Waves and landing forecasts
Munk studied physics and geophysics at Caltech before becoming Harald Sverdrup’s student. During the Second World War, they developed methods for predicting wind waves, swell and surf and trained weather officers to assess conditions for Allied landings.
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The ocean as a physical system
After earning his oceanography doctorate, he studied wind-driven circulation, Earth’s rotation and swell crossing the Pacific. At Scripps he also helped establish the La Jolla geophysics and planetary physics research group.
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Measuring with sound
He helped develop ocean acoustic tomography, using sound propagation to investigate water temperature and circulation. In 1991 he led an experiment near Heard Island whose signals reached receivers in different oceans, testing a basis for large-scale ocean thermometry.
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