Wilhelm Jacob van Bebber
Wilhelm Jacob van Bebber (born July 14, 1841 in Grieth am Rhein, † September 1, 1909 in Altona ) was a German meteorologist .
Life
Bebber came from a humble background and was born as the youngest of twelve children of the innkeeper Franz and his wife Christina van Bebber. Despite the early death of his father in 1853, after primary school in Grieth, he was able to attend grammar school in Emmerich , eight kilometers away by foot, until 1864 . Then he began studying mathematics and natural sciences in Münster and Bonn. He completed it in 1868 with the first state examination for higher teaching post. After a year of probation at the grammar school in Kleve, he went to the district secondary school in Kaiserslautern in 1869. During this time he completed his doctorate in 1871, and in 1875 he became rector of the secondary school in Weißenburg in Bavaria .
In 1877 he was appointed to the Reichsinstitut Deutsche Seewarte in Hamburg and directly took over the chairmanship of the department for coastal meteorology, in 1879 he became department head. Bebber was appointed professor in 1890. In 1907 he resigned from his offices for health reasons and died two years later.
He was a board member of the German Meteorological Society and, since 1887, a member of the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina . He was holder of the Red Eagle Order and the Crown Order IV class.
In 2009 a street in Kalkar-Grieth was named after him.
Services
In his doctorate in 1871, he wrote a comparison of severe winters in Europe between 1826 and 1871 with parallel mild winters in America. In doing so, he tried to prove the thesis that humans cannot change the climate as a whole.
Bebber published over 200 scientific works. At the Seewarte he wrote an early textbook on meteorology and wrote the first weather maps and weather forecasts, which also included storm warnings. He had also laid important foundations for the public weather forecast service from 1906 onwards.
Zugstrasse typology
In his climatic descriptions he examined recurring train tracks in low pressure areas in Europe to improve the weather forecast and categorized these large weather situations with the Roman numerals Ia to VIb, some of these names are still used today. Above all, the Vb weather situation is known , which often leads to weather disasters with floods on the Danube and Oder . In this case, a low with often heavy rainfall moves from the Mediterranean via eastern central Europe to northeastern Europe. In addition, IVb along the North and Baltic Sea coasts plays a role in today's meteorology, but is named differently, the other train tracks have little weather effect and are relatively rare, so only the term five-B after Bebber has established itself as such.
literature
- The German Seewarte: Wilhelm Jakob van Bebber † . In: Annals of Hydrography and Maritime Meteorology . 1909.
- Quiver. In: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon . Volume 2. Leipzig 1905. ( online )
Individual evidence
- ^ Inauguration of Prof. van Bebber-Strasse in Grieth. ( Memento of the original from January 4, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on: kle-point.de , May 11, 2009.
- ↑ Zugstrassen ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . MeteoSwiss → Lexicon
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bebber, Wilhelm Jacob van |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German meteorologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 14, 1841 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Grieth |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 1, 1909 |
| Place of death | Altona |