Seventy Years of Exploration in Oceanography : A Prolonged Weekend Discussion With Walter Munk

It all began with Markus Jochum approaching one of us (HvS) – “when you guys are doing interviews with senior scientists from oceanography and related sciences, why are you not doing Walter Munk?” Indeed, why not? Walter Munk, an icon in oceanography, had just given a wonderful talk in a symposium in honor of his 90th birthday, sweeping a grand circle from his earliest work with Chip Cox on airborne measurements of ocean surface roughness to the latest satellite data – not simply a review, but the struggle of an active scientist opening up new perspectives – as inspiring and stimulating as when one of us (KH) rst met him at the Ocean Waves Conference in Easton in 1961 (Fig. I. 1). Walter immediately agreed to share with us his recollections on the nearly seventy years of his path-breaking contributions in a sheer amazing range of topics, from ocean waves, internal waves, ocean currents, tides, tsunamis, sea level, microseisms and the rotation of the earth to ocean acoustic tomography. With “you guys” Markus was referring to HvS and the various partners HvS had 1 invited to join him in conducting a series of interviews of retired colleagues.

Hans von Storch is director of Institute of Coastal Research of the GKSS Research Centre and professor at the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg. From 1987-1995, he was Senior Scientist and leader of the "Statistical Analysis and Modelling" group at the Max Planck-Institute for Meteorology. His research interests are climate diagnostics and statistical climatology, specifically detection and attribution of anthropogenic climate change, variability and change in storminess and related marine variables (storm surges, ocean waves), regional climate change; use of paleo proxy data to study climate variability and change, transdisciplinary context. He has published fifteen books, and numerous articles and is in charge of a number of projects. He is member of the advisory boards of Journal of Climate, Environmental Science and Policy, and Meteorologische Zeitschrift, and organizor of the GKSS School on Environmental Research. He was a lead author of the Third Assessment of the IPCC. In October 2008, he was awarded a doctor h.c. by Goteborgs Universitet.

Klaus Hasselmann, born 25 October 1931 in Hamburg, emigrated with parents to England, 1934-1949, studied physics and mathematics 1950-1955, Hamburg, Ph.D., Physics, Gottingen, 1957. Habitation, Hamburg, 1962, Professorships at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, 1961-1964, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute/ MIT 1971-1973, Hamburg University, 1973-1975, Founding Director of Max Planck Institute of Meteorology, 1975-1999 (retirement), Scientific Director of German Climate Computing Centre 1991 -1999 (retirement), Dr. h.c. University of East Anglia, July, 2000, He has received numerous awards and published extensively in the fields of ocean waves, satellite remote sensing, climate dynamics, socio-economic impacts of climate change and nonlinear field theory. He is chairman of the Council of the European Climate Forum.