Milutin Milankovitch
Milutin Milankovitch was a Serbian mathematician and engineer born in 1879 in Dalj, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He became the first Serbian to earn a doctorate in technical sciences and initially worked as an engineer before transitioning to academia at the University of Belgrade, where he taught mathematics and physics for over four decades. Milankovitch is best known for formulating the Milankovitch cycles, which explain the correlation between Earth's astronomical movements and historical climate changes, particularly during the Pleistocene ice ages. His groundbreaking work, published in his 1941 book "Canon of Insolation and the Ice Age Problem," was largely overlooked for several decades but later gained recognition in the 1970s and 1980s as scientists revisited his theories in light of new data from ice core samples. Milankovitch's contributions extend beyond climatology; he also documented significant scientific advancements of his era and engaged in popular science writing. His legacy endures in modern climatology, and he is honored as a pivotal figure in the field, with recognition from organizations such as NASA. Milankovitch passed away in 1958, leaving a lasting impact on the understanding of climate change and its mechanisms.
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Milutin Milankovitch
Serbian astrophysicist
- Born: May 28, 1879; Dalj, Austria-Hungary (now Croatia)
- Died: December 12, 1978; Belgrade, Yugoslavia
Milutin Milankovitch was a Serbian physicist whose studies of climate change and weather patterns in Earth’s history led to an understanding of the links between long-term astronomical phenomena and global cooling. The Milankovitch cycles are used to explain the cyclic ice ages during the quaternary period.
Also known as: Milutin Milankovic
Primary fields: Astrophysics; mathematics
Specialty: Climatology
Early Life
Milutin Milankovitch was the eldest of seven children born to a prominent Serbian family in Dalj, a village then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that is now on the border of Serbia and Croatia. His extended family owned an agricultural enterprise consisting of a farm supply store and various other properties. Of his seven brothers and sisters, only he and his twin sister Milena and brother Bogdan survived to reach adulthood, the other four having died of illnesses contracted during childhood or early adolescence. Milankovitch’s father died in 1886, leaving the family in the care of their paternal uncle.
Milankovitch focused on mathematics during his secondary school education, in the city of Osijek. He was a talented student, graduating first in his class. He went on to study civil engineering at the Technische Hochshule (Technical College) in Vienna, Austria. Though it was intended that he would return after graduation to manage the family’s properties, Milankovitch had developed an interest in science. He graduated in 1903 and spent a year in obligatory military service to the Hapsburg Empire before returning to Vienna. With the financial support of his uncle, Milankovitch completed his doctoral degree in civil engineering in 1904. At age twenty-five, Milankovitch became the first Serbian to obtain a doctorate in the technical sciences.
For about four years, Milankovitch worked as an engineer, during which time his penchant for research enabled him to make significant contributions to the field, including the development of formulas for working with concrete, several of which became patented engineering techniques. Milankovitch worked on a number of projects, including the construction of several aquaducts. In 1908, the Annexation Crisis, in which the Austro-Hungarian Empire annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, led to violence, arrests, and the detention of Serbians living within the empire. Partially in response to this threat, Milankovitch accepted a position at the University of Belgrade as Chair of Applied Mathematics. Miltankovitch would spend the next forty-six years with the university, teaching mathematics and physics while conducting research.
Life’s Work
During the early years of his teaching career, Milankovitch’s choice of research subjects was constrained by the limited resources available at his university. Though he developed a strong interest in meteorology, he lacked the equipment and materials needed to engage complex data analysis. After encountering research regarding the effect of solar radiation on the surface of the Earth, it occurred to Milankovitch that climatological science had not yet answered key questions regarding the effect of solar radiation during the ice ages of the Pleistocene.
Milankovitch recognized that the amount of solar radiation received by the Earth changed over time, in response to several interrelated cycles of astronomical movement and rotation. He published his earliest research on the subject in 1912, in a paper entitled “Contribution to a Mathematical Theory of Climate.” Two years later, he published a paper addressing issues regarding the calculation of solar energy and the events occurring during the Pleistocene ice ages.
In 1914, Milankovitch married Christine Topuzovi in Austria. Shortly after their marriage, Archduke Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, a member of the Serbian nationalist group Young Bosnia. The assassination exacerbated regional ethnic divides and served as the catalyst for World War I. As a Serbian, Milankovitch was arrested and imprisoned. After his wife, family, and colleagues from his former university in Vienna managed to secure his release, he was exiled to Budapest for the remainder of the war. Milankovitch was required to visit the police weekly so they could keep track of his location.
Milankovitch and his family returned to Belgrade in 1919. He resumed his teaching position at the university and published a book entitled Mathematical Theory of Heat Phenomena Produced by Solar Radiation (1920). In this book, Milankovitch presented the basis of what would later be called the “Milankovitch cycles.” The cycles use various calculations regarding the movement of astronomical bodies to calculate the intensity and effect of solar radiation at various points over the surface of the Earth during the last 130,000 years of Earth’s history.
According to Milankovitch, the occurrence of ice ages coincides with three basic cycles found within the rotation of the Earth. First, the Earth’s orbit varies according to a “precession,” which is a gradual change in the orientation of the Earth’s axis, in relation to its direction of orbit. The full cycle of precession occurs over a period of 26,000 years and results in varying seasonal length and intensity. Further, the angle of the Earth’s tilt on its axis, called its “obliquity,” varies according to a 41,000-year cycle, during which the Earth’s tilt varies from 22.1 degrees to 24.5 degrees. The obliquity of the Earth’s tilt results in greater temperature extremes between warm and cool periods. Additionally, the shape of the Earth’s orbit around the sun, called its “eccentricity,” varies from spherical to elliptical through a cycle of more than 96,000 years, which deepens both warming and cooling trends across the Earth.
Milankovitch was able to combine cycles of obliquity, eccentricity, and precession with a variety of other cyclic changes in Earth’s orbit and the relative intensity of solar radiation. Given this data, Milankovitch found coherence between orbital patterns and the progression of glacial and interglacial periods during the Pleistocene ice age.
For the next twenty years, Milankovitch continued to publish articles in support of his theories on the origin of ice ages. He contributed to a variety of other subjects in climatology research. Milankovitch also produced a work of science fiction in the form of letters to an imaginary friend about visiting different places in the universe or with astronomers from history.
Milankovitch formed a close working relationship with meteorologist Alfred Wegener, who developed the theory of continental drift. Milankovitch and Wegner collaborated on a few key research projects, and both men cited the other as an important professional influence.
In 1939, Milankovitch began collecting his entire body of research regarding climate change and ice ages into a single volume. It was published by the Royal Serbian Academy under the title Canon of Insolation and the Ice Age Problem in 1941. As the book went to print, World War II began. The printing press where Milankovitch’s book was awaiting publication was destroyed during the German invasion of Serbia. All but a single copy of Milankovitch’s work survived, and the book was not distributed until after the conclusion of the war.
Impact
Milankovitch died in 1958. Following his death, the European climatology community moved away from the theories contained in Milankovitch’s canon, and his research was largely forgotten until the publication of his book Kanon der Erdbestrahlung une sei Eiszeitenproblem (1941; Canon of Insolation and the Ice-Age Problem) in English, in 1969. The resurfacing of his work came at a time when interest in climatology was increasing in the United States, largely fueled by recent research into the study of ice core samples, which contained data on paleoclimate represented by the proportions of fossil organisms and debris in ancient layers of glacial ice.
Gradually, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, researchers began returning to the Milankovitch canon and found that data on climate change during the Pleistocene closely corresponded to the cycles predicted in Milankovitch’s research. In recognition of his contribution more than half a century earlier, the scientific community adopted the name “Milankovitch cycles,” for the 100,000-, 41,000-, and 23,000-year cycles of glacial and interglacial period now known to have occurred during the late 130,000 years of the Pleistocene and Holocene ice age. In addition, independent calculations, based on Milankovitch’s original research, became part of the body of modern climatological research and are used in calculating the climate of other planets in the solar system.
Though his theories on climate remain his most lasting contribution to science, Milankovitch is also recognized for his broader contributions to the history of scientific exposition, both through his series of popular articles and his biographical record of his life and research. Milankovitch was a student of scientific history, and he documented much of the scientific progress of his age. Milankovitch is considered one of the most prominent innovators in the study of climatology, and he has been honored with the establishment of a variety of scientific awards. The National Aeronautics and Space Association (NASA) names Milankovitch in its “On the Shoulders of Giants” list as one of the top ten minds in the history of astrophysics.
Bibliography
Dawson, A. G., Ice Age Earth: Late Quaternary Geology and Climate. New York: Psychology, 1992. Print. Discusses theories and research methods regarding the study of paleoclimate and ice ages of the later quaternary period. Also discusses the Milankovitch cycles, their history, and their relationship to modern theories.
Macdougall, Douglas. Frozen Earth: The Once and Future Story of Ice Ages. Berkeley, CA: U of California P, 2006. Print. Presents an overview of theoretical models regarding climate change and the origin of ice ages. Discusses the Milankovitch cycles in relation to other past and modern theories regarding the origin of climate change. Contains a brief biography of Milankovitch.
Milankovic, Milutin, Vasko Milankovic, and Andre Berger. Milutin Milankovic (1879–1958), Munich, Germ.: European Geophysical Society, 1995. Print. Reproduction of Milankovitch’s 1958 autobiography, also containing stories told by his son and updated information on Milankovitch’s impact on geological sciences.