Klaus Wyrtki

Klaus Wyrtki (born February 7, 1925 in Tarnowitz ( Upper Silesia ), today Tarnowskie Góry ( Poland ); † February 5, 2013 ) was a German - American oceanographer at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa .

Wyrtki is best known for his work on understanding the ocean currents and, subsequently, the climatic phenomenon El Niño . He discovered the equatorial countercurrent in the Indian Ocean , also known as the Wyrtki Jet . Further fundamental work by Wyrtki is concerned with oxygen minimum zones , thermoclines and thermohaline circulation .

Wyrtki studied mathematics, physics and geography at the Philipps University of Marburg between 1945 and 1948 and oceanography, physics and mathematics at the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel between 1948 and 1950 . In 1950 he completed his studies with a doctorate from Georg Wüst Magna cum laude . As a postdoctoral fellow he worked at the German Hydrographic Institute in Hamburg and - sponsored by the Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft (NDW) - at the University of Kiel.

In 1954 Wyrtki took over the management of the Institute for Marine Research in Jakarta , Indonesia . In 1957 he went as a research group leader to the Department of Fisheries and Oceanography of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Sydney , Australia and in 1961 in a similar position to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla , California . In 1964 he received a professorship for oceanography at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa , where he remained until his retirement in 1993. In 1977 he became a US citizen.

Klaus Wyrtki has received numerous awards, including the Maurice Ewing Medal of the American Geophysical Union in 1989 , the Sverdrup Gold Medal of the American Meteorological Society in 1991 , the Albert Defant Medal of the German Meteorological Society in 1992 , and the Prince Albert I Medal of the International Association for the 2003 Physical Sciences of the Oceans (IAPSO) and in 2004 the Alexander Agassiz Medal of the National Academy of Sciences . In 2007 he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Wyrtki has (as of 2017) an h-index of 48. He was married and had two children.

Sources and References

Web links

• Dr. Klaus Wyrtki, Professor Emeritus of the University of Hawai'i, Department of Oceanography and curriculum vitae at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (hawaii.edu)

literature

• Roger Lukas, William Patzert, Gary Meyers, William Emery: Klaus Wyrtki's Forty Years of Contributions to Oceanography: His Students' Perspective. In: Oceanography. 3, 1990, pp. 36-38, doi: 10.5670 / oceanog.1990.19 .
• Hans von Storch , Jürgen Sündermann, Lorenz Magaard : Oral History Interviews: Klaus Wyrtki. In: American Institute of Physics (aip.org). February 25, 1999, accessed May 20, 2017 . 
• William C. Patzert, William J. Emery, Gary A. Meyers, Roger Lukas: Klaus Wyrtki (1925–2013). In: Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union. 94, 2013, p 192, doi: 10.1002 / 2013EO210009 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Bertil Gustavsson: IAPSO - The Prince Albert I Medal. In: iapso.iugg.org. Retrieved May 20, 2017 (English). 
2. ^ Maurice Ewing Medal. In: honors.agu.org. Retrieved May 20, 2017 (English). 
3. ^ Winner of the Albert Defant Medal (PDF; 9 kB) from the German Meteorological Society (dmg-ev.de); accessed on May 20, 2017.
4. ↑ Alexander Agassiz Medal. In: nasonline.org. Retrieved May 20, 2017 . 
5. ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present (PDF; 1.2 MB) at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org); accessed on May 20, 2017.
6. ^ Klaus Wyrtki - Google Scholar Citations. In: scholar.google.com. Retrieved May 20, 2017 .