Serious concern

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Ernst Sorge (left) with Johannes Georgi in the Eismitte station

Ernst Sorge (born February 25, 1899 in Vieselbach , † April 28, 1946 in Arnstadt , Thuringia) was a German glaciologist , polar researcher and geoscientist . He made an important contribution to glaciology, especially with his glacier observations in the Greenlandic station Eismitte .

Life

Ice center (Greenland)
Ice center
Ice center
Location of the ice center station in Greenland

Ernst Sorge was born in 1899 as the son of the engineer Otto Sorge and his wife Toni Sorge, née Pieper. In 1917 he passed the final exam after attending the Realgymnasium Berlin-Schmargendorf . He then took part in the First World War. 1919–1923 he studied mathematics , physics and philosophy in Berlin and graduated with the state examination. In 1920 he went on a trip to Iceland and began to be active in mountaineering. In 1926 he passed an additional examination in geography , which enabled him to join the Berlin school service in 1927 as a geography teacher and teacher. Among other things, he worked at the educational educational experimental school Schulfarm Insel Scharfenberg in Tegeler See in Berlin. For his dissertation The Dry Line in South America , which he completed in 1929 with Albrecht Penck , he dealt in detail with geographic topics.

Sorge was asked by Alfred Wegener , the discoverer of the continental drift , to take part as a glaciologist on the expedition he organized to Greenland . Together with Fritz Loewe and Johannes Georgi he took part in the pre-expedition in 1929 and in the main expedition from 1930–1931.

Sorge wintered in the middle of the ice, the central station on the Greenland Ice Sheet, together with the two meteorologists Fritz Loewe and Johannes Georgi, the head of the station. Due to the difficult weather conditions in summer and autumn 1930, the station was only equipped with the absolute minimum. There was barely enough food for three people to hibernate. A cave dug into the firn served as accommodation . Under these extremely harsh conditions, Sorge dug a 16-meter-deep shaft in the winter of 1930–1931 to carry out the first density and temperature profile measurements in the Greenland Ice Sheet. The importance of this pioneering achievement in glaciology was only recognized decades later, when profile measurements became important for research into climate change .

In the summer of 1931, Sorge used seismic methods to determine the ice thickness at 2,600 meters. He tested this technology with Loewe as early as 1929 with Loewe, in which the transit time of seismic waves generated by explosions and reflected at the bottom of the glacier is measured.

In 1932 Sorge and Loewe were scientific advisors to the Universal-Dr.- Fanck- Greenland Expedition, which had the goal of shooting important recordings for the film SOS Eisberg . This company had to be declared a scientific expedition, as only expeditions were granted permission to stay in Greenland. In addition to the German and English version of the film was parallel commissioned by Carl Laemmle of Universal Pictures , the Greenland Posse Ahoy - North Pole! shot, with the concern supported the camera team. He was able to deepen his cinematic knowledge, although according to his own statements he made his main contribution to the creation of the parody with box lugging. Sorge also used the film expedition for his own research activities. He took a Klepper - folding boat trips into the Karratfjord to be able to observe the calving Rink glacier . For the first time he succeeded in capturing the calving Karajak Glacier in a sound film. These impressive film recordings can be seen in the opening sequence of the feature film and were used in the school film Formation of Icebergs on the Coast of Greenland . Sorge also carried out depth soundings from the folding boat using a winch specially designed for this purpose. A folding boat had already been used on the 1929 expedition to explore the Greenland fjords . Sorges experience report in book form With airplane, folding boat and film camera in the ice fjords of Greenland was also translated into English.

In 1935 Sorge led a privately financed research trip to Spitzbergen , during which he carried out measurements similar to those in Greenland with his wife Gerda and the mountaineer Oskar Lutz .

Sorge died in April 1946, a few months after being released from British captivity. In his honor, Sorge Island in Antarctica bears his name.

Sorges law

In 1935 Ernst Sorge formulated a law according to which the density of snow in highly polar glaciers remains constant at a certain depth if the conditions of the snow deposition remain constant over time.

Others

Ernst Sorge is listed among the cameramen of Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia films .

Works

Books, book chapters and articles

  • Ernst Sorge: The dry border of South America. Inaugural dissertation. E. Ebering, Berlin 1930.
  • Ernst Sorge: Chapter in: Alfred Wegener: With motor boats and sleds in Greenland. Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld 1930.
  • Ernst Sorge: By plane, folding boat and film camera in the ice fjords of Greenland. A report on the Universal Dr. Fanck Greenland Expedition. Three masks, Berlin 1933. ( digitized version )
  • Ernst Sorge: The Arctic . In: North and Central America - the Arctic. Nature, culture and economy. Academic Publishing Company Athenaion, Potsdam 1933.
  • Bernhard Brockamp , Ernst Sorge and Kurt Wölcken : Seismics. In: Scientific results of the German Greenland Expedition Alfred Wegener 1929 and 1930–1931. Volume 2, FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1933.
  • Serious concern: the white death . In: Men look death in the face. Factual reports. Edited by Victor Witte. Drei Masken Verlag, Berlin 1935, pp. 61–82.

Movie

  • Ernst Sorge: German Greenland Expedition Led by Alfred Wegener 1930–1931. 1st part: crossing to Greenland and reaching the ascent glacier , 2nd part: bringing the equipment up to the inland ice, first trips with motor and dog sleds. Part 3: From the construction of the Eismitte station to the end of the expedition. RWU Berlin. 1931-1932.
  • Ernst Sorge and Walter Riml : Formation of icebergs on the coast of Greenland. RWU Berlin, 1934.

literature

  • Short biography in the opening credits to his story The White Death. In: Victor Witte (Ed.): Men look death in the face. Factual reports. Drei Masken Verlag, Berlin 1935, pp. 140–166.
  • John D. Cox: Climate Crash: Abrupt Climate Change and what it Means for Our Future. National Academies Press, 2005, ISBN 0-309-09312-0 .
  • Johannes Georgi: Buried in the ice. Experiences at the ice center station of Alfred Wegener's last Greenland expedition. Publishing house of the Blodig Alpine Calendar Müller, Munich 1933.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dietmar Haubfleisch: Berlin reform pedagogy in the Weimar Republic. Overview, research results and perspectives (PDF; 809 kB). In: Hermann Röhrs and Andreas Pehnke : The reform of the education system in the East-West dialogue. History, tasks, problems (= Greifswalder studies on educational science 1), P. Lang, Frankfurt am Main [u. a.] 1994, pp. 117-132. ISBN 3-631-47137-8
  2. ^ Herrmann A. Hahne: Dr. Ernst Sorge (PDF; 197 kB). In: Polar Research . 16, 1946, pp. 120-121.
  3. ^ Karl Weiken : Fritz Loewe (PDF; 417 kB). In: Polar Research. 44, 1974, pp. 93-95.
  4. ^ John D. Cox: Climate Crash: Abrupt Climate Change and what it Means for Our Future . National Academies Press, 2005, ISBN 0-309-09312-0 , p. 15.
  5. ^ The German Greenland Expedition 1930/31 ( Memento from March 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, History of Polar Research.
  6. ↑ Cornelia Lüdecke: 100 years ago: Greenland expedition of the Society for Geography in Berlin (1891, 1892–1893) under the direction of Erich von Drygalski (PDF; 850 kB). In: Polar Research. 60, 1990, p. 228.
  7. ^ Ernst Sorge and Walter Riml: Formation of icebergs on the coast of Greenland . RWU Berlin, 1934. As of November 14, 2008.
  8. ↑ Frank Wilhelms: Mapping the ice sheets, ice core drilling and climate reconstruction (PDF; 6.86 MB). Alfred Wegener anniversary event: The hypothesis of the drift of the continents turns 100 - Alfred Wegener's idea is celebrating his birthday , Senckenberg Museum (Frankfurt am Main), January 6, 2012, accessed on December 6, 2015.
  9. ^ Henri Bader: Sorge's law of densification of snow on high polar glaciers (PDF; 3.36 MB). In: Journal of Glaciology . Volume 2, No. 15, 1954, pp. 319-323 (English).
  10. ↑ Ernst Sorge at filmportal.de , as of November 8, 2008.
personal data
SURNAME Worry, serious
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German glaciologist, polar researcher and geoscientist
DATE OF BIRTH February 25, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Vieselbach
DATE OF DEATH April 28, 1946
Place of death Arnstadt