Lawrence Valentine Worthington (March 6, 1920 – February 10, 1995), better known as Val Worthington was a British-American physical oceanographer. His most noted contributions are the discovery of mode water which he called ''18° water'', first published in a research journal in May 1959, and confirming the existence of as well as producing the first recording of the sound of the

sperm whale The sperm whale or cachalot (''Physeter macrocephalus'') is the largest of the toothed whales and the largest toothed predator. It is the only living member of the genus ''Physeter'' and one of three extant species in the sperm whale famil ...

Early life

Worthington was born on March 6, 1920, in Chelsea, London, England. He attended and graduated from Westminster School in 1938. He came to the United States that year and enrolled at Princeton University, which he attended from 1938 to 1941.

Career

In 1941 Worthington’s career at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution began when he joined the staff as a

bathythermograph The bathythermograph, or BT, also known as the Mechanical Bathythermograph, or MBT; is a device that holds a temperature sensor and a transducer to detect changes in water temperature versus depth down to a depth of approximately 285 meters (9 ...

technician. He took a military leave in 1943 to serve in the U.S. Navy and returned to WHOI in 1946 as a hydrographic technician working to describe

Gulf Stream The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension the North Atlantic Current, North Atlantic Drift, is a warm and swift Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic ocean current that originates in the Gulf of Mexico and flows through the Straits of Florida a ...

meanders and ring formation. In 1950 he was appointed a physical oceanographer and in 1951 was named a research associate. Worthington was appointed a senior scientist in the Physical Oceanography Department in 1963, and served as department chairman from 1974 to 1981. He retired in 1982 and was named a scientist emeritus that year.

Research

Worthington conducted his research out at sea on various vessels such as ,

DSV Alvin ''Alvin'' (DSV-2) is a crewed deep-ocean research submersible owned by the United States Navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The vehicle was built by General Mills' Electronics Grou ...

and . Worthington’s research interests included Atlantic circulation, deep water circulation, the Caribbean Sea, the Kuroshio Current and water mass formation. His research attributions include disproval of the existence of the American Scout seamount, measurements of deep currents in the western North Atlantic, oceanographic measurements of the Caribbean Sea, measurements of vertical water movement in the Cayman Basin, confirming the existence of deep currents in the Labrador Sea, confirming the existence of large cyclonic rings from the northeast

Sargasso Sea The Sargasso Sea () is a region of the Atlantic Ocean bounded by four currents forming an ocean gyre. Unlike all other regions called seas, it has no land boundaries. It is distinguished from other parts of the Atlantic Ocean by its charac ...

, a census of Gulf Stream rings, and a census on the water masses of the world ocean.

Later life and legacy

After Worthington’s retirement in 1982 colleagues at WHOI wrote a tribute to him entitled ''“Cold Wind Two Gyres”'' a rough english translation for a nickname given to Worthington by colleagues Hideo Kawai and Susumu Honjo based on his controversial North Atlantic gyre theory. The 41 page collection’s publication was paid for by the National Science Foundation, the

Office of Naval Research The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is an organization within the United States Department of the Navy responsible for the science and technology programs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Established by Congress in 1946, its mission is to plan ...

, and by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Soon after his retirement a species of

copepod Copepods (; meaning "oar-feet") are a group of small crustaceans found in nearly every freshwater and saltwater habitat (ecology), habitat. Some species are planktonic (inhabiting sea waters), some are benthos, benthic (living on the ocean floor) ...

, small crustaceans on which fish feed, was named in honor of Worthington. ''Paracandacia worthingtoni'', found at that time only in the South Pacific, was described by biologist George Grice in the Bulletin of the Plankton Society of Japan in 1981. The classification was changed to follow the accepted genus and therefore became ''

Candacia worthingtoni ''Candacia worthingtoni'' is a species of copepod in the order Calanoida first described by George Grice in 1981 under the basionym ''Paracandacia worthingtoni''. The species is named for the scientist emeritus Valentine Worthington, as a tribut ...

'' Worthington passed away on February 10, 1995, in the Abaco, Bahamas at the age of 74.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Worthington, Valentine British oceanographers 1920 births 1995 deaths People from Chelsea, London Sperm whales People educated at Westminster School, London Princeton University alumni Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Physical oceanographers British emigrants to the United States