Walter Munk awarded 2010 Crafoord Prize

Walter Munk, who has been a part of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography since 1940, has received the 2010 Crafoord Prize in Geosciences.

The announcement from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Thursday said he was honored “for his pioneering and fundamental contributions to our understanding of ocean circulation, tides and waves, and their role in the Earth’s dynamics.”

It notes that “his work on tides and howinternal waves arise in oceans has b een crucial to our understanding of how water masses in the oceans undergo mixing at great depths.” It also cited his development of “entirely new observation methods, such as acoustic tomography and the technique of analysing photographs of solar reflection from the ocean surface.”

Munk, 92, is a La Jolla resident who was born in Vienna, Austria. He received a Ph.D. in oceanography in 1947 from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and has spent his entire professional career there.

The prize is awarded annually on a rotating basis in the fields of astronomy and mathematics, bioscienes, geosciences with emphasis on ecology, or rheumatoid arthritis research. It comes with a cash award of more than $500,000, according to the Crafoord Prize Web site. Munk will receive the award on May 11 from the King of Sweden on Crafoord Day.