This paper is a response to a 2018 call for greater understanding of how previous examples of marine science diplomacy could help shape present day efforts to draft a new law of the sea that protects marine biodiversity and conserves the marine environment. It tackles this through analysis of the various twists, turns, and challenges of early science diplomacy efforts in marine science during the early twentieth century. It looks in turn at questions of defining and agreeing on research objectives, how backchannel science diplomacy can become official government diplomacy, and finally, how careful science diplomacy brought Germany back to the international research arena so as to successfully put in place marine conservation measures during the 1920s. In doing this, it argues that the foundation of the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas in 1902 represented a revolutionary moment where supra-national scientific research, coordination, and conservation politics for the ocean first emerged; with International Council for the Exploration of the Sea becoming a key model for all subsequent marine science diplomacy. This essay is part of a special issue entitled Science Diplomacy , edited by Giulia Rispoli and Simone Turchetti.

The TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite mission to observe the oceans triggered the formation of the new specialty of space oceanography from the 1970s to 1990s. Previously, in the 1960s in the United States, traditional oceanographers had shown little interest in the possibilities of space and thus space engineers and physicists worked on the first missions (Seasat in particular). TOPEX/POSEIDON brought together two projects, one American (TOPEX) and the other French (POSEIDON). The gradual crystallization of the disciplinary specialty of space oceanography occurred by making available a platform of instruments able to meet an ensemble of varied needs. Battery failures just before the launch of the joint mission meant that the mission had to focus on the essentials (notably El Niño effects). Subsequently, the discovery of a significant rise in sea levels due to global warming resulted in space oceanography becoming a recognized specialty. The case of TOPEX/POSEIDON shows the original ways in which instruments gained a place in the very large range of oceanographic techniques.

The Strait of Gibraltar has a long tradition of political and scientific uniqueness. Twentieth-century submarine warfare added the ocean’s depth as a new dimension for those wanting to control and understand the Strait. During the Cold War the surveillance of this chokepoint became urgent and entangled with local disputes predating the two-blocs conflict, in particular the sovereignty of Gibraltar for which Spain and the United Kingdom competed. This paper explores a number of transnational research programs on ocean dynamics at the Strait and discovers a network of collaborating researchers who used, and went beyond, international institutions such the International Geophysical Year and NATO. In the process, the Western Mediterranean was constructed as a key maritime place for global ocean circulation, both as a factor to North Atlantic convection and as a model through which to understand it.

The history of twentieth-century American physical oceanography concentrates on naval patronage, but its significance for British oceanography is largely unknown. This case study analyzes a varied patronage structure, including naval, industrial, academic, and local and central governmental support, for one site of British physical oceanography, the Liverpool Observatory and Tidal Institute and, in particular, its work on storm surges between 1919 and 1959. Storm surges, caused by wind and changes in barometric pressure, can produce dramatic changes in sea levels. The local shipping industry initially funded the Institute’s research on surge forecasting to improve the accuracy of tidal predictions. After a flood in 1928, however, the focus shifted to flood forecasting. Local government then backed their work, during the Second World War support came from the Royal Navy, and since a flood in 1953, from central government. This case study reveals the range of negotiations carried out between patrons and researchers, and demonstrates how researchers managed competing demands from academic interests and those of industry, the navy, and the government. Studying institutions that did not see a dramatic increase in state patronage during the early Cold War enables us to see the impact of patronage more clearly, highlighting how research interests and methods differed (or not) between institutions with different patronage structures.