As an Officer of the U.S. Navy for thirty-six years, his initiatives contributed directly to the economic stability and humanitarian understanding in the Pacific and Indian Ocean regions.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Center For Security Policy

Keith Briffa, from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, said the tropical ocean regions were among the more reliable areas from which to infer large-scale temperature changes.

BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | World 'warmest for 12,000 years'

The destructive flooding caused by the storm Sandy, which struck the U.S. East Coast in late October, revived anxieties about rising ocean levels in heavily populated coastal regions.

WSJ: Polar Ice Sheets Melt at Faster Pace

Following the devastating tsunami of 26 December 2004 in the Indian Ocean, the IOC Member States requested that similar warning systems be developed for the Indian Ocean, the Caribbean Sea and adjacent regions as well as the northeast Atlantic, the Mediterranean and connected seas.

UNESCO: EDUCATION