Walter Munk
Encyclopedia
Walter Heinrich Munk is an American physical oceanographer
. He is professor of geophysics emeritus and holds the Secretary of the Navy/Chief of Naval Operations Oceanography Chair at Scripps Institution of Oceanography
in La Jolla, California.
, Austria-Hungary
, Munk was sent to a boys' preparatory school in upper New York state in 1932. The family selected New York because they envisioned a career in finance for Munk in a New York bank with connections to the family business. His father, Dr. Hans Munk, and his mother, Rega Brunner, divorced when Munk was a child. His maternal grandfather was a prominent banker and Austrian politician, Lucian Brunner (1850–1914). His stepfather, Dr. Rudolf Engelsberg, was briefly a member of the Austrian government of President Engelbert Dollfuss
.
Munk worked at the firm for three years and studied at Columbia University
. He hated banking, and left the firm to attend the California Institute of Technology
, where he earned a B.S. (1939) in physics. He applied for a summer job at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The next year the director of the Scripps, the distinguished Norwegian oceanographer Harald Ulrik Sverdrup, accepted him as a doctoral student, but told Munk that he did "not know of a single job in oceanography which would become available in the next decade".
Munk completed an M.S. in geophysics in 1940 and a Ph.D. in oceanography from the University of California, Los Angeles
, in 1947. After graduation the Scripps Institution of Oceanography
in La Jolla, California hired him as an assistant professor of geophysics. He became a full professor there in 1954.
In 1968 Munk became a member of JASON, a panel of scientists who advised the U.S. government.
On June 20, 1953, Munk married Judith Horton. She was an active participant at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography for decades, where she made major contributions to architecture, campus planning, and the renovation and reuse of historical buildings. Judith Munk died on May 19, 2006. Munk married La Jolla community leader Mary Coakley in June 2011.
and enlisted in the ski troops of the U.S. Army as a private. This was unusual as all the other young men at Scripps joined the U.S. Naval Reserve. Munk was eventually excused from military service to undertake defense related research at Scripps. He joined several of his colleagues from Scripps at the U.S. Navy Radio and Sound Laboratory, where they developed methods related to amphibious warfare. Their methods were used successfully to predict surf conditions for Allied landings in North Africa
, the Pacific theater of war
, and on D-Day
during the Normandy invasion. Munk commented in 2009, "The Normandy landing is famous because weather conditions were very poor and you may not realize it was postponed by General Eisenhower for 24 hours because of the prevailing wave conditions. And then he did decide, in spite of the fact that conditions were not favorable, it would be better to go in than lose the surprise element, which would have been lost if they waited for the next tidal cycle two weeks."
, in 1956 Munk developed plans for a La Jolla branch of
the Institute of Geophysics, then a part of the University of California
, Los Angeles
. With the new branch of IGP, an institution of
the wider University of California system, to be focused on planetary physics with an emphasis on the Earth-Moon system, IGP changed its name
to the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, IGPP. IGPP at La Jolla was built between 1959-1963 with funding from the University of California, the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the National Science Foundation, and private foundations,
The redwood building was designed by architect Lloyd Ruocco, in close consultation with Judith and Walter Munk. The IGPP buildings have become the center of the Scripps campus. Among the early faculty appointments were Carl Eckart
, George Backus, Freeman Gilbert and John Miles
. In 1971 an endowment of $600,000 was established by Cecil Green
to support visiting scholars, now known as Green Scholars. Munk served as director of IGPP/LJ from 1963-1982.
In the late 1980s, plans for an expansion of IGPP were developed by Judith and Walter Munk, and Sharyn and John Orcutt, in consultation with a local architect, Fred Liebhardt. The Revelle Laboratory was completed in 1993. At this time the original IGPP building was renamed the Walter and Judith Munk Laboratory for Geophysics. In 1994 the Scripps branch of IGPP was renamed the Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics.
in the South Pacific
, where the United States was testing nuclear weapons.
always faces the earth (Munk and McDonald, 1960; and later papers up to 1975), a phenomenon known as tidal locking
. Lord Kelvin
had also considered this question, and had fashioned a non-quantitative answer being roughly correct. The moon does not have a molten liquid core, so cannot rotate through the egg-shaped distortion caused by the Earth's gravitational pull. Rotation through this shape requires internal shearing, and only fluids are capable of such rotation with small frictional losses. Thus, the pointy end of the "egg" is gravitationally locked to always point directly towards the earth, with some small librations
, or wobbles. Large objects may strike the moon from time to time, causing it to rotate about some axis, but it will quickly stop rotating. All frictional effects from such events will also cause the moon to regress further away from the earth.
In the 1950s, Munk investigated irregularities in the Earth's rotation, such as the Chandler wobble
and annual and long-term changes in the length of day (rate of the Earth's rotation), to see how these were related to geophysical processes such as the changes in the atmosphere, ocean, and core, and the energy dissipated by tidal acceleration. He also investigated how western boundary currents, such as the Gulf Stream, dissipated planetary vorticity. His inviscid theory of these currents did not have a time invariant solution; no simple solution to this problem has ever been found.
suggested the idea behind Project Mohole
: to drill into the Mohorovicic Discontinuity
and obtain a sample of the Earth's mantle
. While such a project was not feasible on land, drilling in the open ocean would be more feasible, because the mantle is much closer to the sea floor. Initially led by the informal group of scientists known as the American Miscellaneous Society
(AMSOC, including Hess, Maurice Ewing
, and Roger Revelle
), the project was eventually taken over by the National Science Foundation
(NSF). Initial test drillings into the sea floor led by Willard Bascom
occurred off Guadalupe Island
, Mexico in March and April 1961. The project became mismanaged and increasingly expensive after Brown and Root won the contract to continue the effort, however, and Congress discontinued the project toward the end of 1966. While Project Mohole was not successful, the idea led to projects such as NSF's Deep Sea Drilling Program
.
, and, thanks to his acquaintance with John Tukey
, he pioneered the use of power spectra
in describing wave behavior. This work culminated with an experiment that he led in 1963 to observe waves generated by winter storms in the Southern Hemisphere and traveling thousands of miles throughout the Pacific ocean. To trace the path and decay of waves as they propagated northward, he established stations to measure waves from islands and at sea (on R/P FLIP
) along a great circle from New Zealand to Alaska. The results showed little decay of wave energy with distance traveled. This work, together with the wartime work on wave forecasting, led to the science of surf forecasting
, one of Munk's best-known accomplishments. Munk's pioneering research into surf forecasting was acknowledged in 2007 with an award from the Groundswell Society, a surfing advocacy organization.
. Modern methods of time-series and spectral analysis were brought to bear on tidal analysis, leading to the development of the "response method" of tidal analysis. With Frank Snodgrass, Munk developed deep-ocean pressure sensors that could be used to provide tidal data far from any land. One highlight of this work was the discovery of the semidiurnal amphidrome
midway between California and Hawaii.
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
pioneered the development of acoustic tomography
of the ocean. With Peter Worcester, Munk developed the use of sound propagation, particularly sound arrival patterns and travel times, to infer important information about the ocean's large-scale temperature and current. This work, together with the work of other groups, eventually motivated the 1991 "Heard Island Feasibility Test", to determine if man-made acoustic signals could be transmitted over antipodal
distances to measure the ocean's climate
. The experiment came to be called "the sound heard around the world." During six days in January 1991,
acoustic signals were transmitted by sound sources lowered from the M/V Cory Chouest
near Heard Island in the southern Indian Ocean
. These signals traveled half-way around the globe to be received on the east and west coasts of the United States, as well as at many other stations around the world.
The follow-up to this experiment was the 1996-2006 Acoustic Thermometry of Ocean Climate
(ATOC) project in the North Pacific Ocean,
which engendered considerable public controversy concerning the effects of man-made sounds on marine mammals.
. According to Sandström's theorem
(1908), without the occurrence of mixing in the abyssal ocean, such as may be driven by internal tides, most of the ocean would become cold and stagnant, capped by a thin, warm surface layer.
Munk has also recently focused on the relation between changes in ocean temperature, sea level, and the transfer of mass between continental ice and the ocean.
in 1956 and to the Royal Society of London in 1976. He has been a both a Guggenheim Fellow (three times) and a Fulbright Fellow. He was also named California Scientist of the Year by the California Museum of Science and Industry in 1969. Among the many other awards and honors Munk has received are the Arthur L. Day Medal
, from the Geological Society of America
in 1965, the Sverdrup Gold Medal
of the American Meteorological Society
in 1966, the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
in 1968, the first Maurice Ewing Medal
sponsored by the American Geophysical Union
and the U.S. Navy in 1976, the Alexander Agassiz Medal
of the National Academy of Sciences
in 1977, the Captain Robert Dexter Conrad Award
from the U.S. Navy in 1978, the National Medal of Science
in 1983, the William Bowie Medal
of the American Geophysical Union
in 1989, the Vetlesen Prize
in 1993, the Kyoto Prize
in 1999, the first Prince Albert I Medal
in 2001, and the Crafoord Prize
of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
in 2010 “for his pioneering and fundamental contributions to our understanding of ocean circulation, tides and waves, and their role in the Earth′s dynamics”.
In 1993 Munk was the first recipient of the Walter Munk Award given "in Recognition of Distinguished Research in Oceanography Related to Sound and the Sea." This award is given jointly by the Oceanography Society
, the Office of Naval Research
and the Office of the Oceanographer of the Navy.
Physical oceanography
Physical oceanography is the study of physical conditions and physical processes within the ocean, especially the motions and physical properties of ocean waters.Physical oceanography is one of several sub-domains into which oceanography is divided...
. He is professor of geophysics emeritus and holds the Secretary of the Navy/Chief of Naval Operations Oceanography Chair at Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, is one of the oldest and largest centers for ocean and earth science research, graduate training, and public service in the world...
in La Jolla, California.
Early life
Born in 1917 in ViennaVienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
, Munk was sent to a boys' preparatory school in upper New York state in 1932. The family selected New York because they envisioned a career in finance for Munk in a New York bank with connections to the family business. His father, Dr. Hans Munk, and his mother, Rega Brunner, divorced when Munk was a child. His maternal grandfather was a prominent banker and Austrian politician, Lucian Brunner (1850–1914). His stepfather, Dr. Rudolf Engelsberg, was briefly a member of the Austrian government of President Engelbert Dollfuss
Engelbert Dollfuss
Engelbert Dollfuss was an Austrian Christian Social and Patriotic Front statesman. Serving previously as Minister for Forest and Agriculture, he ascended to Federal Chancellor in 1932 in the midst of a crisis for the conservative government...
.
Munk worked at the firm for three years and studied at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. He hated banking, and left the firm to attend the California Institute of Technology
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...
, where he earned a B.S. (1939) in physics. He applied for a summer job at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The next year the director of the Scripps, the distinguished Norwegian oceanographer Harald Ulrik Sverdrup, accepted him as a doctoral student, but told Munk that he did "not know of a single job in oceanography which would become available in the next decade".
Munk completed an M.S. in geophysics in 1940 and a Ph.D. in oceanography from the University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
, in 1947. After graduation the Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, is one of the oldest and largest centers for ocean and earth science research, graduate training, and public service in the world...
in La Jolla, California hired him as an assistant professor of geophysics. He became a full professor there in 1954.
In 1968 Munk became a member of JASON, a panel of scientists who advised the U.S. government.
On June 20, 1953, Munk married Judith Horton. She was an active participant at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography for decades, where she made major contributions to architecture, campus planning, and the renovation and reuse of historical buildings. Judith Munk died on May 19, 2006. Munk married La Jolla community leader Mary Coakley in June 2011.
War activities
Munk applied for American citizenship in 1939 after the AnschlussAnschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
and enlisted in the ski troops of the U.S. Army as a private. This was unusual as all the other young men at Scripps joined the U.S. Naval Reserve. Munk was eventually excused from military service to undertake defense related research at Scripps. He joined several of his colleagues from Scripps at the U.S. Navy Radio and Sound Laboratory, where they developed methods related to amphibious warfare. Their methods were used successfully to predict surf conditions for Allied landings in North Africa
Operation Torch
Operation Torch was the British-American invasion of French North Africa in World War II during the North African Campaign, started on 8 November 1942....
, the Pacific theater of war
Pacific War
The Pacific War, also sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War refers broadly to the parts of World War II that took place in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and in East Asia, then called the Far East...
, and on D-Day
D-Day
D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar...
during the Normandy invasion. Munk commented in 2009, "The Normandy landing is famous because weather conditions were very poor and you may not realize it was postponed by General Eisenhower for 24 hours because of the prevailing wave conditions. And then he did decide, in spite of the fact that conditions were not favorable, it would be better to go in than lose the surprise element, which would have been lost if they waited for the next tidal cycle two weeks."
The Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics in La Jolla, IGPP/LJ
Returning to Scripps from a sabbatical at Cambridge University in EnglandEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, in 1956 Munk developed plans for a La Jolla branch of
the Institute of Geophysics, then a part of the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
, Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. With the new branch of IGP, an institution of
the wider University of California system, to be focused on planetary physics with an emphasis on the Earth-Moon system, IGP changed its name
to the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, IGPP. IGPP at La Jolla was built between 1959-1963 with funding from the University of California, the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the National Science Foundation, and private foundations,
The redwood building was designed by architect Lloyd Ruocco, in close consultation with Judith and Walter Munk. The IGPP buildings have become the center of the Scripps campus. Among the early faculty appointments were Carl Eckart
Carl Eckart
Carl Henry Eckart was an American physicist, physical oceanographer, geophysicist, and administrator. He co-developed the Wigner-Eckart theorem and is also known for the Eckart conditions in quantum mechanics.-Education:Eckart began college in 1919 at Washington University in St...
, George Backus, Freeman Gilbert and John Miles
John W. Miles
John Wilder Miles was a research professor emeritus of applied mechanics and geophysics at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego...
. In 1971 an endowment of $600,000 was established by Cecil Green
Cecil Howard Green
Cecil Howard Green was a British-born American geophysicist who trained at the University of British Columbia and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology....
to support visiting scholars, now known as Green Scholars. Munk served as director of IGPP/LJ from 1963-1982.
In the late 1980s, plans for an expansion of IGPP were developed by Judith and Walter Munk, and Sharyn and John Orcutt, in consultation with a local architect, Fred Liebhardt. The Revelle Laboratory was completed in 1993. At this time the original IGPP building was renamed the Walter and Judith Munk Laboratory for Geophysics. In 1994 the Scripps branch of IGPP was renamed the Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics.
Research
After World War II Munk helped to analyze the currents, diffusion, and water exchanges at Bikini AtollBikini Atoll
Bikini Atoll is an atoll, listed as a World Heritage Site, in the Micronesian Islands of the Pacific Ocean, part of Republic of the Marshall Islands....
in the South Pacific
Oceania
Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...
, where the United States was testing nuclear weapons.
Wind driven gyres
Munk pioneered research on the relationship between winds and ocean circulation, coining the now widely used term "wind-driven gyres."Rotation of the earth
Munk was the first to show rigorously why one side of the moonMoon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
always faces the earth (Munk and McDonald, 1960; and later papers up to 1975), a phenomenon known as tidal locking
Tidal locking
Tidal locking occurs when the gravitational gradient makes one side of an astronomical body always face another; for example, the same side of the Earth's Moon always faces the Earth. A tidally locked body takes just as long to rotate around its own axis as it does to revolve around its partner...
. Lord Kelvin
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin OM, GCVO, PC, PRS, PRSE, was a mathematical physicist and engineer. At the University of Glasgow he did important work in the mathematical analysis of electricity and formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and did much to unify the emerging...
had also considered this question, and had fashioned a non-quantitative answer being roughly correct. The moon does not have a molten liquid core, so cannot rotate through the egg-shaped distortion caused by the Earth's gravitational pull. Rotation through this shape requires internal shearing, and only fluids are capable of such rotation with small frictional losses. Thus, the pointy end of the "egg" is gravitationally locked to always point directly towards the earth, with some small librations
Libration
In astronomy, libration is an oscillating motion of orbiting bodies relative to each other, notably including the motion of the Moon relative to Earth, or of Trojan asteroids relative to planets.-Lunar libration:...
, or wobbles. Large objects may strike the moon from time to time, causing it to rotate about some axis, but it will quickly stop rotating. All frictional effects from such events will also cause the moon to regress further away from the earth.
In the 1950s, Munk investigated irregularities in the Earth's rotation, such as the Chandler wobble
Chandler wobble
The Chandler wobble is a small motion in the Earth's axis of rotation relative to the Earth's surface, which was discovered by American astronomer Seth Carlo Chandler in 1891. It amounts to on the Earth's surface and has a period of 433 days...
and annual and long-term changes in the length of day (rate of the Earth's rotation), to see how these were related to geophysical processes such as the changes in the atmosphere, ocean, and core, and the energy dissipated by tidal acceleration. He also investigated how western boundary currents, such as the Gulf Stream, dissipated planetary vorticity. His inviscid theory of these currents did not have a time invariant solution; no simple solution to this problem has ever been found.
Project Mohole
In 1957, Munk and Harry HessHarry Hammond Hess
Harry Hammond Hess was a geologist and United States Navy officer in World War II.Considered one of the "founding fathers" of the unifying theory of plate tectonics, Rear Admiral Harry Hammond Hess was born on May 24, 1906 in New York City...
suggested the idea behind Project Mohole
Project Mohole
Project Mohole was an ambitious attempt to drill through the Earth's crust into the Mohorovičić discontinuity, and to provide an Earth science complement to the high profile Space Race. The project was initially led by the American Miscellaneous Society with funding from the National Science...
: to drill into the Mohorovicic Discontinuity
Mohorovicic discontinuity
The Mohorovičić discontinuity , usually referred to as the Moho, is the boundary between the Earth's crust and the mantle. Named after the pioneering Croatian seismologist Andrija Mohorovičić, the Moho separates both the oceanic crust and continental crust from underlying mantle...
and obtain a sample of the Earth's mantle
Mantle (geology)
The mantle is a part of a terrestrial planet or other rocky body large enough to have differentiation by density. The interior of the Earth, similar to the other terrestrial planets, is chemically divided into layers. The mantle is a highly viscous layer between the crust and the outer core....
. While such a project was not feasible on land, drilling in the open ocean would be more feasible, because the mantle is much closer to the sea floor. Initially led by the informal group of scientists known as the American Miscellaneous Society
American Miscellaneous Society
The American Miscellaneous Society was formed by Gordon Lill, of the Office of Naval Research, as an organization designed to collect various Earth science research ideas that were submitted by scientists to the U.S. Navy and didn't fit into any particular category. Membership in AMSOC was open...
(AMSOC, including Hess, Maurice Ewing
Maurice Ewing
William Maurice "Doc" Ewing was an American geophysicist and oceanographer.Ewing has been described as a pioneering geophysicist who worked on the research of seismic reflection and refraction in ocean basins, ocean bottom photography, submarine sound transmission , deep sea coring of the ocean...
, and Roger Revelle
Roger Revelle
Roger Randall Dougan Revelle was a scientist and scholar who was instrumental in the formative years of the University of California, San Diego and was one of the first scientists to study global warming and the movement of Earth's tectonic plates...
), the project was eventually taken over by the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
(NSF). Initial test drillings into the sea floor led by Willard Bascom
Willard Bascom
Willard Bascom , was an engineer and scientist, who first proposed using Neoprene for wetsuits to fellow scientist Hugh Bradner. He also proposed the hypothesis that anoxic water in the Black Sea could have preserved ancient Black Sea shipwrecks...
occurred off Guadalupe Island
Guadalupe Island
Guadalupe Island, or Isla Guadalupe is a volcanic island located 241 kilometers off the west coast of Mexico's Baja California peninsula and some 400 kilometers southwest of the city of Ensenada in Baja California state, in the Pacific Ocean...
, Mexico in March and April 1961. The project became mismanaged and increasingly expensive after Brown and Root won the contract to continue the effort, however, and Congress discontinued the project toward the end of 1966. While Project Mohole was not successful, the idea led to projects such as NSF's Deep Sea Drilling Program
Deep Sea Drilling Program
The Deep Sea Drilling Project was an ocean drilling project operated from 1968 to 1983. The program was considered to be successful as evidenced by the data and publications that have resulted from it and is now supported by Texas A&M University, although for the years of its operations these were...
.
Ocean swell
Starting in the late 1950s Munk returned to the study of ocean wavesSwell (ocean)
A swell, in the context of an ocean, sea or lake, is a series surface gravity waves that is not generated by the local wind. Swell waves often have a long wavelength but this varies with the size of the water body, e.g. rarely more than 150 m in the Mediterranean, and from event to event, with...
, and, thanks to his acquaintance with John Tukey
John Tukey
John Wilder Tukey ForMemRS was an American statistician.- Biography :Tukey was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1915, and obtained a B.A. in 1936 and M.Sc. in 1937, in chemistry, from Brown University, before moving to Princeton University where he received a Ph.D...
, he pioneered the use of power spectra
Spectral density
In statistical signal processing and physics, the spectral density, power spectral density , or energy spectral density , is a positive real function of a frequency variable associated with a stationary stochastic process, or a deterministic function of time, which has dimensions of power per hertz...
in describing wave behavior. This work culminated with an experiment that he led in 1963 to observe waves generated by winter storms in the Southern Hemisphere and traveling thousands of miles throughout the Pacific ocean. To trace the path and decay of waves as they propagated northward, he established stations to measure waves from islands and at sea (on R/P FLIP
R/P FLIP
RP FLIP is an open ocean research vessel owned by the Office of Naval Research and operated by the Marine Physical Laboratory of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography...
) along a great circle from New Zealand to Alaska. The results showed little decay of wave energy with distance traveled. This work, together with the wartime work on wave forecasting, led to the science of surf forecasting
Surf forecasting
Surf forecasting is the process of using offshore swell data to predict onshore wave conditions. It is used by millions of people across the world, including professionals who put their forecasts online, meteorologists who work for news crews, and surfers all over the world...
, one of Munk's best-known accomplishments. Munk's pioneering research into surf forecasting was acknowledged in 2007 with an award from the Groundswell Society, a surfing advocacy organization.
Ocean tides
Partially motivated by their effects on the Earth's rotation, between 1965 and 1975 Munk turned to investigations of ocean tidesTide
Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the moon and the sun and the rotation of the Earth....
. Modern methods of time-series and spectral analysis were brought to bear on tidal analysis, leading to the development of the "response method" of tidal analysis. With Frank Snodgrass, Munk developed deep-ocean pressure sensors that could be used to provide tidal data far from any land. One highlight of this work was the discovery of the semidiurnal amphidrome
Amphidromic point
An amphidromic point is a point within a tidal system where the tidal range is almost zero. The tidal range is zero at the amphidromic point and increases with distance from this point...
midway between California and Hawaii.
Ocean acoustic tomography
Beginning in 1975, Munk and Carl WunschCarl Wunsch
Carl Wunsch is the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physical Oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is known for his early work in internal waves and more recently for research into the effects of ocean circulation on climate.- Career :Wunsch received his Ph. D. in...
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
pioneered the development of acoustic tomography
Ocean acoustic tomography
Ocean Acoustic Tomography is a technique used to measure temperatures and currents over large regions of the ocean. On ocean basin scales, this technique is also known as acoustic thermometry. The technique relies on precisely measuring the time it takes sound signals to travel between two...
of the ocean. With Peter Worcester, Munk developed the use of sound propagation, particularly sound arrival patterns and travel times, to infer important information about the ocean's large-scale temperature and current. This work, together with the work of other groups, eventually motivated the 1991 "Heard Island Feasibility Test", to determine if man-made acoustic signals could be transmitted over antipodal
Antipodes
In geography, the antipodes of any place on Earth is the point on the Earth's surface which is diametrically opposite to it. Two points that are antipodal to one another are connected by a straight line running through the centre of the Earth....
distances to measure the ocean's climate
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
. The experiment came to be called "the sound heard around the world." During six days in January 1991,
acoustic signals were transmitted by sound sources lowered from the M/V Cory Chouest
MV Cory Chouest
MV Cory Chouest is an ocean surveillance ship leased by the U.S. Navy in 1989 and assigned to the Navy’s Special Missions Program. Cory Choquest had all SURTASS equipment removed and was returned to her original owners in 2008 completing nearly 20 years of service.-Construction:Cory Chouest was...
near Heard Island in the southern Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
. These signals traveled half-way around the globe to be received on the east and west coasts of the United States, as well as at many other stations around the world.
The follow-up to this experiment was the 1996-2006 Acoustic Thermometry of Ocean Climate
Ocean acoustic tomography
Ocean Acoustic Tomography is a technique used to measure temperatures and currents over large regions of the ocean. On ocean basin scales, this technique is also known as acoustic thermometry. The technique relies on precisely measuring the time it takes sound signals to travel between two...
(ATOC) project in the North Pacific Ocean,
which engendered considerable public controversy concerning the effects of man-made sounds on marine mammals.
Tides and mixing
In recent years Munk has returned to the work on the role of tides in producing mixing in the ocean. In a 1966 paper "Abyssal Recipes", Munk was one of the first to quantitatively assess the rate of mixing in the abyssal ocean in maintaining oceanic stratificationStratification (water)
Water stratification occurs when water masses with different properties - salinity , oxygenation , density , temperature - form layers that act as barriers to water mixing...
. According to Sandström's theorem
Johan Sandström
Johan Wilhelm Sandström , born 6 juni 1874 in Norra Degerfors, Västerbotten County, died 1947, was a Swedish oceanographer....
(1908), without the occurrence of mixing in the abyssal ocean, such as may be driven by internal tides, most of the ocean would become cold and stagnant, capped by a thin, warm surface layer.
Munk has also recently focused on the relation between changes in ocean temperature, sea level, and the transfer of mass between continental ice and the ocean.
Awards
Munk was elected to the National Academy of SciencesUnited States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
in 1956 and to the Royal Society of London in 1976. He has been a both a Guggenheim Fellow (three times) and a Fulbright Fellow. He was also named California Scientist of the Year by the California Museum of Science and Industry in 1969. Among the many other awards and honors Munk has received are the Arthur L. Day Medal
Arthur L. Day Medal
The Arthur L. Day Medal is a prize awarded by the Geological Society of America, established in 1948 by Arthur Louis Day for "outstanding distinction in contributing to geologic knowledge through the application of physics and chemistry to the solution of geologic problems"....
, from the Geological Society of America
Geological Society of America
The Geological Society of America is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of the geosciences. The society was founded in New York in 1888 by Alexander Winchell, John J. Stevenson, Charles H. Hitchcock, John R. Proctor and Edward Orton and has been headquartered at 3300 Penrose...
in 1965, the Sverdrup Gold Medal
Sverdrup Gold Medal Award
Sverdrup Gold Medal Award - is the American Meteorological Society's award granted to researchers who make outstanding contributions to the scientific knowledge of interactions between the oceans and the atmosphere.-Recipients:...
of the American Meteorological Society
American Meteorological Society
The American Meteorological Society promotes the development and dissemination of information and education on the atmospheric and related oceanic and hydrologic sciences and the advancement of their professional applications. Founded in 1919, the American Meteorological Society has a membership...
in 1966, the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
Royal Astronomical Society
The Royal Astronomical Society is a learned society that began as the Astronomical Society of London in 1820 to support astronomical research . It became the Royal Astronomical Society in 1831 on receiving its Royal Charter from William IV...
in 1968, the first Maurice Ewing Medal
Maurice Ewing Medal
The Maurice Ewing Medal is awarded by the American Geophysical Union for "significant original contributions to the understanding of physical, geophysical, and geological processes in the ocean; to those who advance oceanographic engineering, technology, and instrumentation; and to those who...
sponsored by the American Geophysical Union
American Geophysical Union
The American Geophysical Union is a nonprofit organization of geophysicists, consisting of over 50,000 members from over 135 countries. AGU's activities are focused on the organization and dissemination of scientific information in the interdisciplinary and international field of geophysics...
and the U.S. Navy in 1976, the Alexander Agassiz Medal
Alexander Agassiz Medal
The Alexander Agassiz Medal is awarded by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences for an original contribution in the science of oceanography. It was established by Sir John Murray in honor of his friend Alexander Agassiz.-Recipients:-References:NotesA...
of the National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
in 1977, the Captain Robert Dexter Conrad Award
Captain Robert Dexter Conrad Award
The Captain Robert Dexter Conrad Award is an award presented annually to the individual making an outstanding contribution in naval research and development.- Background:...
from the U.S. Navy in 1978, the National Medal of Science
National Medal of Science
The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social sciences, biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and...
in 1983, the William Bowie Medal
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"...
of the American Geophysical Union
American Geophysical Union
The American Geophysical Union is a nonprofit organization of geophysicists, consisting of over 50,000 members from over 135 countries. AGU's activities are focused on the organization and dissemination of scientific information in the interdisciplinary and international field of geophysics...
in 1989, the Vetlesen Prize
Vetlesen Prize
The Vetlesen Prize is awarded from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation.-Background:The Vetlesen Prize has been described as an attempt to establish an equivalent of a Nobel award for geophysics or geology...
in 1993, the Kyoto Prize
Kyoto Prize
The has been awarded annually since 1985 by the Inamori Foundation, founded by Kazuo Inamori. The prize is a Japanese award similar in intent to the Nobel Prize, as it recognizes outstanding works in the fields of philosophy, arts, science and technology...
in 1999, the first Prince Albert I Medal
Prince Albert I Medal
The Prince Albert I Medal was established by Prince Rainier of Monaco in partnership with the International Association for the Physical Sciences of the Oceans. The medal was named for Prince Albert I and is given for significant work in the physical and chemical sciences of the oceans...
in 2001, and the Crafoord Prize
Crafoord Prize
The Crafoord Prize is an annual science prize established in 1980 by Holger Crafoord, a Swedish industrialist, and his wife Anna-Greta Crafoord...
of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences or Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. The Academy is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization which acts to promote the sciences, primarily the natural sciences and mathematics.The Academy was founded on 2...
in 2010 “for his pioneering and fundamental contributions to our understanding of ocean circulation, tides and waves, and their role in the Earth′s dynamics”.
In 1993 Munk was the first recipient of the Walter Munk Award given "in Recognition of Distinguished Research in Oceanography Related to Sound and the Sea." This award is given jointly by the Oceanography Society
Oceanography Society
The Oceanography Society is a non-profit society founded in 1988, based in Rockville, Maryland, U.S. and incorporated in the District of Columbia...
, the Office of Naval Research
Office of Naval Research
The Office of Naval Research , headquartered in Arlington, Virginia , is the office within the United States Department of the Navy that coordinates, executes, and promotes the science and technology programs of the U.S...
and the Office of the Oceanographer of the Navy.
Books
- W. Munk and G.J.F. MacDonald, The Rotation of the Earth: A Geophysical Discussion, Cambridge University Press, 1960, revised 1975. ISBN 0-521-20778-9
- W. Munk, P. Worcester, and C. Wunsch, Ocean Acoustic Tomography, Cambridge University Press, 1995. ISBN 0-521-47095-1
- S. Flatté (ed.), R. Dashen, W. H. Munk, K. M. Watson, F. Zachariasen, Sound Transmission through a Fluctuating Ocean, Cambridge University Press, 1979. ISBN 978-0521219402
Documentaries/Films
- "Waves Across the Pacific" (1963) This documentary showcases Munk's research on waves generated by Antarctic storms. The film documents Munk's collaboration as they track storm-driven waves from Antarctica across the Pacific Ocean to Alaska. The film features scenes of early digital equipment in use in field experiments with Munk's commentary on how unsure they were about using such new technology in remote locations.
- One Man's Noise: Stories of An Adventuresome Oceanographer (1994) A television program on the work and life of Walter Munk produced by the University of California. (YouTube link)
- Perspectives on Ocean Science: Global Sea Level: An Enigma (2004) A seminar on global sea level and climate change by Walter Munk. (YouTube link)
- The Sound of Climate Change (2010) Munk's Crafoord Prize Lecture
External links
- Scripps Institution of Oceanography
- UCSD Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP)
- Biography UCSD
- Biography Columbia U.
- Oral History interview transcript with Walter Munk 30 June 1986, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives
- Kyoto Prize
- The Heard Island Feasibility Test