Oceanic Morphogenesis

Global and synoptic views of the sea surface are now available from satellite photography and multispectral scanners. Classifications of patterns visible on the sea surface, such as eddies, convergences, divergences, Karman vortices, dark spots (upwellings), etc. have been reported by various authors, (Stevenson, Larson, and Kober, 1970). The obvious questions of how many different patterns exist on the ocean surface, and have all possible patterns been observed and how do they relate to oceanic morphogenesis, i.e., the patterns of ever changing currents, can be related to recent progress in differential topology. "Catastrophy Theory" is a popular name for this branch of mathematics in which patterns are separated into "forms" (patterns of limit points) and "non forms" (patterns without limit points). "Forms" in two dimensions are limited in numbers and account for the observed oceanic patterns. "Non forms" correspond to turbulence.