Wladimir Köppen
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Wladimir Köppen | |
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University of Leipzig |
Wladimir Petrovich Köppen (
Background and education
Wladimir Köppen was born in
He frequently traveled to his family's estate on the Crimean coast from St. Petersburg and to and from Simferopol, in the interior of the peninsula. The floral and geographical diversity of the Crimean peninsula, as well as the starker geographical transitions between the capital and his home, did much to awaken an interest in the relationship between climate and the natural world. In 1867, he transferred to the
He identified five major climatic groups, which correspond with the five main vegetation groups:
- Tropical rainy climate
- Dry climate
- Warm temperature rainy climate
- Snowy and cold climate
- Polar climate
Career and contributions
Köppen was a principal founder of modern climatology and meteorology. Between 1850 and 1860, Köppen contributed to Seewart's sailing handbooks for the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans by studying ship reports over the winds of different oceans.[4] Between 1872 and 1873 Köppen was employed in the Russian meteorological service as an assistant where he helped prepare the daily synoptic weather map.[5] In 1875, he moved back to Germany and became the chief of the new Division of Marine Meteorology at the German naval observatory (Deutsche Seewarte) based in Hamburg. There, he was responsible for establishing a weather forecasting service for the northwestern part of Germany and the adjacent sea areas. After four years of service, he was able to move on to his primary interest of fundamental research, and left the meteorological office.
Köppen began a systematic study of the
Apart from the description of various climate types, he was acquainted with paleoclimatology as well. In 1924, he and his son-in-law Alfred Wegener published a paper called Die Klimate der Geologischen Vorzeit (The climates of the geological past) providing crucial support to the Milanković theory on ice ages. Also, in 1911 he co-wrote The Thermodynamics of the Atmosphere, a textbook that became very popular.[6]
Towards the end of his life, Köppen cooperated with the German climatologist Rudolf Geiger to produce a five-volume work, Handbuch der Klimatologie (Handbook of Climatology). It was never completed, but several parts, three of them by Köppen, were published. After Köppen's death in 1940, Geiger continued to work on modifications to the climate classification system.
Köppen was a prolific scientist, producing more than 500 papers, and he retained his intellectual curiosity and wide range of interests throughout his life. In 1890, he co-authored the first
He had a wife, Marie, and five children including daughter Else. Marie's sister Sophie and her children moved in with the Köppens in 1888.[2]
Bibliography
- Köppen, Wladimir and Wegener, Alfred (1924): The Climates of the Geological Past ' Facsimile of the German original and English translation of 'Die Klimate der Geologischen Vorzeit' Berlin, Stuttgart: Gebr. Borntraeger ISBN 978-3-443-01088-1
- Else Wegener-Köppen, Jörn Thiede (2018): Wladimir Köppen: Scholar for Life (Ein Gelehrtenleben für die Meteorologie), Borntraeger Science Publishers ISBN 978-3-443-01100-0, 316p. (English and German language biography of Wladimir Köppen, highlighting his research with an updated bibliography.)
See also
- List of Russian meteorologists
Notes
- ^ In old orthography, his name is written Влади́міръ Петро́вичъ Ке́ппенъ, while his surname is pronounced [ˈkʲep(ː)ʲɪn].
References
- ISBN 978-0-8078-5363-4.
- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 12 May 2017.
- ^ "Wladimir Koppen's 'Aerology'" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 January 2021. Retrieved 25 September 2020.
- ISBN 9781118897393– via Google Books.
- ^ "Wladimir Peter Koppen facts, information, pictures - Encyclopedia.com articles about Wladimir Peter Koppen". Encyclopedia.com.
- ^ "Alfred Wegener & Harry Hess" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-12-02. Retrieved 2013-11-25.
- ^ H. H. Hildebrandsson, W. Köppen, and G. Neumayer (1890). Wolken-Atlas. Atlas des nuages. Mohr Atlas [Cloud Atlas]. Hamburg.
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Sources
- Allaby, Michael (2000). Encyclopedia of Weather and Climate. New York: Facts On File, Inc. ISBN 0-8160-4071-0.
- Wille, Robert-Jan Wille (2017): Colonizing the Free Atmosphere: Wladimir Köppen’s ‘Aerology’, the German Maritime Observatory, and the Emergence of a Trans-Imperial Network of Weather Balloons and Kites, 1873–1906 Archived 2021-01-18 at the Wayback Machine, History of Meteorology 8 (2017).