Sverdrup, Harald Ulrik, 1888-1957

Dates

• Existence: 1888 - 1957

Biography

Harald Ulrik Sverdrup was born on November 15, 1888 in Norway. Sverdrop was a meteorologist and oceanographer who made a number of important theoretical discoveries in these fields. As scientific director of Roald Amundsen's polar expedition on "Maud" (1918-1925), Sverdrup worked extensively on meteorology, magnetics, atmospheric electricity, physical oceanography, and tidal dynamics on the Siberian shelf, and even on the anthropology of Chukchi natives. After his return, he was appointed in 1926 to the chair of meteorology vacated by Bjerknes in Bergen, and in 1931 he was appointed research professor in the Christian Michelsen Institute to work on the "Maud" results. That same year he was a member of the unsuccessful Wilkins-Ellsworth North Polar Expedition in the submarine "Nautilus." Sverdrup was appointed director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) in 1936, ostensibly for 3 years. World War II and his sense of responsibility for the expanding SIO kept him there for 12 years. In 1948, Sverdrup returned to Norway to direct the Norwegian Polar Institute. Shortly after, he became professor of geophysics in Oslo (followed by other senior university positions), director of the Norwegian-British-Swedish Scientific Expedition to Antarctica (1949–1952), and chairman of a Norwegian program to improve fishing technology in India. He died suddenly in August 1957.

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