page_title: Walter Munk
section_title: Awards
hierarchical_section_title: Walter Munk / Awards
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Crafoord-Preis 2010: Pressekonferenz mit dem Preisträger Walter Munk English: Crafoord Prize 2010: press conference with the laureate Walter Munk Svenska: Crafoordpriset år 2010: Presskonferens med pristagaren Walter Munk
context_page_description: Walter Heinrich Munk was an American physical oceanographer. One of the first scientists to bring statistical methods to the analysis of oceanographic data, Munk is noted for creating fruitful areas of research that continue to be explored by other scientists. Munk's work garnered him many prestigious awards including the National Medal of Science, the Kyoto Prize, and induction to the French Legion of Honour.
  Munk worked on a wide range of topics, including surface waves, geophysical implications of variations in the Earth's rotation, tides, internal waves, deep-ocean drilling into the sea floor, acoustical measurements of ocean properties, sea level rise, and climate change. Beginning in 1975, Munk and Carl Wunsch developed ocean acoustic tomography, to exploit the ease with which sound travels in the ocean and use acoustical signals for measurement of broad-scale temperature and current. In a 1991 experiment, Munk and his collaborators investigated the ability of underwater sound to propagate from the Southern Indian Ocean across all ocean basins. The aim was to measure global ocean temperature.
context_section_description: Munk was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1956 and to the Royal Society of London in 1976. He was both a Guggenheim Fellow (1948, 1953, 1962) and a Fulbright Fellow. He was named California Scientist of the Year by the California Museum of Science and Industry in 1969. Munk gave the 1986 Bakerian Lecture at the Royal Society on Ships from Space (paper) and Acoustic monitoring of ocean gyres (lecture). In July 2018 at the age of 100, Munk was appointed a Chevalier of France's Legion of Honour in recognition of his contributions to oceanography.
  Among the many other awards and honors Munk received are the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement, the Arthur L. Day Medal of the Geological Society of America in 1965, the Sverdrup Gold Medal of the American Meteorological Society in 1966, the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1968, the first Maurice Ewing Medal of the American Geophysical Union and the U.S. Navy in 1976, the Alexander Agassiz Medal of the National Academy of Sciences in 1976, the Captain Robert Dexter Conrad Award of the U.S. Navy in 1978, the National Medal of Science in 1983, the William Bowie Medal of the American Geophysical Union in 1989, the Vetlesen Prize in 1993, the Kyoto Prize in 1999, the first Prince Albert I Medal in 2001, and the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 2010 "for his pioneering and fundamental contributions to our understanding of ocean circulation, tides and waves, and their role in the Earth's dynamics".
  In 1993, Munk was the first recipient of the Walter Munk Award given "in Recognition of Distinguished Research in Oceanography Related to Sound and the Sea." This award was given jointly by The Oceanography Society, the Office of Naval Research and the US Department of Defense Naval Oceanographic Office.  The award was retired in 2018, and The Oceanographic Society "established the Walter Munk Medal to encompass a broader range of topics in physical oceanography."
  Two marine species have been named after Munk. One is Sirsoe munki, a deep-sea worm. The other is Mobula munkiana, also known as Munk's devil ray, a small relative of giant manta rays living in huge schools, and with a remarkable ability to leap far out of the water. A 2017 documentary, Spirit of Discovery (Documentary), follows Munk in an expedition with the discoverer, his former student Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara, to Cabo Pulmo National Park in Baja Mexico, the place where the species was first found and described.
caption: Munk in Stockholm in 2010 to accept the Crafoord Prize.
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