation of anti-submarine warfare (ASW) signal processing, improve ASW capacity; see also 321 US, 321 MS, 322 OA 
• Seamless, global ocean-atmosphere-ice prediction; see also 322 AG 
• Arctic processes leading to dynamic ice prediction; see also 322 AG 
• Space exploitation, affordable space systems, see also 322 SP

The Physical Oceanography core program will continue to focus on understanding the basic underlying physics of the ocean and the education of the next generation of scientists specializing in the physics of the ocean. Areas of interest include:

• Sub-mesoscale variability associated with fronts, jets, and eddies; internal tides, turbulence and mixing; influence of regional variability on meso- and sub-mesoscale processes, sea strait dynamics 
• Western boundary current forcing and variability on short time scales 
• The processes that govern ocean mixing and surface fluxes and the role of turbulence
• Novel uses of existing or emerging remote, autonomous or in-situ instruments to understand the ocean on the scales at which the Navy operates; use of such data to improve ocean state predictions

Within the core program, we are particularly interested in receiving proposals to complete the analysis of existing data sets taken under previous ONR funding or to combine and analyze data sets between complimentary projects of any origin. The topic areas listed above give guidance on which areas of data analysis are of top priority.

We fully embrace the Navy’s commitment to STEM and will give highest priority to existing early student support commitments and will continue this as a focus of the core physical oceanography program. The Early Student Support Program (ESS) is directed at re-invigorating student involvement in ONR-funded efforts.

Given the great budget uncertainty of fiscal year 2011 and the continued uncertainty for fiscal year 2012, the program is unlikely to embark on new field programs. The changes in the departmental strategy have generated a redistribution of available funding and the creation of the Arctic and Global Prediction Program, which has a fiscal year 2012 start department research initiative (DRI) titled "Emerging Dynamics of the Marginal Ice Zone." There are no new DRIs in the basic physical oceanography area.

Planning Letters

Planning Letter Due Date: May 31, 2011
The purpose of our planning letter process is to allow you to submit a brief description of your scientific idea so that we may look at it and give you programmatic and technical feedback before you invest your time in writing a full proposal. This allows us to give you a quick indication of where we think a full proposal may end up based on our program interest/priority. If you are uncertain of the appropriate place for you planning letter submission, we encourage you to submit to all possible interested teams and the review process will consider the appropriate alignment for your proposed work.