Editorial

Abstract

Advances often go in waves and this is a dominant theme of this issue. In a literal sense, two of the papers are about developments in wave modelling techniques. However, I use the word in the more general context of the working paradigm that most of us follow, whether knowingly or not, at any point in time. Ilya Prigogine, was a chemist and Nobel Laureate who advanced our understanding of time, complexity and the importance of open, non-linear systems. Such systems give rise to self-organisation and dissipative structures, which can be observed as the basis of life in the natural world we see around us. As such, Prigogine was instrumental in opening up a new paradigm but he was also acutely aware that our scientific (and engineering) horizon is itself conditioned by the cultural outlook of our times (Prigogine and Stengers, 1985). This is not just a matter of the state of current knowledge and technology. It runs much deeper and depends on the constraints imposed by our respective languages, cultural heritage and our metaphysical mind sets (to see this, simply compare some of the fundamental differences in outlook between Eastern and Western cultures).Within this broader context of the governing paradigm, advances occasionally come about by major changes in direction (think of Copernicus, Darwin and Einstein) but most of our advances are incremental in character. However, this is not a linear process and tends to see surges at intervals, as new capabilities become available. In my lifetime this has been and continues to be hugely influenced by our technological capability. Before the advent of the computer, the analytical solution was dominant and even today remains a powerful means of developing a basic understanding of a problem. However, the power of the computer has opened up new horizons, initially by allowing larger problems to be solved but progressively through the introduction of new techniques that take advantage of such computational power. We have seen not only traditional differential/integral formulations (that could not be solved analytically) now being solved with ever greater sophistication but also the use of simple rules applied recursively in the form of cellular automata, genetic algorithms and neural networks.The development of a range of models to represent processes in our oceans, seas, coast and estuaries means we now have a panoply of models available to us. One of the current initiatives being pushed forward by a number of groups is to make better use of what we already have. This entails sharing existing developments (see for example: http://csdms.colorado.edu/wiki/ Main_Page) and linking models rather than simply building bigger and bigger models which become increasingly difficult to maintain (see for example: http://www.openmi.org/reloaded/). In parallel, our ability to observe and measure the properties of the world around us has also moved on apace. Not only do we have much more detailed data (e.g. from remote sensing) but also the access to large integrated data sets is changin...