Stommel, Henry (1920–92)

HENRY STOMMEL IS an American oceanographer and meteorologist whose theories on general circulation patterns in the Atlantic Ocean made him the creator of the modern field of dynamical oceanography. Stommel carried out a series of research studies and first suggested that the Earth's rotation is responsible for the Gulf Stream along the coast of North America. He theorized that its northward thrust must be balanced by a stream of cold water moving in the opposite direction beneath it. Carl Wunsch has described Stommel as “a transitional figure, being probably the last of the creative physical oceanographers with no advanced degree, uncomfortable with the way the science had changed, and deeply nostalgic for his early scientific days.” Stommel has been praised for being both a creative theorist and an acute observer who was willing to spend months at sea.

Henry Stommel theorized the circulation patterns of oceans and cold water moving in the opposite direction beneath it.

Stommel was born in Wilmington, Delaware, on September 27,1920, into a family of extremely mixed background. His ancestors came from such different places as the Rhine Valley, Poland, Ireland, the Netherlands, England, and France, and they also had a trace of Micmac Indian. Henrys father, Walter, was a chemist born in northern Germany and trained in Darmstadt and Paris. During World War I, Walter Stommel [Page 931]emigrated to Wilmington, where he was employed by Dupont Chemical. While in the United States, he married Marian Melson. Their son Henry was born shortly after the marriage. Although the reason is not completely clear, perhaps because of anti-German sentiment following World War I, the family then moved to Sweden. Henrys mother, however, soon left Sweden with Henry and returned to Wilmington. Because of his mothers decision not to see her husband again, Henry and his sister Anne grew up in a single-parent family. When Henry was 5 years old, his mother moved with the two children to Brooklyn, New York, to live with her parents and other relatives. Marian supported the entire household thanks to her job as a fund-raiser and public relations officer at a hospital. Henry and his grandfather, Levin Franldin Melson, developed a meaningful relationship in a household dominated by women.

Stommel attended New York City's public schools. He spent one year at Townsend Harris High School but finished high school at Freeport, Long Island, because his family had moved there. Thanks to his receiving a full scholarship, he was able to enroll at Yale University, from where he graduated in 1942. He remained at Yale for two years following graduation, teaching analytic geometry and celestial navigation in the Navy's V-12 program. He also spent six months at the Yale Divinity School, but his lifelong ambivalence toward religion made the ministry an unsuitable vocation for him. In 1944, renowned astrophysicist Lyman Spitzer suggested that Stommel apply for work at the Woods Hole Océanographie Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts—an organization that was fast becoming a decisive part of the U.S. war effort. Stommel was recruited to work in acoustics and antisubmarine warfare but disliked his assignment and tried to be employed in other areas.

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