HELLAND-HANSEN, BJøRN

(b. Christiania [now Oslo], Norway, 16 October 1877; d. Bergen, Norway, 7 September 1957)

physical oceanography.

Helland-Hansen’s parents were Kristofer Hansen, a stenographer to the Norwegian parliament, and Nikoline Mathilde Helland. He attended the Aars og Vos High School in Christiania, where one of his teachers was Kristian Birkeland, who was also a professor at the Royal Frederik University (later called the University of Christiania).

Helland-Hansen entered the Royal Frederik University with the intention of studying law but soon changed to medicine. He assisted Birkeland at lectures and in early 1898 accompanied him on the first aurora borealis expedition to northernmost Norway. During that trip his hands were frozen and his fingers had to be totally or partially amputated. This loss required him to give up a medical career, so he turned to oceanography.

Helland-Hansen entered the young field of oceanography at a significant time. An interest in the erratic movements of food fishes had led to research support by the governments of the Scandinavian nations. The programs, which involved biologists. meteorologists. and physicists. led to considerable international scientific exchange. In 1899, with the encouragement of Johan Hjort, director of the Norwegian Board of Sea Fisheries, Helland-Hansen studied with the physicist Martin H. C. Knudsen in Copenhagen.

Fridtjof Nansen, at the Royal Frederik University, was invited by Hjort to carry out hydrographic studies on the first cruise of the Michael Sars in the Norwegian Sea (1990). Nansen took HellandHansen as his assistant, thereby beginning a lifelong association. From 1990 to 1906 Helland-Hansen was an employee of the Norwegian Board of Sea Fisheries and participated in several expeditions of the Michael Sars with Nansen. He had obtained a sample of standard water (of known salinity) from Knudsen for purposes of comparison, and the scientists made remarkably precise measurements of temperature and salinity from which they could plot the positions of specific water masses. In 1909 Nansen and Helland-Hansen published a monograph on the Norwegian Sea, a classic in physical oceanography.

The publication of Vilhelm Bjerknes on the circulation of fluids of different densities (1898) was followed by that of Nansen’s assistant Vagn Walfrid Ekman on wind-driven ocean currents (1902). From these Helland-Hansen and Johan Sandström began working out equations for calculating ocean currents that were based on both the varying density of seawater and the Coriolis force; these became standards in the field.

Helland-Hansen never received a college degree. In 1902 he married Anna-Marie Krag, the daughter of a Lutheran church official in Denmark. They had six children.

From 1906 to 1921 Helland-Hansen directed the biological station at the Bergen Museum, and from 1914 to 1946 he was also professor of oceanography at that museum (which became the University of Bergen). For the biological station he designed and had built the seventy-six-foot vessel Armauer Hansen, launched in 1913, which was in service for more than forty years. Helland-Hansen participated in several expeditions on that ship with Ekman, using the latter’s current meter, in the Norwegian Sea in 1923 and 1924, and in the area from the Canary Islands to Portugal and Gibraltar in 1930.

In later years Helland-Hansen considered that his major contribution to oceanography had been “the major contribution that work at sea can be undertaken from a small vessel which can be operated inexpensively.” However, his scientific accomplishments changes in the sea, on variations of the Gulf Stream and the effect of the Gulf Stream on the Norwegian Sea, and on temperature-salinity relationships in the upper layers of the ocean.

At Helland-Hansen’s urging the Bergen Museum established the Geophysical Institute, which he directed from 1917 until his retirement in 1947. It included a chair in hydrography. one in dynamical meteorology (held by Bjerknes), and one in geomagnetism and cosmic physics. Helland-Hansen also was instrumental in the founding of the Norwegian Geophysical Commission and the Norwegian Geophysical Association, both in 1917. He was active in the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea and especially in the International Union for Geodesy and Geophysics. of which he was president from 1945 to 1948. The citizens of Bergen subscribed a new building for the Geophysical Institute in 1928.

Helland-Hansen became closely involved with shipping magnate and statesman Christian Michelsen in the planning of an institute devoted to science and intellectual freedom. When the Christian Michelsen Institute was established in 1930 HellandHansen became chairman of the board and director, serving until 1955. The broad scope of its interests occupied most of his later years.

A man of great personal charm, Helland-Hansen was often honored for his scientific achievements and appreciated for his social and intellectual interests.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. ORIGINAL WORKS. Helland-Hansen’s writings include Current Measurements in Norwegian Fiords, the Norwegian Sea, and the North Sea in 1908 (Bergen, 1908); Croisière océanographique accomplie à bord de la Belgica dans la mer du Grönland. 1905 (Brussels, 1909); The Norwegian Sea (Christiania. 1909). written with Fridtjof Nansen: “Physical Oceanography.” in Sir John Murray and Johan Hjort. eds., Depths of Ocean (London, 1912), 210–306 The Ocean Waters: An Introduction to Physical Oceanography (Leipzig, 1912). written with Adolph H. Schröder et al ∴ Temperature Variations in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Atmosphere (Washington, D.C., 1920). written with Nansen; The Eastern North Atlantic (Oslo. 1926). written with Nansen; and Bericht über die ozeanographischen Untersuchungen im zentralen und östlichen Teil des Nordatlantischen Ozeans im Frühsommer 1938 (Berlin. 1939). written with Albert Defant.

II. SECONDARY LITERATURE. Festskrift til professor Bjorn Helland-Hansen (Bergen.1956) includes a biography by Olaf Devik and a bibliography. Other biographical accounts. by Hakon Mosby. are in Journal du Conseil, 33. no. 1 (1957), 321–323, and in Norwegian Academy of Sciences Yearbook for 1958. 37–43.

Elizabeth Noble Shor