A young Walter Munk skiing as a student at California Institute of Technology , where he started the ski team for the university .
Munk at the Alexa Bank Atoll during the Capricorn Expedition in 1952 — the first time Scripps researchers used scuba diving to explore the Pacific .
( L to R ) Roger Revelle , Walter Munk and Gustaf Arrhenius from Scripps Institution of Oceanography aboard the oil drillship , CUSS I , during Project Mohole in 1961 .
Photos : UC San Diego Library Collection
IRONICALLY , “ THE WORLD ’ S GREATEST LIVING OCEANOGRAPHER ” grew up nowhere near the ocean . Born into a banking family in landlocked Austria , Munk found his first calling in the country ’ s steep , snowcovered mountains where he spent more time skiing than studying . Dismayed by her 15-year-old son ’ s outdoor activities , Munk ’ s mother sent him packing to a prep school in upstate New York . Afterwards he began a preordained career in finance , but he stuck it out for just two years until he drove cross-country to California , where he charmed and tested his way into Caltech to study geophysics .
The next chapter of Munk ’ s life began as so many young men ’ s do : by following a pretty girl . She was headed to La Jolla to stay with her grandparents for the summer . Although their romance didn ’ t last , Munk ’ s love affair with the quiet seaside community was just beginning . In the summer of 1939 , Munk approached Scripps Oceanography director Harald Sverdrup , the renowned Norwegian physical oceanographer and Arctic explorer , for a job . Sverdrup agreed and Munk became a student assistant , making $ 50 a month and plucking abalone off the old Scripps pier for food .
Today Munk lives on a bluff in La Jolla not far from where that pier stood . He meets me in his home office , with floor-to-ceiling windows framing a verdant canyon and a glittering stripe of deep blue that fades to the horizon . From his desk , Munk enjoys an unspoiled view of what he ’ s spent a lifetime trying to understand .
He moves more slowly than he did as a strapping young oceanographer , but he ’ s still spry , working daily , giving regular talks and traveling abroad . Today Munk wants to sit outside , and he shuffles out to a sun-dappled patio , settling at a table next to a garden dotted with succulents and sculptures made by his late wife , Judith , an artist and architect who played a tremendous role in his life story and career success until her passing in 2006 . He points out Judith ’ s nearby sculpture of UC San Diego founder Roger Revelle as something very special to him . Part of her inscription reads : This task was done with more enthusiasm than knowledge .
“ More enthusiasm than knowledge ,” Munk repeats , a lilting trace of his Austrian accent still audible . “ That ’ s been the key of my career — to get excited before I understand it .” Those four simple words perfectly sum up his sense of adventure when it comes to
his groundbreaking scientific research , a body of work that is wide-ranging and tremendously practical . His decades of discoveries have shaped what humanity knows about the nature of waves , currents , tides , global ocean circulation and deep-sea drilling . And the protocols for fieldwork he helped define decades ago are still in regular use today .
Down by the pier , surfers bob in the water , waiting in the lineup . Some have never heard of the man , Walter Munk , while others revere him . Munk ’ s earliest research focused on ocean waves : where they come from , how they move . That work led to the ability to predict swells , including direction , duration , expected height and speed . In other words , the local surf forecast .
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TRITON | FALL 2017