Judith and Walter Munk in 1964 – SIO Photo
By Thomas Ultican / Tultican / Feb. 13, 2019
The great man, who seemed like he would live forever, died the afternoon of Friday, February 8, 2019 at the age of 101. The New York Times had dubbed him the “Einstein of the Oceans” an appellation he rejected.
He modestly bowed to Einstein’s towering intellect. Virtually unknown outside of scientific circles, Munk’s achievements have touched us all; from creating the science of wave prediction that greatly advantaged the D-Day invasion of 1944 to providing initial research pointing to global warming. A contributor to the Huffington Post, Max Guinn observed, “Following Munk’s accomplishments is a Forrest Gump journey through history.”
Walter Heinrich Munk was born October 19, 1917 in Vienna. It seemed that at home in Austria, he was only interested in skiing and had little interest in school. His banker parents shipped him off to a boarding school in upstate New York. The parents expected him to become a banker, an interest he never developed. They sent him to Columbia University hoping he would straighten out. It seemed to work a little. He focused a bit more scholastically even while running the school’s ski team.
Finally, his mother gave in. For a 2016 interview Munk shared,
“My mother gave me a tidy amount of money and said, ‘Do what you want.’
“I bought a DeSoto convertible, drove to Pasadena and showed up at Caltech. The dean said, ‘Let me pull your file.’ I said there was no file. I was so naive I thought you could go to college wherever you wanted.
“I was told that I could take an entrance exam in a month. I took a room at the corner of Lake and California and, for the first time in my life, really began studying. By some miracle, I passed the exam and became a student at Caltech.”
Walter Munk during World War II
Later on, Munk fell for a girl and followed her to La Jolla, California where he spent the summer of 1939. While in La Jolla, he landed a job at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography (SIO) now part of the University of California San Diego (UCSD). That summer job led to Munk becoming the first graduate student at SIO. It was there that he developed a passion for the ocean and spent more than 80-years researching, teaching, discovering and building; never permanently leaving.
The Foundation at Home and Professionally
One of Munk’s greatest achievements came during World War II. With its outbreak, he enlisted in the Army but the Navy claimed him for its research lab on Point Loma. Learning of a planned amphibious landing in North Africa, Munk investigated the conditions and realized that waves there often exceeded the size that allowed safe landings. However, his warnings were ignored, so he enlisted the help of his mentor at SIO, Harald Sverdrup.
Sverdrup was a Norwegian Scientist who became the director of SIO in 1936. It was supposed to be a three year posting but because of WWII, he did not leave until 1948. Sverdrup was famous in the scientific community for his work as the lead scientist on Roald Amundsen’s North Polar expeditions. After he joined in Munk’s concern, the Navy could no longer ignore the issue. Together, they developed the Sverdrup/Munk Theory of Wave Prediction, which soon allowed for the safe landing of troops in North Africa. They had done what no one had done before, used science to predict surf conditions.
Their work is the basis for today’s surf reports which city fathers watch intently when extra high surf is forecast and avid surfers follow on a daily basis.
For the balance of T. Ultican’s post, go here.
{ 0 comments… add one now }