Franz Linke

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Franz Linke

Karl Wilhelm Franz Linke (born January 4, 1878 in Helmstedt ; † March 23, 1944 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German geophysicist and meteorologist .

Life

Franz Linke was the oldest of three children of the Helmstedt farmer August Linke (1842–1915) and his wife Margarete (1857–1947), née Hoepner. After studying in Leipzig, Munich, Berlin and Göttingen, Linke became Richard Börnstein's assistant in 1900 at the Agricultural University in Berlin . Even at that time he was a passionate balloonist. In 1901 he received his doctorate under Wilhelm von Bezold in Berlin . The title of his dissertation was: Measurements of electrical potential differences by means of collectors in the balloon and on the earth . With his air-electrical measurements, Linke continued the studies Börnstein had carried out during the scientific aviation of the Berlin Association for the Promotion of Airship Travel in the 1890s. On February 1, 1902, Linke had an accident with the Berson balloon in a storm landing on frozen ground, but remained almost uninjured, while balloon operator Hans Bartsch von Sigsfeld was killed.

After working at the Meteorological-Magnetic Observatory in Potsdam , Linke switched to Emil Wiechert at the Geophysical Institute in Göttingen in 1902 . Here he also dealt with seismic and geomagnetic studies. In 1905 he was appointed head of the German Samoa Observatory in Apia . In this position he succeeded Otto Teten , who had built the observatory since 1902. A number of geomagnetic, seismic and meteorological works were published by Linke in the results of the work of the Samoa Observatory , published by the Göttingen Society of Sciences .

In 1908 Linke returned from Samoa and became a lecturer at the Physikalischer Verein Frankfurt am Main. He replaced Kurt Wegener as head of the Meteorological Institute, who in exchange took over the management of the Samoa observatory. Linke headed the institute until his death in 1944. As early as 1906, the association had acquired a free balloon for aerological studies, with which Linke could resume ballooning. In 1908 he was a co-founder of the Frankfurt Aviation Association . During the International Aviation Exhibition (ILA) from July 10 to October 17, 1909 in Frankfurt am Main, Linke organized the world's first aviation weather service .

In 1910 Linke succeeded in initiating a major expansion of the Meteorological Institute. A temporary observation station was set up in the Taunus to observe Halley's comet . A generous foundation then enabled the construction of a permanent aerological and geophysical observatory on the Kleiner Feldberg , which was inaugurated in 1913. In 1917 Linke took over the management of the observatory, which had meanwhile been converted into an army weather station and which had been expanded to include a kite station.

When balloon ascents were difficult to finance after the First World War , Linke concentrated his research on solar and sky radiation, where he and his colleagues achieved significant successes in the following years. In 1922 he introduced the turbidity factor T, which describes the purity of the earth's atmosphere and is still used today. He proved the usefulness of the concept on two expeditions to Argentina in 1923 and to observe the total solar eclipse in 1927 to northern Norway . Linke introduced a blue scale in 1928 for estimating the color of the sky. To measure radiation, he invented the armored actinometer and the star pyranometer .

At the end of the 1920s, Linke turned increasingly to biometeorological issues. He classified various air bodies according to their origin and their thermal and hygric properties as well as their effect on the human organism. He dealt with the heat balance of the human body, for which he had a heated and cooled ventilated climatic chamber set up at the institute . Further topics were the living and health resort climate . In 1934 he founded the bioclimatic supplements of the meteorological journal with Wilhelm Matthäus Schmidt . In 1934 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

In 1932, Linke issued a memorandum calling for the creation of a central German weather service as a necessary prerequisite for regular air traffic. Two years later the Reich Office for Weather Service was founded.

Franz Linke died on March 23, 1944 after an Allied air raid on Frankfurt am Main.

Franz Linke had been married to Maria Margarete Schaeidt (1886–1971), the daughter of a tobacco manufacturer in Trier , since December 13, 1912 . The couple had three children. Both sons died in 1944.

He was a member of the Association of German Students in Frankfurt am Main .

Works (selection)

  • Modern aviation , A. Schall, Berlin 1903.
  • Air-electrical measurements during twelve balloon flights . In: Treatises d. Royal Ges. D. Science zu Göttingen (NF) 3 (5), 1904, pp. 1-90
  • Aeronautical Meteorology , 2 volumes, FB Auffarth, Frankfurt a. Main 1911.
  • The meteorological training of the aviator , R. Oldenbourg, Munich and Berlin 1913.
  • Transmission coefficient and opacity factor . In: Phys. Atmos. 10, 1922, pp. 91-103.
  • with Karl Boda : Suggestions for calculating the degree of opacity of the atmosphere from measurements of the intensity of solar radiation . In: Meteorol. Journal 39, 1922, pp. 161ff.
  • with J. Clößner: The meteorological instruction. A systematic course . M. Diesterweg, Frankfurt am Main 1925.
  • Meteorological paperback . 3 volumes, Akad. Verlagsgesellschaft, Leipzig 1931.
  • The physical basics of bioclimatology . In: Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics 161, 1936, pp. 307-316.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Louis Lange (Ed.): Kyffhäuser Association of German Student Associations. Address book 1931. Berlin 1931, p. 135.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Left, Franz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Left, Karl Wilhelm Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German meteorologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 4, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Helmstedt
DATE OF DEATH March 23, 1944
Place of death Frankfurt am Main