Former UH professor
awarded for science

Klaus Wyrtki is the second
recipient of the prestigious award

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By Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.com

Klaus Wyrtki, retired University of Hawaii professor and world renowned pioneer in Pacific oceanographic research, has been selected as the second recipient of a prestigious award recognizing outstanding contributions to science.

The Prince Albert I Medal was established by the International Association for the Physical Sciences of the Oceans with Prince Rainier of Monaco and is given every other year during the association's General Assembly.

It is named for the late Prince Albert I of Monaco who organized the Oceanography Section of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics in 1919 and was its first president.

Dr. Walter Munk, noted professor of geophysics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., was presented with the first medal in October 2001.

Wyrtki was chosen from 10 nominations internationally to receive the second medal as the most distinguished scientist in the field.

"This is a big honor," said Wyrtki, 78, who will receive the solid gold medal during a ceremony July 2 in Sapporo, Japan.

Emperor Akihito of Japan and his wife are expected to attend a welcome ceremony.

Wyrtki was co-founder of the Global Sea Level Observing System and directed the UH Sea Level Center. He was the first to investigate circulation in the Hawaiian archipelago and did the initial work on the El Nino phenomenon.

"Professor Wyrtki has influenced many students and colleagues over his career and one of his primary legacies ... is that of placing great weight on quality observations of ocean processes," said UH oceanographer Roger Lukas, who earned his doctorate degree as one of Wyrtki's students.

"Today, with so many satellites acquiring millions and millions of bits of data every minute," Lukas said, "it's easy to discount the value of information.

"But at a time when such information was relatively sparse, professor Wyrtki took these few high-quality data and, along with a whole lot of physical intuition, he and his colleagues learned a significant amount about how the ocean works and laid the foundation for the modern era of satellite oceanography."

Lukas said Wyrtki also "articulated the importance of attempting to predict the future of the evolution of the ocean because, after all, as he put it, one true test of one's understanding is the ability to predict.

"And this attitude provided the primary motivation for the now routine prediction of the El Nino Southern Oscillation."

Wyrtki was born in Germany and earned a doctorate of natural sciences from the University of Kiel. He was a researcher at various institutions in Germany and Australia before going to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1961. He joined UH in 1964 and retired as a professor emeritus in 1993.

A 57-foot longline fishing boat donated to the UH that year for coastal research also was named for Wyrtki.