This paper is the outcome of a workshop held in Rome in November 2011 on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the POEM (Physical Oceanography of the Eastern Mediterranean) program. In the workshop discussions, a number of unresolved issues were identified for the physical and biogeochemical properties of the Mediterranean Sea as a whole, i.e., comprising the Western and Eastern sub-basins. Over the successive two years, the related ideas were discussed among the group of scientists who participated in the workshop and who have contributed to the writing of this paper. Three major topics were identified, each of them being the object of a section divided into a number of different sub-sections, each addressing a specific physical, chemical or biological issue: 1. Assessment of basin-wide physical/biochemical properties, of their variability and interactions. 2. Relative importance of external forcing functions (wind stress, heat/moisture fluxes, forcing through straits) vs. internal variability. 3. Shelf/deep sea interactions and exchanges of physical/biogeochemical properties and how they affect the sub-basin circulation and property distribution. Furthermore, a number of unresolved scientific/methodological issues were also identified and are reported in each sub-section after a short discussion of the present knowledge. They represent the collegial consensus of the scientists contributing to the paper. Naturally, the unresolved issues presented here constitute the choice of the authors and therefore they may not be exhaustive and/or complete. The overall goal is to stimulate a broader interdisciplinary discussion among the scientists of the Mediterranean oceanographic community, leading to enhanced collaborative efforts and exciting future discoveries.

Oceanography, or Oceanology, is a very broad name covering all the traditional sciences (physics, chemistry, biology etc.) which can be studied in the ocean context. Hence the distinction must be made using the specific names of Physical, Chemical or Biological Oceanography. This particular review is devoted to the history of Physical Oceanography, a discipline which remained at the empirical stage until roughly the middle of last century, with a slow development of the rigorous, mathematical approach and analysis required to fully understand the processes and dynamics at all space/time scales. This review wants to introduce the uninformed reader to this relatively new science, providing a concise but hopefully comprehensive outline of the milestones of its history, from the adventurous beginnings of the past centuries, to the successive, very recent theoretical and observational advances. In this progress, the scientific “giants” who made possible these advances are also presented. Their choice constitutes not only the author’s personal opinion but that of the oceanographic community at large which recognizes their crucial impact in making physical oceanography the quantitative, exact science of today. It is the author’s privilege to have personally known most of them, not only as teachers but as mentors and friends.

Quoting the ancient Romans: Audentes Fortuna iuvat. Being in the right place at the right time is useless if you do not grasp your Fortuna and build upon it. In this article, I expound on the milestones of my multiform research career, which over more than 40 years brought me from Venice to California to MIT; from the Venice problem to highly nonlinear, coherent structures in the ocean and atmosphere; and from the mare nostrum (the Mediterranean Sea), a laboratory for global processes, to the tropical ocean-atmosphere systems and regional coupled climate models of the Maritime Continent. The climate system, with its daunting complexity, is arguably the greatest challenge for, and the future of, the entirety of the earth sciences. Finally, living in and working for Venice has been the privilege and Fortuna of my life.