Harald Ulrik Sverdrup (15 November 1888 – 21 August 1957) was a

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

oceanographer Oceanography (), also known as oceanology and ocean science, is the scientific study of the oceans. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of topics, including ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamic ...

and

meteorologist A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists in research, while t ...

. He was director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography and director of the

Norwegian Polar Institute The Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI; no, Norsk Polarinstitutt) is Norway's central governmental institution for scientific research, mapping and environmental monitoring in the Arctic and the Antarctic. The NPI is a directorate under Norway's Min ...

Background

He was born at

Sogndal Sogndal is a municipality in Vestland county, Norway. It is located on the northern shore of the Sognefjorden in the traditional district of Sogn. The village of Hermansverk is the administrative center of Sogndal municipality. Other villages ...

Sogn og Fjordane Sogn og Fjordane (; English: "Sogn and Fjordane") was, up to 1 January 2020, a county in western Norway, when it was merged to become part of Vestland county. Bordering previous counties Møre og Romsdal, Oppland, Buskerud, and Hordaland, the cou ...

, Norway. He was the son of Lutheran theologian

Edvard Sverdrup Johan Edvard Sverdrup (22 June 1861 – 21 January 1923) was a Norwegian educator, author and church leader. Sverdrup was one of the key theologians in the Church of Norway in the first few decades of the 1900s. Biography Sverdrup was born in B ...

(1861–1923) and Maria Vollan (1865–1891). His sister

Mimi Sverdrup Lunden Mimi Sverdrup Lunden (13 June 1894 – 8 January 1955) was a Norwegian educator, non-fiction writer and proponent for women's rights Personal life Lunden was born in Sulen, Sogn og Fjordane, a daughter of Lutheran theologian Edvard Sv ...

(1894–1955) was an educator and author. His brother

Leif Sverdrup Leif Johan Sverdrup CBE (11 January 1898 – 2 January 1976) was a Norwegian-born American civil engineer and general with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the first half of the 20th century. He is best known for his service in the Southwest ...

(1898–1976) was a General with the

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers , colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = ...

. His brother Einar Sverdrup (1895–1942) was CEO of Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani. Sverdrup was a student at Bergen Cathedral School in 1901 before graduating in 1906 at Kongsgård School in

Stavanger Stavanger (, , American English, US usually , ) is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Norway. It is the fourth largest city and third largest metropolitan area in Norway (through conurbation with neighboring Sandnes) and the a ...

. He graduated cand. real. in 1914 from

University of Oslo The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...

. He studied under

Vilhelm Bjerknes Vilhelm Friman Koren Bjerknes ( , ; 14 March 1862 – 9 April 1951) was a Norwegian physicist and meteorologist who did much to found the modern practice of weather forecasting. He formulated the primitive equations that are still in use in num ...

and earned his Dr. Philos. at the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...

in 1917.

Career

He was the scientific director of the North Polar expedition of

Roald Amundsen Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (, ; ; 16 July 1872 – ) was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He was a key figure of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Born in Borge, Østfold, Norway, Amundsen bega ...

aboard the Maud from 1918 to 1925. His measurements of bottom depths, tidal currents, and tidal elevations on the vast shelf areas off the East Siberian Sea correctly described the propagation of tides as Poincare waves. Upon his return from this long expedition exploring the shelf seas to the north of Siberia, he became the chair in meteorology at the

University of Bergen The University of Bergen ( no, Universitetet i Bergen, ) is a research-intensive state university located in Bergen, Norway. As of 2019, the university has over 4,000 employees and 18,000 students. It was established by an act of parliament in 194 ...

. He was made director of California's Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1936, initially for 3 years but the intervention of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

meant he held the post until 1948. During 33 expeditions with the research vessel ''E. W. Scripps'' between 1938 and 1941 he produced a detailed oceanographic dataset off the coast of California. He also developed a simple theory of the general ocean circulation postulating a dynamical vorticity balance between the wind-stress curl and the meridional gradient of the Coriolis parameter, the Sverdrup balance. This balance describes wind-driven ocean gyres away from continental margins at western boundaries. After leaving Scripps, he became director of the

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

and continued to contribute to oceanography, ocean biology and polar research. In biological oceanography, his Critical Depth Hypothesis published in 1953 was a significant milestone in the explanation of

phytoplankton Phytoplankton () are the autotrophic (self-feeding) components of the plankton community and a key part of ocean and freshwater ecosystems. The name comes from the Greek words (), meaning 'plant', and (), meaning 'wanderer' or 'drifter'. Ph ...

spring bloom The spring bloom is a strong increase in phytoplankton abundance (i.e. stock) that typically occurs in the early spring and lasts until late spring or early summer. This seasonal event is characteristic of temperate North Atlantic, sub-polar, and ...

s. Sverdrup was a member of both the

United States National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

and Norwegian Academies of Science. He served as President of the International Association of Physical Oceanography and of the

International Council for the Exploration of the Sea The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES; french: Conseil International de l'Exploration de la Mer, ''CIEM'') is a regional fishery advisory body and the world's oldest intergovernmental science organization. ICES is headqu ...

(ICES). His many publications include his magnum opu
''The Oceans: Their Physics, Chemistry and General Biology''
by Sverdrup,

Martin W. Johnson Martin Wiggo Johnson (September 30, 1893 – November 28, 1984), was an American oceanographer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He is known as an author of the landmark reference work ''The Oceans: Their Physics, Chemistry and General B ...

and Richard H. Fleming (1942, new edition 1970) which formed the basic curriculum of oceanography for the next 40 years around the world. MS H

The

Sverdrup In oceanography, the sverdrup (symbol: Sv) is a non- SI metric unit of volumetric flow rate, with equal to . It is equivalent to the SI derived unit cubic hectometer per second (symbol: hm3/s or hm3⋅s−1): 1 Sv is equal to 1 hm3/s. It is used ...

, a unit describing the volume of water transport in

ocean currents An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of sea water generated by a number of forces acting upon the water, including wind, the Coriolis effect, breaking waves, cabbeling, and temperature and salinity differences. Depth contours, s ...

is called after Sverdrup. 1 Sv = 10⁶ m³ per second.

Personal life

In 1928, he married Gudrun (Vaumund) Bronn (1893–1983) and adopted her daughter Anna Margrethe.

Honors

He was awarded the

William Bowie Medal The William Bowie Medal is awarded annually by the American Geophysical Union for "outstanding contributions to fundamental geophysics and for unselfish cooperation in research". The award is the highest honor given by the AGU and is named in honor ...

by the

American Geophysical Union The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, atmospheric, ocean, hydrologic, space, and planetary scientists and enthusiasts that according to their website includes 130,000 people (not members). AGU's act ...

, the

Alexander Agassiz Medal The Alexander Agassiz Medal is awarded every three years by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences for an original contribution in the science of oceanography. It was established in 1911 by Sir John Murray in honor of his friend, the scientist Ale ...

of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

, the

Patron's Medal The Royal Geographical Society's Gold Medal consists of two separate awards: the Founder's Medal 1830 and the Patron's Medal 1838. Together they form the most prestigious of the society's awards. They are given for "the encouragement and promoti ...

of the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

, the Vega Medal by the

Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography The Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography (SSAG; sv, Svenska Sällskapet för Antropologi och Geografi) is a scientific learned society founded in December 1877. It was established after a rearrangement of various sections of the Anthropo ...

and the

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

Order of the Polar Star The Royal Order of the Polar Star (Swedish: ''Kungliga Nordstjärneorden'') is a Swedish order of chivalry created by King Frederick I on 23 February 1748, together with the Order of the Sword and the Order of the Seraphim. The Order of the ...

Legacy

(Sv) is used in physical oceanography as an abbreviation for a volume flux of one million cubic meters per second. The

Sverdrup Gold Medal Award Sverdrup Gold Medal Award – is the American Meteorological Society's award granted to researchers who make outstanding contributions to the scientific knowledge of interactions between the oceans and the atmosphere. Recipients SourceAmerican M ...

was named in his honor by the American Meteorological Society. Norwegian research vessel M/S H.U. Sverdrup II is named in his honor. In 1977, the

UK-APC The UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee (or UK-APC) is a United Kingdom government committee, part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, responsible for recommending names of geographical locations within the British Antarctic Territory (BAT) and ...

named a series of peaks in

Palmer Land Palmer Land () is the portion of the Antarctic Peninsula, Antarctica that lies south of a line joining Cape Jeremy and Cape Agassiz. This application of Palmer Land is consistent with the 1964 agreement between the Advisory Committee on Antarctic N ...

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

the Sverdrup Nunataks after him.

References

Other sources

* * * * * *

External links

Scripps Institution of Oceanography website
SMC 121
Special Collections & Archives
UC San Diego Library.
H U Sverdrup II Research/Survey Vessel

Haral Ulrik Sverdrop Writings
at Dartmouth College Library
Family genealogy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sverdrup, Harald 1888 births 1957 deaths People from Sogndal University of Oslo alumni Leipzig University alumni Norwegian meteorologists Norwegian oceanographers Scripps Institution of Oceanography Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Order of the Polar Star Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences