Ocean, Past, Present, and Future Chapter 1 - Introduction

Throughout human history the seas have ever been used for activities such as fishing, transport, and trade. Not speaking about warfare. Also literary engagement with tough man fighting the powers of the Sea have been important to mankind. Great examples might be Mobby Dick (Herman Melville, 1851) or The old man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway, 1952). The oceans have been mainly sailed along the continental borders with the sun and the stars being guides of navigation, and the coastline providing security at nice weather or death in case of rough weather and storm. Ships such as ancient Egyptian ships have mainly be used to sail rivers not the Mediterranean Sea, while possibly Egyptian feared the great 'green' as say named the Ocean basin. In contrast, the Vikings, Chinese, and Polynesians have been early exploring the open oceans to discover new grounds for settlement or make discoveries providing goods and fortune. Later on the search for new trade routes became a more sophisticated one with certainly the most daring by Columbus (1470-1500), and Ferdinando Magellan (1480-1520 AD). We all know the global consequences of this search. Two hundred years later, when trading, and pirates were well underway a new series of world discoveries was initiated by James Cook (1750 - 1790) who benefited from further advanced seafaring techniques and ever more precise maps.

Important developments to reach out to the open ocean have been advanced navigation techniques and knowledge about seasonal sea weather, and currents. Using sailing vessels such as the Endeavor naval activities largely expanded and the high-seas became ever more important as a place of trade, fishing, and exploration of new continents.

Hence, initial interest was coastlines. Attempts to measure the depth of the sea in the Pacific failed. This was challenged in the late 19\(^{th}\) century when the Challenger expedition set sail under the lead of Sir Charles Wyville Thomson. He had convinced the government to support an expedition, raised funding over years and ultimately got a former military vessel refurbished as science ship. The figure shows the Challenger in front of an ice-berg to demonstrate the far reaching nature of this first and most important biological, chemical, and physical ocean expedition. In between 1872 to 1876 the Challenger sailed 70,000 miles and collected the first set of oceanographic information including the discovery of practically all invertebrate groups living in the high-seas. This was the birth of scientific studies of the Oceans. For long navigation was the limiting factor, which is of course overcome through modern satellite technology.