Friedrich Defant

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Fritz Defant

Friedrich "Fritz" Defant (born April 14, 1914 in Vienna ; † November 20, 1990 in Kiel ) was an Austrian meteorologist .

Life

Fritz Defant was the son of the university professor Albert Defant .

The Defant family moved from Innsbruck to Berlin in 1926 , as Albert Defant accepted a professorship at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin for the period 1926–1945 and thus became director of the Institute and Museum for Oceanography in Berlin . After graduating from high school in Berlin-Wilmersdorf in 1934, Friedrich Defant first had to do the Reich Labor Service before he could matriculate in Berlin to study geophysics . The two-year military service (1935-1937) interrupted his studies. He was then able to continue until the summer semester of 1939. During this time Defant was a scientific "assistant" on the research ship Altair on the international Gulf Stream expedition. This participation laid the foundation for his interest in maritime meteorology. In autumn 1939 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and took part in the attack on Poland . In the spring of 1940 he was given leave of absence from military service to complete his doctorate. He was then a member of the naval weather service until the end of the war. Among other things, he worked as an on-board meteorologist on the cruiser Admiral Scheer (October 1940 – March 1941).

Since the Institute and Museum for Oceanography, Albert Defant's scientific work and activity, was completely destroyed by bombs shortly before the end of the war, the father saw no more prospects for the Defant family in Berlin and went back to Innsbruck, where he was director until 1955 of the Institute for Meteorology and Geophysics and employed his son Friedrich as an assistant.

As early as September 1945 he was commissioned by the Tyrolean provincial government and the 'Service Météorologique en Autriche' to set up a meteorological service for the countries of the French zone (Tyrol and Vorarlberg).

In 1947 Friedrich Defant wrote his habilitation thesis. His other scientific work on local wind systems also took place at this time. His summarizing description of “Local Wind Systems” in the Compendium of Meteorology remained trend-setting for a long time, especially the presentation of the interaction of the slope wind systems with the mountain and valley wind system and their transition phases.

For the period 1951–1953 Defant was invited by Carl-Gustaf Rossby and Jacob Bjerknes as visiting professor to Chicago and Los Angeles. Then he was visiting professor at the International Institute of Meteorology in Stockholm until 1961 . His detailed, meticulous analyzes of the current and geopotential fields in the 200 and 300 hPa level to determine the jet streams fall during these 10 years , as well as - based on this - his investigations into the structure of the shape and form of the tropopause , especially the Tropopause break in the jet stream area of ​​the subtropics.

In 1961 Friedrich Defant was offered a professorship at the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel . Until his release in 1980 he was full professor for meteorology and at the same time director of the department of maritime meteorology at the Institute for Oceanography Kiel (IfM), with today's successor institute GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research Kiel . During this time he devoted himself in particular to the investigation of the general circulation of the atmosphere with a focus on “energetics of the atmosphere”. First of all, there is the important study of the energetics of the Hamburg storm surge in 1962 . By studying the interactions between the individual scales, he was able to gain a deeper insight into the energy transfers in the atmosphere in collaboration with several doctoral and diploma students. In a further, larger investigation, he worked out the climatic conditions of the rivers of potential and kinetic energy for the Baltic Sea area as part of several examination papers. This investigation was initiated by the oceanographers of the IfM at the time, as they needed information about the energy flows at the interface between the ocean and the atmosphere for their studies. The results obtained in these studies were in the German Research Foundation funded research group DEFAAZ ( D iagnosis e mpirischer F elder of a ENERAL a tmosphärischen Z irkulation) by Friedrich Defant and his research associates and graduate students / graduates successfully deepened with colleagues from other meteorological institutes.

After his release in 1980 he withdrew more and more from the work at the institute.

Awards

The Universities of Innsbruck and Helsinki honored his scientific achievements with the award of university medals. On April 26, 1982 he received the Federal Cross of Merit, 1st class. Posthumously the Austrian Society for Meteorology (ÖGM) awarded him the Julius von Hann Medal.

Works

  • 1940: Inertial oscillations in the ocean and in the atmosphere , dissertation at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin, speakers: Ertel & Wüst.
  • 1947: Basics of a theory of the annual air pressure curve in the atmosphere of the northern hemisphere , habilitation thesis at the Institute for Meteorology and Geophysics of the University of Innsbruck.
  • 1949: On the theory of slope winds, along with remarks on the theory of mountain and valley winds , Arch. Meteor. Geophys. Biocl., Ser. A, 1, pp. 421-450.
  • 1950: Theory of land and sea winds, Arch. Meteor. Geophys. Biocl., Ser. A, 2, pp. 404-425.
  • 1950: The mean meridional temperature profile in the troposphere as an effect of vertical and horizontal exchange processes and heat of condensation , Arch. Meteor. Geophys. Biocl., Ser. A, 2, pp. 184-206.
  • 1951: Heat of condensation and radiation balance in a mean meridional section of the troposphere , Arch. Meteor. Geophys. Biokl., 4, pp. 156-175.
  • 1951: Local Winds , Compendium Amer. Meteor. Soc., Boston, Mass., Pp. 655-672.
  • 1953: On the Mechanism of Index Changes , Univ. of Chicago, Dept. of Met., Tech. Rep. To the Office of Nav. Res.
  • 1954: On the mechanism of non-periodic fluctuations in the general circulation in the northern hemisphere , Arch. Meteor. Geophys. Biocl., Ser. A, 6, pp. 253-279.
  • 1954: About characteristic meridional sections of the temperature for high and low index types of general circulation and about the temperature changes during their transition periods , Arch. Meteor. Geophys. Biocl., Ser. A, 6, pp. 280-296.
  • with Defant, A. 1958: Physical dynamics of the atmosphere , Frankfurt am Main, 527 pages.
  • 1959: On hydrodynamic instability caused by an approach of subtropical and polarfront jet stream in northern latitudes before the onset of strong cyclogenesis , The atmosphere and the sea in motion, pp. 305-325.
  • 1969: Aerological data obtained through radiosonde ascents and radar wind measurements during the Indian Ocean Expedition 1964/1965 of the research vessel Meteor , Meteor Forsch.-Erg. B, No. 4, 120 pages.
  • 1972: Climate and Weather in the Baltic Sea , Kiel Marine Research. 28, No. 1, pp. 1-30.
  • with Fechner, H .; Speth, P. 1972: Synoptics and energetics of the Hamburg storm surge weather situation from February 1962. Energetic household equations, synoptic analysis and calculation of the wind field , Ber. DWD, 127, 85 pages.
  • with Behr, HD 1972: Studies on the aerology and the heat balance of the atmosphere over the Western Arabian Sea during the north-east monsoon period , Meteor Forsch.-Erg. B, No. 8, pp. 1-30.
  • with Fechner, H .; Meyer, W. 1973: The calculation of the vertical velocity field of the Hamburg storm weather from February 1962 , Meteor. Rdsch. 26, pp. 103-125.
  • with Fechner, H .; Speth, P. 1974: Vergence of flows of kinetic and available potential energy, caused by a particularly intensive extra-tropical cyclone e, Arch. Meteor. Geophys. Biocl., Ser. A, 23, pp. 237-262.
  • with Arpe, K. 1974: The sources and sinks and the vertical and meridional flows of turbulent kinetic energy in the troposphere and lower stratosphere on December 12, 1957 in the wave number range , climatological research. Festschrift for Herrmann Flohn on the completion of the 60th year of life. - Bonn meteor. Abh. 17, pp. 63-92.
  • 1974: The initial stage of the development of a baroclinic wave disturbance in a basic baroclinic current (a mathematical-physical diagnosis) , Ber. Inst. F. Oceanography, Kiel, 4, 106 pages.
  • 1976: The general circulation of the atmosphere , promet, issue 2, pp. 1–32.
  • 1976: The energetics of the general circulation of the atmosphere , promet, volume 4, pp. 1–30.
  • 1977: Long-term mean on the global heat balance . promet, issue 1, p. 20.
  • with Speth, P. 1977: Diagnosis of empirical fields of the general atmospheric circulation in the focus on energy balance and circulation of the atmosphere of the German Research Foundation . Interim report of the working group. Ber. Inst. F. Oceanography, Kiel, 228 pages.
  • with Moerth, HT, 1978: Compendium of Meteorology. For use by Class I and Class II Meteorological Personnel . Edt. A. Wiin-Nielsen. Vol.1. P.3. Synoptic Meteorology, WMO, Geneva, 276 pages.
  • with Osthaus, A .; Speth, P. 1979: The Global Energy Budget of the Atmosphere. P. 2. The Ten-Year mean Structure of the Stationary large-scale wave Disturbances of Temperature and geopotential height for January and July (Northern Hemisphere) , Contribution z. Phys. d. Atmos. 52, No. 3, 229-246.
  • with Walden, H. and Reichelt, M. 1990: Der Marinewetterdienst 1933–1945: An attempt at a historical representation , DWD, Seewetteramt, No. 117, 166 pages.

literature

  • Pichler, H. 1990: Obituary for F. Defant , ÖGM-Bulletin, pp. 12-13.
  • Speth, P. 1991: Obituary for F. Defant , Mitteilungen der Deutschen Meteorologische Gesellschaft, 1, p. 72.
  • Krauss, W. 1991: In memory of Friedrich Defant , Mitteilungen der Deutschen Meteorologische Gesellschaft, 2, pp. 34–35.
  • Defant, Friedrich Richard , Biographical-literary concise dictionary of the exact natural sciences, ed. from the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig. - Berlin., 8 (2000), 2, pp. 806-807.
  • Behr, HD and P. Speth, 2014: 100th birthday of Prof. Dr. Friedrich Defant , Mitteilungen der Deutschen Meteorologische Gesellschaft, 2, pp. 10-12.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Walter Zenk, Gerold Siedler, Peter C. Wille, Gerd Wegner, Jörn Thiede, Volker Storch, Peter Speth, Eberhard Ruprecht, Manfred Ehrhardt, Bernt Zeitzschel: "Early oceanography and the development of physical and chemical marine sciences in Kiel after World War II. "In:" Deutsches Schiffahrtsarchiv, Wissenschaftliches Jahrbuch des Deutschen Schiffahrtsmuseums ", Bremerhaven, 39, 2018, (stated publication date 2016, but actually published 2018), ISSN  0343-3668 , ISBN 978-3-86927-039-5 , p 60-72.
  2. ↑ [1] SSOAR website. Retrieved September 25, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Defant, Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Defant, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian meteorologist
DATE OF BIRTH April 14, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH November 20, 1990
Place of death Kiel
  1. ↑ Tropopause break
  2. ↑ Information from the Federal President's Office