Milutin Milanković

Milutin Milanković (sometimes anglicised as Milutin Milankovitch; Serbian Cyrillic: Милутин Миланковић, pronounced; 28 May 1879 – 12 December 1958) was a Serbian mathematician, astronomer, climatologist, geophysicist, civil engineer, university professor, popularizer of science and academic.

Milanković made two fundamental contributions to science: he devised advanced methods to compute slow changes in Earth's orbit that gradually redistribute insolation between the seasons and low- and high-latitude regions (now known as Milankovitch cycles), and he developed a quantitative theory of climate where these insolation cycles were sufficient to cause the recurring ice ages of the Quaternary period. While the Milankovitch cycles in insolation were confirmed and extended in subsequent research, Milankovitch’s theory of climate is broadly inconsistent with modern reconstructions of global cooling during the ice ages, the dynamic behavior of the ice sheets, as well as evidence for changing ocean circulation and greenhouse gas radiative forcing. Resolving the role of Milanković insolation cycles in pacing the recorded glacial-interglacial climate cycles remains an outstanding problem in the climate sciences.

He founded planetary climatology by calculating temperatures of the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere as well as the temperature conditions on planets of the inner Solar System, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and the Moon, as well as the depth of the atmosphere of the outer planets. He demonstrated the interrelatedness of celestial mechanics and the Earth sciences and enabled a consistent transition from celestial mechanics to the Earth sciences and transformation of descriptive sciences into exact ones.

A distinguished professor of applied mathematics and celestial mechanics at the University of Belgrade, Milanković was a director of the Belgrade Observatory, member of the Commission 7 for celestial mechanics of the International Astronomical Union and vice-president of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Beginning his career as a construction engineer, he retained an interest in construction throughout his life, and worked as a structural engineer and supervisor on a series of reinforced concrete constructions throughout Yugoslavia. He registered multiple patents related to this area.