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Leon Philippe Teisserenc de Bort

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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"LEON PHILIPPE TEISSERENC DE BORT (1855-1913), French meteorologist, was born in Paris Nov. 5 1855, the son of an engineer. He began his scientific career in 1880, when he entered the meteorological department of the Bureau Central Meteorologique in Paris under E. E. W. Mascart. In 1883, 1885 and 1887 he made journeys to N. Africa to study geology and terrestrial magnetism, and during this period published some important charts of the distribution of pressure at a height of 4,000 metres. In 1892 he became chief meteorologist to the Bureau, but resigned in 1896 and founded a private meteorological observatory at Trappes, near Versailles, where he carried out investigations on clouds and the problems of the upper air. In 1898 he published an important paper in Cornptes Rendus detailing his researches by means of balloons into the constitution of the atmosphere. His discovery of the so-called isothermal layer, or stratosphere as it is now generally called, will always stand out as one of the most important events in the study of the upper atmosphere. He also carried out investigations in Sweden and over the Zuider Zee, the Mediterranean and the tropical region of the Atlantic, and fitted out a special vessel in order to study the currents above the trade-winds. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society in 1903, hon. member in 1909, and was awarded the Symons gold medal of the society in 1908. He collaborated with Hugo Hildebrandsson in Les bases de la meteorologie dynamique (1907). He died at Cannes Jan. 2 1913.