--- title: Walter Munk, Inventor of Surf Forecast, Turns 100 description: Walter Munk has been described as the “greatest living oceanographer” and the “Einstein of the ocean". canonical: https://time.com/4989453/walter-munk-surfing-birthday/ author: The Conversation article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-10-19T16:13:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T17:55:49.442Z article:section: Science og:title: He Invented Surf Forecasting, and Helped Us Win World War Two og:description: The 'Einstein of the Ocean' turns 100 today og:url: https://time.com/4989453/walter-munk-surfing-birthday/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7c8f3afffbd71ea9/6988e29922fb85a09ce23559/walter-munk-oceanographer-e1508426566239.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2607 og:image:height: 1466 og:image:alt: Austrian-born U.S. oceanographer Walter og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: He Invented Surf Forecasting, and Helped Us Win World War Two twitter:description: The 'Einstein of the Ocean' turns 100 today twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7c8f3afffbd71ea9/6988e29922fb85a09ce23559/walter-munk-oceanographer-e1508426566239.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 'Einstein of the Ocean' Who Helped Surfers Catch the Perfect Waves Turns 100 by [Paul Spence and Shane Keating / The Conversation](https://time.com/author/the-conversation/) ## Paul Spence and Shane Keating / The Conversation Oct 19, 2017 4:13 PM UTC  Oceanographer Walter Munk (R) receiving the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Crafoord prize in Stockholm on May 11, 2010 Oceanographer Walter Munk (R) receiving the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Crafoord prize in Stockholm on May 11, 2010Jonas Ekstromer—AFP/Getty Images by [Paul Spence and Shane Keating / The Conversation](https://time.com/author/the-conversation/) ## Paul Spence and Shane Keating / The Conversation Oct 19, 2017 4:13 PM UTC As dawn washes over Bondi Beach, you can see the surfers beyond the break, gently rising and falling on their boards. They gather like this when the surf forecast tells them a big swell is rolling in, carrying energy from a ferocious Antarctic storm thousands of kilometres away. From [Bondi](http://www.coastalwatch.com/surf-cams-surf-reports/nsw/bondi-beach) to [Bundoran](http://magicseaweed.com/Tullan-Strand-Surf-Report/4539/), [Pipeline](http://www.surfline.com/surf-report/pipeline-oahu%5F4750/) to [Mavericks](http://www.surfline.com/surf-report/mavericks-northern-california%5F4152/), surfers around the world depend on the surf forecast to catch the perfect wave. Its inventor, Walter Munk, is 100 today – yet few surfers know his name, despite the debt of gratitude they owe him. Walter Munk: the father of surf forecasting.[Holger Motzkau/Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACrafoordprize%5F2010-03.jpg), [CC BY-SA](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) ## ‘Einstein of the ocean’ Munk might be under-appreciated in surfing circles, but he’s a big deal in ocean science. He has been described as the “[greatest living oceanographer](https://tritonmag.com/munk/?utm%5Fsource=tritonmag.com&utm%5Fmedium=CampusPartner&utm%5Fcampaign=Fall2017)” and the “[Einstein of the ocean](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/science/walter-munk-einstein-of-the-oceans-at-97.html?mcubz=3)”. His [list of accolades](http://scrippsscholars.ucsd.edu/wmunk/biocv) is astounding. There is a unit of measurement named after him: the “[Munk unit](http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI3887.1#n1)”. There’s a species of ray called [_Mobula munkiana_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobula%5Fmunkiana). There’s even a [Walter Munk Award](https://tos.org/munk-award) for outstanding contributions to oceanography, which of course he has won. Munk has made fundamental contributions to our understanding of ocean circulation, geology and climate change. But perhaps his most influential work is the science of wave prediction, which he developed while still a doctoral student in California. ## Wartime expertise After graduating from Caltech in 1938, Munk began a PhD with renowned Norwegian oceanographer [Harald Sverdrup](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Harold-Ulrik-Sverdrup) in the sleepy seaside town of La Jolla. Distressed by Germany’s annexation of his native Austria, Munk became a US citizen and joined the war effort, first as an army private and later with the US Navy Radio and Sound Laboratory. While observing Allied troops training for an [amphibious invasion](http://www.historynet.com/operation-torch-allied-invasion-of-north-africa.htm) of Northwest Africa, Munk noticed that waves were pummelling the landing craft as they approached the beach. He immediately called Sverdrup, and together they developed techniques for predicting ocean waves and surf conditions for amphibious warfare. Their methods were so successful that the Allied forces used these to predict wave conditions for the D-Day landings at Normandy. Based on those predictions, General Eisenhower delayed the operation, the largest naval invasion in history, until June 6, 1944\. Undoubtedly, Munk’s research saved thousands of Allied lives and helped bring about the end of World War II. ## Waves across the Pacific Thus began a lifelong fascination with ocean waves. In 1963 Munk, then a professor at the [Scripps Institution of Oceanography](https://scripps.ucsd.edu/), led a team of scientist studying how swells generated by Antarctic storms travel more than 16,000km across the Pacific Ocean. The team set up stations to measure the waves as they travelled in a [great circle](http://www.caliper.com/glossary/what-is-a-great-circle.htm) from New Zealand to Alaska. Munk and his family spent more than a month in American Samoa for the experiment, monitoring pressure sensors mounted on the ocean floor and recording data on paper tape punched with holes. The experiment yielded a surprising discovery. The waves showed very little decay in energy on their journey across the Pacific. The biggest change was a shift in the observed period of the wave – that is, the time between passing crests. Munk’s team found that the period increased as the waves moved northwards. This happens because ocean waves are [dispersive](https://youtu.be/MX5cKoOm6Pk?t=18m47s), meaning that the speed of the wave depends on the period. Long-period waves move more rapidly, so they run to the front of the pack, while shorter-period waves lag behind. The phenomenon is well known to surfers, who experience this dispersive ordering as a gradual shortening of the time between sets of waves. ## Order from ‘lovely confusion’ In a 1967 [documentary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX5cKoOm6Pk) that Munk made with his wife Judith about the experiment in the Pacific, he describes how an orderly ocean swell can emerge from the chaos of an Antarctic storm. Using the analogy of tossing a handful of pebbles into a pond, Munk describes how the water surface is initially broken up in “lovely confusion”. But eventually a steady procession of ripples can be seen spreading outwards from the point of impact – regular and predictable. Munk’s Pacific documentary. Munk’s pioneering work on ocean swells, together with his wartime research on wave prediction, gave birth to the science of surf forecasting. In 2007 his contribution to surfing was [formally recognised](https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/isnt-he-swell) by the [Groundswell Society](https://www.facebook.com/groundswellsociety/), a surfing advocacy group. Munk later recalled: --- > “” --- After more than eight decades of ocean science, Munk shows no signs of slowing down. He is still hard at work, researching and speaking at international conferences. As the worldwide oceanographic community prepares to celebrate his centenary, Munk’s enthusiasm for discovery has not dimmed. In an [interview this month](https://tritonmag.com/munk/?utm%5Fsource=tritonmag.com&utm%5Fmedium=CampusPartner&utm%5Fcampaign=Fall2017), Munk revealed what keeps him going. “More enthusiasm than knowledge. That’s been the key of my career — to get excited before I understand it.” Hang loose, Walter. _This_ [_article_](https://theconversation.com/hang-ten-decades-walter-munk-inventor-of-the-surf-forecast-turns-100-85117) _originally appeared on_ [_TheConversation.com_](https://theconversation.com/us) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4989453/walter-munk-surfing-birthday/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4989453/walter-munk-surfing-birthday/"},"headline":"'Einstein of the Ocean' Who Helped Surfers Catch the Perfect Waves Turns 100","datePublished":"2017-10-19T16:13:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T17:55:49.442Z","description":"Munk is called the “greatest living oceanographer” and “Einstein of the ocean\"","url":"https://time.com/4989453/walter-munk-surfing-birthday/","keywords":["Science","History","Oceans","World War II","Surfing","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7c8f3afffbd71ea9/6988e29922fb85a09ce23559/walter-munk-oceanographer-e1508426566239.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Paul Spence and Shane Keating / The Conversation"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7c8f3afffbd71ea9/6988e29922fb85a09ce23559/walter-munk-oceanographer-e1508426566239.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Austrian-born U.S. oceanographer Walter","caption":"Austrian-born U.S. oceanographer Walter","creditText":"Jonas Ekstromer—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4989453/walter-munk-surfing-birthday/","name":"'Einstein of the Ocean' Who Helped Surfers Catch the Perfect Waves Turns 100"}}]}] ```