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Early Swedish Contribution to ^ ^ Oceanography: Nils Gissler (1715-71) and the Inverted ^ ^ Barometer Effect

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Early Swedish Contribution to ^ ^ Oceanography: Nils Gissler (1715-71) and the Inverted ^ ^ Barometer Effect Early Swedish Contribution to ^^ Oceanography: Nils Gissler (1715-71) and the Inverted ^ ^ Barometer Effect Gunnar I. Roden* and H. Thomas Rossby+ ABSTRACT Nils Gissler (1715-71) was a remarkable Swedish scientist and physician who appears to be the first to describe the inverted barometer effect, based on joint observations of sea level and atmospheric pressure at Harnosand, a small town on the Gulf of Bothnia. He not only observed that when the atmospheric pressure increased, the sea level dropped, but that the degree of sea level decrease depended upon weather conditions. He also looked at ancient rocky beach terraces and pondered about their age and method of formation. The present article looks at the life and times of this remarkable man, gives a full translation of his original 1747 article, and points out his legacy. 1 • Introduction along the shores of the Gulf of Bothnia. While hint- ing at past and present sea level fluctuations as a prob- The reaction of the ocean to atmospheric pressure able contributing cause, he was ultimately unable to loading is fundamental to understanding sea level and explain the phenomenon, because the concept of gla- current fluctuations. Nils Gissler appears to be the first cial rebound, about a meter per century in the region to have described (Gissler 1747) the effect of static (Heiskanen and Vening Meinesz 1958), was not loading, called the inverted barometer effect, which known to him. states that, approximately, for every atmospheric pres- Gissler's pioneering observations have been sure increase of 1 mb, the sea level drops by 1 cm. He largely forgotten during the next two and a half cen- also noted that this relationship is affected by the wind turies. One hundred years later, Ross made atmo- and that under certain weather conditions in the spheric pressure and sea level measurements while semienclosed Baltic Sea larger or smaller responses trapped on a ship in ice in the Canadian Arctic in to atmospheric pressure loading are found. These find- 1848—49 and independently observed the inverted ba- ings have stood the test of time and are fully supported rometer effect (Ross 1854). About a hundred years by modern investigations of atmospheric loading ef- after that, Proudman (1953) gave Gissler's reference fects on oceans and marginal seas (Wunsch and Stam- as a historical footnote but did not comment on his mer 1997). Gissler's interest in sea level fluctuations work, probably because it was written in old Swedish. did not stop at short timescales. He also pondered on This enticed the present authors to locate the original the origin and age of the raised rocky wave terraces text (Gissler 1747) and take a new look at the life and work of this remarkable Swedish scientist and his place in early Swedish science. * School of Oceanography, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. +Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, 2. Swedish science in the Age of Narragansett, Rhode Island. Enlightenment Corresponding author address: Prof. Gunnar I. Roden, Univer- sity of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-7940. E-mail: [email protected] The 1700s marked a great era in Swedish science. In final form 4 December 1998. In the 1600s Sweden had established itself as a major ©1999 American Meteorological Society European power through military campaigns of King Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 7 675 Unauthenticated | Downloaded 09/24/21 12:54 AM UTC Gustav II Adolf in the Thirty Years' War. Sweden strengthened and there was a fruitful cross-fertilization quickly transformed itself from a small kingdom in the of scientific ideas, with special emphasis on measure- far north to an empire controlling nearly all lands bor- ment, categorization, and rational explanation, details dering the Baltic, a transformation that strained the of which can be found in the stimulating works by country's human and economic resources enormously Frangsmyr (1981, 1990) and Feldman (1990). The (Schott 1988). To meet the rapidly growing manage- Swedish Academy of Sciences was established in 1739 ment and intellectual needs, Gustav II Adolf reorga- and started publishing its Proceedings. Sweden also nized Sweden's only university in Uppsala, founded made use of its rich natural resources, particularly min- in 1477 by Sten Sture, and shortly thereafter estab- ing and forestry, and in the 1700s it became the major lished three new universities in his realm: Dorpat supplier of high-grade steel as well as copper for much (Tartu, Estonia) in 1632, Abo (Turku, Finland) in of Europe. The intellectual and entrepreneurial spirit 1640, and Lund in 1666. In addition, he established of the times is best expressed by the noted Swedish several secondary schools, called gymnasia, which scientist Christoffer Polhem, who declared in 1721, "A functioned primarily as preparatory schools for the kingdom without economy, commerce and manufac- universities in diocesan capitals around the country. ture is like a human being without a body, feet and These educational institutions provided fertile ground hands and without mechanics, physics and mathemat- for the blossoming of Swedish science in the 1700s. ics is like the same person without life, memory or Anders Celsius, after whom the Celsius scale is named, understanding" (Kirby 1990). and Carl Linneus, the founder of modern plant and In this environment of lost empire and newly found animal classification, were among the notable benefi- intellectual fervor, Nils Gissler grew up and made his ciaries of this educational system (Lindroth 1952). contribution to science. The Swedish Empire came to an abrupt end after King Karl XII was defeated by Peter the Great, deep in Russia. In May of 1721, Russian troops crossed the 3. Biography of Nils Gissler (1715-71) Gulf of Bothnia and invaded Sweden, torching the town of Harnosand, into which Gissler would later According to official Swedish sources (Svenskt move. After the death of the king, the absolute mon- Biografiskt Lexikon 1967), Nils Gissler was born in archy was abolished and a parliamentary government Gissjo on 20 February 1715, the son of farmer Olof put in its place, inaugurating the Era of Freedom, Larsson and his wife Karin Nilsdotter. His parents which lasted until 1772. The new parliament had to were poor and he had to overcome many hardships sign a harsh peace treaty at Nystad in 1721, in which in his educational career. He received his first school- Sweden lost its Baltic possessions, with Estonia, ing from a priest, then enrolled in the Harnosand gym- Livonia, and eastern Finland ceded to Russia. Between nasium, and after graduating from it in 1733, he went 1741 and 1743 an unsuccessful campaign was to the University of Uppsala, initially wishing to pre- launched to regain some of the lost territories in pare for the priesthood, but soon he enrolled in an un- Finland, which resulted in a further loss of Swedish commonly broad range of courses. He immersed lands. By 1809, all of Finland was in Russian hands himself in philosophy, studied mathematics with (Derry 1979; Kirby 1990, 1995). Klingenstierna, chemistry with Wallerius, and as- Though the territorial losses were severe, Sweden tronomy with Celsius, who had just returned to his quickly adjusted to a new reality of having to support professorship after five years on the continent. Finally, itself by its own resources and cleverness, rather than he studied medicine, according to his own statements, marching around in foreign lands. An air of enlight- to cure his serious headaches. After working for a enment pervaded the country. Perhaps the liberation while at an apothecary in Stockholm, he became per- of educational wealth that had been mobilized to man- sonally acquainted with Linneus and Rosen von age the former empire helped speed the transforma- Rosenstein, who subsequently became Gissler's advi- tion. Perhaps it was the new constitution that put all sors in medicine back in Uppsala. He defended his political power into parliament, representing the doctoral dissertation on a pharmaceutical topic (De people through the four estates (nobility, clergy, tincturis, essentiis et elixiriis) in 1744 and became an burghers, and farmers), rather than the monarchy. The expert on medicinal plants. intellectual bridges that already existed between the Gissler returned to Harnosand in 1744 to become Swedish and other European centers of learning were lector in logic and the natural sciences at the gym- 676 Vol. 80,, No. 4, April 1999 Unauthenticated | Downloaded 09/24/21 12:54 AM UTC nasium, a sketch of which is shown in Fig. 1. In addition, he was appointed as the first provincial physician for all of Vasternorrland, a very large re- gion in northern Sweden. He re- ceived no pay for his medical services, as these duties were combined with his lectorship. Medical patients came from near and far, and many of them he treated for free. He saw to it that Harnosand had an apoth- ecary and he established a bo- tanical garden. In 1745 Gissler married 19- year-old Maria Elisabet Wikar of Harnosand, daughter of trade FIG. 1. Artist's sketch of the gymnasium in Harnosand, in which Nils Gissler was both a student and lector. merchant and burgher Johan Wikar and his wife Sara. In 1756, Nils and Elisabet Gissler had a son, Carl. Mrs. scripts, only scattered samples of which are still in Gissler survived her husband by 5 years and died in existence at the Swedish Academy of Sciences. 1776 at the age of 50. Their unmarried son Carl died in 1791. Nils Gissler had wide-ranging interests in the natu- 4. Gissler's observations at Harnosand ral sciences, became a member of the Swedish Acad- and on Harnon emy of Sciences in 1748, published in its Proceedings, and corresponded extensively with its members.
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