Johannes Georgi (meteorologist)

Johannes Georgi in the Eismitte station

Johannes Georgi (born December 14, 1888 in Frankfurt am Main , †  May 24, 1972 in Hamburg ) was a German meteorologist , glaciologist and polar researcher . Georgi carried out the first extensive meteorological measurements on the Greenland Ice Sheet and was the first in Europe to observe the jet stream .

Life

Georgi, the eldest son of the teacher Johannes Georgi (1861–1945), graduated from the Lessing-Gymnasium in Frankfurt am Main and thus enjoyed a classical humanistic education. He then studied physics and mathematics in Göttingen , Zurich and Marburg . He also dealt with zoology , especially the then modern genetics . In 1909 he also attended Albert Einstein's seminars in Zurich . However, the participation in Alfred Wegener's meteorological exercises in Marburg in 1910 was formative. Wegener had just returned from wintering twice in northeast Greenland and was in one of his most important creative periods. A long friendship began that only ended with Wegener's death. During this time Georgi was a member of the idealistic Wandervogel movement , an early youth movement whose members sought to get close to nature with extensive hikes.

During the First World War , Georgi joined the Imperial Navy weather service and thus became a meteorologist and head of the weather service school. In 1919 he came to the meteorological research institute of the Deutsche Seewarte in Hamburg , headed by Wegener .

In 1926 and 1927 he carried out measurements in high-altitude currents at the northern tip of Iceland with weather balloons . He discovered strong currents at a height of 10 to 15 km that could not be directly explained by the ground pressure field. Together with measurements that Wasaburo Ooishi had already carried out in Japan in 1924, these were the first observations of the jet stream . At a meeting of the Deutsche Seewarte in 1927, Georgi suggested that this phenomenon and other issues should be researched in a coordinated manner in a second International Polar Year . This was to take place from 1932 to 1933, exactly 50 years after the first. Georgi took up an idea of Leonid Breitfuß , which he had expressed in 1926 at the meeting of a special committee appointed by the board of the Aeroarctic . He is considered to be an important initiator of the second International Polar Year.

In 1928 Georgi reached the coast of Greenland and thus the actual polar region for the first time on an Iceland-Greenland expedition with the research vessel Meteor .

By studying the general circulation in the northern hemisphere, his desire grew to learn more about meteorological conditions in the Arctic by operating a meteorological station on the Greenland ice sheet. These plans had room in the Wegener's for a large expedition to Greenland with measurements from coast to coast. That is why Georgi took part in Wegener's preparatory expedition to Greenland in 1929 with Fritz Loewe and Ernst Sorge . The aim of this was to find a suitable place to climb to the ice sheet for the main expedition and to familiarize oneself with the harsh conditions in the Arctic.

Ice center

Location of the ice center station in Greenland

During the main expedition from 1930 to 1931, Georgi was in charge of the Eismitte station and carried out meteorological measurements at it over a full year of observation. In 1930 he led the first dog sledding trip for the establishment of the station. In 1930 the weather caused great logistical problems in supplying the station to the expedition. Ultimately, it consisted of a scientifically equipped cave in the firn because the transport of the intended tent house had not been successful.

After the third dog sled transport, Eismitte only had a third of the petroleum planned for wintering. Georgi therefore decided to give up the station if another transport had not reached the station by October 20th. Based on this information, Wegener decided on a fourth and final transport before wintering. This started on September 21, but had to be abandoned as a transport due to early snowstorms. The only goal was to replace Georgi and Sorge for the winter. Wegener, Loewe and the Greenlander Rasmus Villumsen (1909–1930) reached the middle of the ice on October 30th, using up all reserves, where Georgi and Sorge had meanwhile decided to venture out over the winter. Loewe's toes were frozen to death on the last few days of the trip. These were amputated for him by the skilled Georgi with tin snips. Wegener and Villumsen started their return journey on November 1st, Wegener's 50th birthday, which they did not survive. Georgi and Sorge wintered together with Loewe, who was in poor health, in the middle of the ice and Georgi carried out meteorological measurements despite extreme conditions. It was not until May 7 that a propeller sledge reached the center of the ice, which could cover the route to the west station in just two days. Georgi stayed, at times alone, on the station to receive a full year of observation. He later published the diary entries intended for his wife in the book Buried in the Ice. Experiences at the ice center station of Alfred Wegener's last Greenland expedition .

After the expedition, Georgi returned to his position as head of the instrument office at the Seewarte in Hamburg. In the years that followed, he was faced with accusations from other expedition members, especially Kurt Herdemertens and Kurt Wegener , of having caused Wegener and Villumsen to die by demanding more food and petroleum. These allegations attacked Georgi. A process ended in 1937 with a settlement between the two parties that forbade them to continue the dispute in public.

In the 1930s, Georgi made several attempts for a new expedition to Greenland, which was supposed to follow up on issues raised by the Wegener expedition. Bypassing official channels, he turned to the State Secretary of the Reich Aviation Ministry in 1936 with a request for support for sending an airship to Greenland to set off a geophysical-meteorological expedition there. The application was rejected on the grounds that all the results of the Wegener expedition had to be available before a new expedition. With the support of the Senckenberg Society , Georgi planned the "Senckenberg Greenland Expedition" in 1939, which was to carry out interdisciplinary research at four locations in Greenland. Georgi himself wanted to carry out climatological and meteorological work in a station on the inland ice. Karl Gripp , Aenne Schmücker and Richard Kräusel were to be the heads of the other stations . For reasons of foreign policy, it was postponed to 1940. The Second World War ultimately prevented the implementation entirely.

Georgi's only son, Hans, did not return from World War II ; he was missing in Yugoslavia . In 1949 Georgi retired in poor health. In addition to scientific topics, he now also dealt more closely with political issues. Since the experience in the middle of the ice, he had been in regular contact with his former expedition colleague Loewe. This correspondence shows that the experiences in Eismitte Georgi occupied his life all his life. He met Loewe for the last time in May 1971. Georgi died in Hamburg on May 24, 1972 after suffering from myasthenia gravis in the last years of his life .

The Georgi Prize is awarded for services to meteorology by the GeoUnion Alfred Wegener Foundation , the umbrella organization of all geoscientific associations in Germany, with the participation of the German Meteorological Society . It goes back to a foundation by Johannes Georgi and is endowed with € 7,000. The Georgiweg in Hamburg-Groß Borstel is named after him.

Fonts (selection)

• Johannes Georgi: Aerology of high latitudes and great circulation. In: Arctic. 1928, pp. 83-85.
• Johannes Georgi: Altitude wind measurements on Iceland 1909–1928. In: Archive of the German Naval Observatory. 51 (5), 1932.
• Johannes Georgi: Contribution in: Alfred Wegener: With motorboat and sledge in Greenland. Velhagen & Klasing Verlag, Bielefeld 1930.
• 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.

literature

• Else Wegener, Fritz Loewe: Alfred Wegener's last trip to Greenland. The experiences of the German Greenland expedition in 1930/1931 described by his traveling companions and according to the researcher's diaries. Brockhaus, Leipzig 1932.
• Alfred Wegener: With a motorboat and a sledge in Greenland. Velhagen & Klasing Verlag, Bielefeld 1930.
• (Obituary) Fritz Loewe: Johannes Georgi (PDF; 393 kB). In: Polar Research . 42, 1972, pp. 155-158.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Matrikeledition the University of Zurich: Georgi John , student number 18812, as of November 30, 2008
2. ↑ Sarah Behr et al .: IPY History Reflects Progress in Science and Society (PDF; 2.2 MB). In: Chronicles of the NSF Arctic Sciences Division. Volume 12, No. 2, 2007, p. 2.
3. ↑ Reinhard A. Krause: Data instead of sensations. The path to international polar research from a German perspective . In: Reports on Polar and Marine Research (= Reports on Polar and Marine Research ). Volume 609, 2010. doi: 10.2312 / BzPM_0609_2010
4. ^ Fritz Loewe: Johannes Georgi (PDF; 393 kB). In: Polar Research. 42, 1972, pp. 155-158.
5. ^ The German Greenland Expedition 1930/31 ( Memento from March 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research.
6. ^ Karl Weiken : Fritz Loewe (PDF; 427 kB). In: Polar Research. 44, 1974, pp. 92-95.
7. ^ Herrmann A. Hahne: Dr. Ernst Sorge (PDF; 201 kB). In: Polar Research. 16, 1946, pp. 120-121.
8. ↑ Jutta Voss: Johannes Georgi and Fritz Loewe. Two polar explorers' fates after “middle of the ice”. From their correspondence 1929–1971 and the collected catalogs of publications by J. Georgi and F. Loewe (PDF; 1.5 MB). In: Polar Research. 62, 1992, pp. 151-161.
9. ↑ Cornelia Lüdecke: German polar research since the turn of the century and the influence of Erich von Drygalski (PDF; 11.0 MB). Reports on Polar Research No. 158, Bremerhaven 1995, pp. 96-98