Harald Ulrik Sverdrup (15 November 1888 – 21 August 1957) was a Norwegian oceanographer and meteorologist. He was director of

Scripps Institution of Oceanography The Scripps Institution of Oceanography (sometimes referred to as SIO, Scripps Oceanography, or Scripps) in San Diego, California, US founded in 1903, is one of the oldest and largest centers for ocean and Earth science research, public servi ...

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 vill ...

in Sogn og Fjordane, 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 Bal ...

(1861–1923) and Maria Vollan (1865–1891). His sister Mimi Sverdrup Lunden (1894–1955) was an educator and author. His brother Leif Sverdrup (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 Einar Sverdrup (18 December 1895 – 13 May 1942) was a Norwegian mining engineer and businessman. He was the CEO of the Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani, operating at Svalbard. When the integrity of Svalbard was threatened during World War ...

(1895–1942) was CEO of

Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani (SNSK), or simply Store Norske, is a Norwegian coal mining company based on the Svalbard archipelago. It was formed in 1916, after a Norwegian purchase of the American Arctic Coal Company (ACC). The company ...

. Sverdrup was a student at

Bergen Cathedral School Bergen Cathedral School ( Norwegian: ''Bergen Katedralskole'', Latin: ''Schola Cathedralis Bergensis'', formerly known as Bergens lærdeskole and Bergen latinskole and colloquially known as Katten) is an upper secondary school in Bergen, Norway. Lo ...

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 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 December ...

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 beg ...

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. He was made director of California's

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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

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 The Sverdrup balance, or Sverdrup relation, is a theoretical relationship between the wind stress exerted on the surface of the open ocean and the vertically integrated meridional (north-south) transport of ocean water. History Aside from the ...

. 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'. ...

spring blooms. 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 N ...

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 headqua ...

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

, 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 contou ...

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 ...

, the Alexander Agassiz Medal 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 Nat ...

, the Patron's Medal 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 and the Swedish Order of the Polar Star.

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 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 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 ...

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 cont ...

the Sverdrup Nunataks after him.

References

Other sources

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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