Meterology Portion

I typed all the info I found. Some of it is out out of order then how we would use it. For instance I talked about his four trips to Greendland, but he died on his fourth trip and that would go at the end of our presentation.


In 1904, Alfred Wegener received a doctorate in astronomy from the University of Berlin. Alfred Wegener left the astronomy field because he preferred meteorology. Alfred was fascinated with the science of weather. During his time there were rapid advances occurring in storm tracking and forecasting that intrigued Alfred such as the telegraph and Atlantic cable. In 1905, Wegener studied the upper atmosphere with kites and balloons at the Royal Prussian Aeronautical Observatory. In 1906, Alfred and his brother Kurt set a world record in an international balloon contest by flying fifty-two hours straight.
Thanks to his upper-air work, Wegener fulfilled his childhood dream by being invited to join a voyage to Greenland that would consist of four trips. His first trip he was selected as an official meteorologist for a Danish expedition to Northern Greenland from 1906-1908. He was thrilled to explore the Artic. During his first trip, he used kites and tethered balloons to study the polar atmosphere. In 1912, Wegener returned to Greenland again to study glaciology and climatology. This time the trip was a four-man voyage and very dangerous. They were the first group of people to survive a winter on the ice cap. In the spring that followed they made the longest crossing across the ice cap ever made on foot, making it through 750 miles of snow and ice rising 10,000 feet in elevation. Wegener collected volumes of scientific data on his trip.
After returning from Greenland, he received a job teaching meteorology at the University of Marburg. His lectures were extremely popular among students because he explained difficult concepts in easy terms. At the age of thirty, Alfred Wegener published a textbook titled The Thermodynamics of the Atmosphere. It became a standard textbook throughout Germany and consisted of all his lectures as well as the modern theory on the origins of precipitation. A well-known Russian climatologist named Alexander Woeikoff claimed “a new star has risen” after reading Wegener’s text (Earth Observatory).
Proceeding his service in World War I, Alfred succeeded his father-in-law as the director of the meteorological research department of the Marine Observatory. At the Marine Observatory he conducted experiments to reproduce lunar craters by throwing projectiles at various ground substances. This demonstrated craters were probably the result of impact rather than having a volcanic origin. He continued to analyze data from his trips to Greenland and observe the meteorological phenomena. In 1930, he went to Greenland again as a leader of the expedition sailing from Copenhagen to Greenland. His final trip to Greenland was on November 1, 1930. Alfred and others went to celebrate his fiftieth birthday at a camp in the center of the Greenland ice cap and unfortunately Alfred died later that day.
In 1926, Alfred Wegener was given a professorship in meteorology and geophysics at the University of Graz. He established himself as one of the world’s leading experts on polar meteorology and glaciology.