Wyrtki, Klaus

Klaus Wyrtki (February 7, 1925 – February 5, 2013) was an American physical oceanographer. Born in Tarnowskie Góry, Upper Silesia, Poland, in 1925, from 1945 to 1948 Wyrtki attended the University of Marburg in Germany, and received his Ph.D. from the University of Kiel in 1950. He was a professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography until 1964, when he became a member of the faculty of the Department of Oceanography at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. From 1993 he was an emeritus professor. Wyrtki worked on understanding and forecasting El Nino. He established a tidal gauge network, gave an explanation for the Pacific oxygen minimum zone under the thermocline, and discovered the ocean current jet that now bears his name, the "Wyrtki Jet". He is also known for his work on thermohaline circulation. Along with British oceanographer David Pugh, Wyrtki proposed and established the Global Sea Level Observing System (GLOSS), a program of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. Wyrtki died on February 5, 2013, in Honolulu, Hawaii. He was survived by his wife, Erika; his son, Oliver; his daughter, Undine; and three grandchildren.