Richard Scherhag

Richard Theodor Anton Scherhag (born September 29, 1907 in Düsseldorf , † August 31, 1970 in Westerland ) was a German meteorologist .

Life

Richard Scherhag was born in 1907 as the son of a Düsseldorf businessman. From 1926 to 1931 he studied natural sciences in Bonn, Cologne and Berlin and received his doctorate in 1931 under Heinrich von Ficker with a thesis on the atmospheric conditions during thunderstorms . Via Essen and the meteorological station on the Brocken , he came to the Deutsche Seewarte in Hamburg in 1933 . On October 1, 1934, he introduced the altitude weather map (500 hPa ), and on January 15, 1938, he introduced the marking of the fronts in the ground weather maps . In 1938 Scherhag was transferred to the Reichsamt für Wetterdienst in Berlin as head of the high altitude weather service department . Here he developed a method for the empirical construction of 24-hour soil forecast maps using graphical addition, a method that was in practical use for 25 years.

From 1944 to 1948, Scherhag wrote his standard work New Methods of Weather Analysis and Weather Forecasting, some of them an American prisoner of war . Through the American weather service in Bad Kissingen , Scherhag came to the Free University of Berlin and built up the Meteorological Institute from 1949. In 1951 he was appointed professor and in 1952 director of the institute. During radiosonde ascents in 1952 he discovered the phenomenon of sudden stratospheric warming ("Berlin phenomenon"). On October 31, 1952, he founded the Berlin weather map , the supplements of which he used as a quick publication medium for the description of current weather events or new findings in climate research . In 1957, the Meteorological Institute Berlin, under Scherhag's direction, put the first civil weather radar into operation in Germany. In the late 1960s, he dealt with the drastic cooling of the polar regions in the 1950s and 1960s. He was able to show that the mean temperature on Franz-Josef-Land had fallen by 4.5 degrees within 15 years.

Until his sudden death in 1970, Scherhag wrote more than 220 publications in various areas of meteorology and climatology. He was a member of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz.

Works (selection)

About the atmospheric conditions during thunderstorms (with special consideration of the eastern thunderstorms and thunderstorm periods lasting several days). Dissertation, Berlin 1931.
On the theory of high and low pressure areas. The importance of divergence in pressure fields . In: Meteorological Journal . Volume 51, 1934, pp. 129-138 (translated into English and edited by E. Volken, AM Giesche, S. Brönnimann. In: Meteorologische Zeitschrift . Volume 25, No. 4, 2016, pp. 511-519. Doi: 10.1127 / Metz / 2016/0785 ):
New methods of weather analysis and forecasting. Springer, Berlin 1948. (Reprint [2014]: ISBN 978-3-642-49236-5 )
The explosive stratospheric warming of the late winter of 1951/52. In: Reports of the German Weather Service in the US zone . Volume 38, 1952, pp. 51-63.
Introduction to climatology. Westermann, Braunschweig 1960.

literature

Gustav Hofmann: Scherhag, Richard Theodor Anton. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 694 f. ( Digitized version ).
Jürgen Pelz: On the history of Berlin aerology. Part 2 (from 1945 to 1993). In: Supplement to the Berlin weather map , SO 12/99, 1999; fu-berlin.de (PDF).
Horst Malberg : In Memoriam Professor Dr. Richard Scherhag (1907-1970) . In: Supplement to the Berlin weather map , SO 39/07, 2007; fu-berlin.de (PDF).

Web links

Literature by and about Richard Scherhag in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

↑ Hans Steinhagen : Max Robitsch. Polar explorer and meteorologist. VerlagsService OderSpree, Jacobsdorf / Mark 2008, ISBN 978-3-939960-06-5 , p. 194.
↑ ^a ^b ^c Horst Malberg: In Memoriam Professor Dr. Richard Scherhag (1907-1970). In: Supplement to the Berlin weather map. SO 39/07, 2007.
↑ Bernd Stiller: Scherhag, R. or »Der Scherhag« . on the website of the Museum for Meteorology and Aerology Lindenberg , accessed on February 19, 2011
^ Heidrun Siebenhühner: July 7, 1957: Germany's first weather radar in operation . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 7, 2000, ISSN 0944-5560 , p. 82-83 ( luise-berlin.de ).

personal data
SURNAME	Scherhag, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Scherhag, Richard Theodor Anton (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German meteorologist
DATE OF BIRTH	September 29, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH	Dusseldorf
DATE OF DEATH	August 31, 1970
Place of death	Westerland

[1] Hans Steinhagen : Max Robitsch. Polar explorer and meteorologist. VerlagsService OderSpree, Jacobsdorf / Mark 2008, ISBN 978-3-939960-06-5 , p. 194.

[Malberg-2] Horst Malberg: In Memoriam Professor Dr. Richard Scherhag (1907-1970). In: Supplement to the Berlin weather map. SO 39/07, 2007.

[3] Bernd Stiller: Scherhag, R. or »Der Scherhag« . on the website of the Museum for Meteorology and Aerology Lindenberg , accessed on February 19, 2011

[4] Heidrun Siebenhühner: July 7, 1957: Germany's first weather radar in operation . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 7, 2000, ISSN 0944-5560 , p. 82-83 ( luise-berlin.de ).