Nils Gustaf Ekholm

Nils Gustaf Ekholm ( born October 9, 1848 in Smedjebacken, † April 5, 1923 in Stockholm) was a Swedish meteorologist.

Life

Nils Gustaf Ekholm was born in 1848 as the son of a pharmacist Nils Petter Ekholm and his wife Ulrika Kristina Forsgren in the province of Dalarna. He studied from 1869 to 1876 at the University of Uppsala. Among his teachers were Robert Rubenson (1829-1902) and Hugo Hildebrand Hildebrandsson ( 1838-1925 ). From 1876 to 1890 he worked as a meteorological Observer at the University of Uppsala. This activity from 1881 to 1884 was interrupted by the preparation and conduct of geophysical Swedish Spitsbergen Expedition in the First International Polar Year. In Svenskhuset at Cape Thordsen on Isfjorden took the seven scientists before 1882-1883 extensive meteorological and geomagnetic observations. Participants in the expedition was Salomon August Andrée.

1890, a year after his PhD. , Ekholm moved to the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute in Stockholm, which he directed from 1913 until his retirement in 1918. In 1896 he was back in Spitsbergen to accompany Andrée on the balloon ride, with the latter wanted to reach the North Pole. But contrary winds prevented this summer to start. Regular measurements Ekholm found that the balloon was not as close as expected and the hydrogen loss occurred faster than expected. He then withdrew from the project. Instead of him, Knut Fraenkel 1897 took part in Andrées polar expedition that failed after a few days because the balloon remained only 10.5 hours in the air. The expedition members were killed.

1900 Ekholm was a founding member and first president of the Swedish Aeronautical Society ( Svenska Aeronautiska Sällskapet ).

In 1905 he became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1913 he was appointed professor.

Ekholm was married in 1895 to Agnes Elphidina Bodén ( 1865-1932 ).

Performance

Ekholm dealt among other things with the causes of climate variations in the Earth's history. As a major factor, he looked at the changing content of the atmosphere of carbon dioxide. For the future he expected a significant increase in the mean temperature of the Earth within a few thousand years caused by the burning of fossil fuels and the associated uptake of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

In his work, weather maps of air pressure fluctuations, he led the 1904 Isallobaren in the synoptic meteorology one.

Ekholm is considered the founder of the Swedish storm warning service, which started initially with 27 stations on the Swedish west coast in 1905. By 1907 the service was extended to the south coast and already included 46 stations. 1913 revealed the power from the entire Swedish coast.

Writings (selection )

  • Nils Ekholm: Undersökningar i hygrometric. dissertation 1888
  • Nils Ekholm, Svante Arrhenius: On the influence of the moon on the electrical state of the earth. P. A. Norstedt, Stockholm 1894
  • Nils Ekholm: Concerning the effect of the vertical component of the deflecting force of the earth's rotation on the air movement. In: METEOROLOG. Journal, 13, 1896, pp. 121-128
  • Nils Ekholm: Some remarks on the decrease of temperature with height in the free atmosphere. In: METEOROLOG. Magazine 13, 1896, pp. 480-483
  • Nils Ekholm, Svante Arrhenius: On the influence of the moon on the auroras and thunderstorms. P. A. Norstedt, Stockholm 1898
  • Nils Ekholm: Concerning the periodicity of Sonnenthätigkeit. Kungl. Boktryckeriet. P. A. Norstedt & Söner, Stockholm 1901
  • Nils Ekholm: On the Variations of the Climate of the Geological and Historical Past and Their Causes (PDF, 50.8 MB). In: Quart. J. Royal Meteorol. Soc. 27, 1901, pp. 1-61
  • Nils Ekholm: About emission and absorption of heat and their impact on the temperature of the earth's surface. In: Meteorologist. Z. 19, 1902, pp. 1-26, 489-505
  • Nils Ekholm: weather maps of air pressure fluctuations. In: Meteorologist. Z. 21, 1904, pp. 345-357

Swell

  • F. Heurlin, V. Millqvist, O. Rubenson, JH Hofberg (ed.): Ekholm, Nils Gustaf, Svensk biografiskt hand lexicon, Stockholm 1906, pp. 286-287 (in Swedish )
  • Anders Ångström: Nils Gustaf Ekholm, Svenskt biografiskt lexicon, Volume 12, Stockholm 1949, pp. 720 (in Swedish )
Isfjorden (Svalbard) Nils Strindberg History of the Earth Synoptic scale meteorology Svenskt biografiskt lexikon Arthur Berson Integrated Authority File
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