Harald Sverdrup Manuscripts, 1937-1977 (bulk 1937-1943) (SMC 121)

Harald Ulrik Sverdrup (1888-1956) was a Norwegian meteorologist and oceanographer. Sverdrup was the chief scientist on Roald Amundsen's 1918-1925 Arctic expedition aboard the Maud. In 1926, he became chair of meteorology at the University of Bergen, and in 1931 he was appointed research professor at the Christian Michelsen Institute. Sverdrup became director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) in 1936, where he improved the research program and developed the graduate curriculum with an emphasis on physical oceanography. Sverdrup coauthored The Oceans: Their Physics, Chemistry and General Biology (1942), a foundational text for modern oceanography. In 1945 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and joined the Executive Committee of the American Geophysical Union, presiding over the AGU Oceanography Section. In 1946 he became president of the International Association of Physical Oceanography. Sverdrup remained director of SIO for almost twelve years before returning to Norway to head the Norwegian Polar Institute, where he continued his scientific contributions.