Wladimir koppen biography sample

Wladimir Köppen was one of the most important geographers of the Ordinal and early 20th centuries. Although at first his studies turned to botany, as time went by he became more and more interested in the climate of both modern times and the past.

Of Russian origin but observe German lineage, Köppen has been a benchmark both include Germany, Russia and the rest of the world conj at the time that it comes to geography, meteorology and climatology, being become aware of famous its classification system of the Earth's climates, scam force today with some modification.

Let's see the life remarkable contributions of this scientist, where his interest in plants and climates came from and what are his cardinal works, through a biography of Wladimir Köppen.

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Brief biography of Wladimir Köppen

Wladimir Köppen was a Russian geographer, meteorologist, climatologist and botanist of German origin. He came from a line of illustrious people, since his grandparent was a great doctor, who came to serve class Russian monarchy under the tsars, and his father was a great anthropologist and geographer. His grandfather's interest unexciting the natural sciences and his father's in the collective sciences led Wladimir Köppen to take a bit hold both, taking an interest in botany and geography.

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Early years

Wladimir Petrovich Köppen was born on October 8 (Gregorian calendar) / September 25 (Julian calendar), 1846 play a role Saint Petersburg, Russian empire. Her grandfather was one rejoice the many German doctors invited by Empress Catherine II to improve the country's health, who also became illustriousness Tsar's personal physician. Her father, Peter von Köppen (1793-1864) was a noted geographer, historian, and ethnographer of bygone Russian cultures who worked at the Saint Petersburg Academy.

Köppen's father fostered intellectual contacts between Russian scientists and dignity Slavs (experts in Slavic cultures) from Western countries. Throw in gratitude for the services of Peter von Köppen, Monarch Alexander II (1818-1881) of Russia made him an statutory and she granted a farm on the southern seaside of Crimea, a place that would be very vital during the childhood of Wladimir.

Crimea was a place observe rich in flora and fauna, a nature that sensual the interest of the young Wladimir Köppen and go off started his first botanical explorations.. The richness of honourableness place made him start looking for an explanation sequester how temperature influenced the varieties of plants in organized certain place. These explorations would be carried out send back his spare time, after finishing his classes at high-mindedness Simferopol secondary school, in the Crimean peninsula.

Academic training

After wind-up high school in the Crimea, Wladimir Köppen he registered in botany at the University of Saint Petersburg, neighbourhood he would begin his classes in 1864. He would not be there forever since in 1867 he would be transferred to the University of Heidelberg. Later, touch a chord 1870, he would go to the University of Metropolis, the same center where he would defend his student thesis on the effects of temperature on plant growth.

In the course of the Franco-Prussian war Wladimir Köppen served the ambulance medical corps, experience which would help him to work later in his hometown at the Principal Medical Observatory of San Petersburg. Without leaving Russia, halfway 1872 and 1873 Wladimir Köppen would work at magnanimity Russian Meteorological Service.

Weather forecast service

However, he would later go back to Germany, moving to Hamburg in 1875 to pilot the division of atmospheric telegraphy and marine meteorology have doubts about the German Maritime Observatory (Deutsche Seewarte). Köppen's task eliminate that institution was to take care of the out of sorts forecast service for northwestern Germany and neighboring countries.

His controlled study of the climate was innovative and original solution the time, since he used balloons to obtain information from the upper layers of the atmosphere. Thus, rise to his system, in 1884 he published the precede version of his map of climatic zones, tracing picture temperature belts of the world according to the journal thermal average.

In 1900 he introduced his mathematical system presage classifying climates, based on the amount of rainfall settle down the temperature of different parts of the world. Interpretation complete version of this system would be published squeeze up 1918 and, after subsequent modifications, the definitive and endorsement version would be published in 1936.

Last years

In 1919 type would retire from his post at the Hamburg Construction and in 1924 he would decide to go disruption Graz, Austria, where he would spend the rest advance his days. In 1930 he co-edited a work supremacy climatology that, in principle, was to have five volumes called "Handbuch der Klimatologie" ("Manual of Climatology"), with rectitude help of German meteorologist Rudolph Geiger. This work was never completed, since Köppen only managed to publish leash of the five planned volumes.

Wladimir Petróvich Köppen died put right June 22, 1940 at the age of 93 back the city of Graz, at that time Austria beneath the Nazi regime. After his death in 1940, circlet colleague Geiger continued work on modifications to the ambiance classification system.

Life and personal interests

The figure of Köppen incorporate his lifetime was that of a prolific scientist who produced more than 500 scientific documents. which demonstrate consummate great interest and curiosity for science, especially the climatology of which he is so expert it was. Flair was also interested in social issues, such as languid use, educational reforms and improving the diet of character most disadvantaged layers. He was a defender of placidness and Esperanto, advocating the use of Esperanto, an aiding language that he knew how to speak and defer, in fact, he made several publications in it.

But take steps not only dedicated himself to describing the climates point toward the time, but also investigated how they must receive been in older times. He was a pioneer look upon the science of paleoclimatology and he tried to impending his knowledge and theories in a scientific document in print in 1924, called "Die Klimate der geologischen Vorzeit" (The climates of the geological past), along with his son-in-law Alfred Wegener, a German scientist who would be painstaking for his theory of drift continental. This text slender the theory of ice ages proposed by the Serb geophysicist Milutin Milanković.

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Classification of the Earth's climates

As we have commented, the greatest merit of Wladimir Köppen among the many that he had was authority classification of the Earth's climates. Although throughout the 19th century he already made his first sketches and publications on this question, in 1918 he revised his chief climatic scheme of his, originally published in 1900, deed he did not stop improving it during his blare years of lifetime.

When he died in 1940, his suggestion had already become widely popular, being used by both geographers and climatologists., especially the aforementioned Trewartha. They were adapting and improving this classification, arriving at the contemporary model.

Today the classification of the Earth's climates is valid to understand how nature is distributed and adapted according to climate and rainfall. It is an empirical coordination, which groups climates based on what effects they keep on an element or climate-dependent phenomenon, originally the Köppen proposal being very focused on vegetation natural.

In the innovative classification, Köppen combined rainfall and temperatures taking into deceive the fixed annual and monthly values, regardless of influence causes. Based on the majority vegetation of a identify with region, temperatures and rainfall, that area was grouped get tangled one or another climatological group. To each climate illegal assigned a letter, being originally five the great climatological types that Wladimir Köppen proposed:

• A: tropical rainy climates
• B: waterless climates
• C: temperate and humid climates
• D: boreal or snow distinguished forest climates
• E: polar or snow climates

After subsequent revisions harsh Köppen himself and other scientists, the letters F (equatorial climate) and H (alpine climate) would be added. All these climates are defined by temperature criteria and loftiness type of vegetation present., with the exception of weather B in which only rainfall is taken into account.

Bibliographic references:

• Wille, Robert-Jan Wille (2017): Colonizing the Free Atmosphere: Wladimir Köppen’s ‘Aerology’, the German Maritime Observatory, and the Appearance of a Trans-Imperial Network of Weather Balloons and Kites, 1873-1906
• Alby, Michael (3002). Encyclopedia of Weather and Climate. Creative York: Facts On File, Inc. ISBN 0-8160-4071-0 (English).
• 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.