Jacob Bjerknes

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Jacob Aall Bonnevie Bjerknes (November 2, 1897, Stockholm, Sweden – July 7, 1975, Los Angeles, California) was a Norwegian-American meteorologist. His father was the Norwegian meteorologist Vilhelm Bjerknes (1862–1951), one of the pioneers of modern weather forecasting, and his maternal grandfather was Jacob Aall Bonnevie, whence his name.

He was part of a group of meteorologists led by Vilhelm Bjerknes developed the model that explains the generation, intensification and ultimate decay (the life cycle) of midlatitude cyclones, introducing the idea of fronts, that is, sharply defined boundaries between air masses. This concept is known as the Norwegian cyclone model.

Bjerknes was a support meteorologist when Roald Amundsen made the first crossing of the Arctic in the airship Norge in 1926.

[edit] External links

• Biography at American Geophysical Union (AGU)
• Biographie de Jacob Bjerknes by Arnt Eliassen